Toshiba TDPMT700 - Page 3

Bowerboy

Bowerboy

Try Carada screens good quality and great price.

carada.com

A good option is to try one of the do-it-yourself screens to begin with. White "Do-able" board is by the pegboard at Home Depot. You can have them cut it to 85.33"x48" - voila, a screen for ~$12.

I've watched a couple movies with a 2'x2' sample of Da-Lite Matte White taped on mine and see no difference. Shockingly matte white is matte white.

After this you can take your time comparing samples. Even with a dark room you still might want a gray screen, depending on how black you like your blacks. Just email the various screen mfgs to get samples. Also ask for larger sample sizes - it really helps in evaluation.

I'm personally thinking of pairing the MT700 with a Da-Lite HCMW. Depending on reviews, I might try a Sony Black screen in the future.

Okay, got a chance to spend a few minutes with the MT700 and so far, I'm impressed. The U.S. units are exactly the same as the brochure and webpages linked previously on this thread. Won't have a chance to use the HDMI input until tomorrow, but based on a few DVDs and a little HD through the component video input, this (and presumably the BenQ model on which its based) is a winner. I'll be calibrating it tomorrow, but I would say the image straight out of the box is pretty accurate. Like the InFocus projectors, it's supposed to have a D65 cal.

The answer a few questions, it has a short throw and zero offset. A 120 diagonal 16:9 screen only requires a minimum of 11.5', with a maximum of 15'-7". An 80" screen can be filled at only 7'-8", with a maximum of 10'-5".
No extras (like any cables), which is what you would expect for a projector this low priced. The overall feel is solid, not cheap at all however. It's very quiet, much lower than a 4805 I also have in the same room. It's likely that it would hit the estimated 29 dB rating. Warranty is two years, with the usual 90 days or 500 hours on the bulb. More to follow.

How does it compare to the 4805 in color and contrast?

It's not possible for me to say yet. The 4805's been tweaked quite a bit with OpticOne and Avia Pro. I'm also using an ND2 filter with it. I haven't done anything with the MT700 yet. I have another job to get done first, so I won't have more info on the MT700 PQ until tomorrow

MikeSRC,

Are those definitely diagonal and not width measurements?

Unfortunately it sounds like the brochure is off quite a bit on the throw (100" diagonal @ 3.0m=9.8') The brochure based throw equates to an 8.6' distance throwing an 87" diagonal.

Oops, typo in my original post on the 80" screen. Should be 7'-8", not 8'-8". 90" diagonal is 8'-8".

From the manual, 100" diagonal has a minimum projection distance of 115" (2.92 m) and a maximum of 156.3" (3.97 m).

I've only roughly confirmed those numbers with my 92" diagonal screen, but they appear to be pretty accurate.

Whew. Thanks for the quick update. The throw sounds like it matches my room pretty well then.

Strange world, in europe you could buy almost two AE700 for the same price as the MT700... MIke what is the colorwheel speed of the Toshiba? Is it 4x or 5x?

I would assume it's the 5X that had been stated previously. There's nothing in the documentation about it.


Well, that's a personal thing. If I try, I can make myself see rainbows in most projectors. In normal viewing I don't see any, but I don't with any 4X or faster wheel either.

Is there any 'unusual' setup option? That could hide a CW speed control if there really is one.

I don't see anything out of the ordinary that would point to the color wheel. It does have quite a few adjustments available though like the ICC R,G,B,Y,W color settings mentioned earlier in th BenQ brochure. Also, 4 preset and 2 user color temp settings. Also, RGB gain, offset and gamma settings.

I wish they'd give you the actual color temps though rather than stuff like Native, Warm, Cool and Middle. I can check it with OpticOne later though. Also, lens shift would have been nice since there's no offset. It's great for low ceilings but this unit's definitely a wall hanger in my theater room.

Very nice that it has user RGB gain/offset and gamma settings.

Any clue on if BenQ's SenseEye technology is included? If so any idea what it does?

I wish I just had a manual to read... Must learn patience. I think I'll take up studying Zen meditation just until Friday. At least I think that's what they were doing with the swords in Kill Bill.

BenQ's SensEye technology replaces the Faroudja scaling and deinterlacing of the Toshiba. BenQ didn't feel like paying Faroudja so they developed their own solution.

Does the MT700 have Faroudja scaling? I've read that it has an "O+ scaler", whatever that is.

In your quick look at HDTV, did the scaling look good from 1080i->720p? (I know, I know: not another question!).

It's using the 23XX chip which includes scaling, so I don't see why they'd use something else, but who knows. HBO HD looked pretty good scaled last night. Wish I still had a 7205 around to compare.

Attached is a zipped JPG of the menu structure to give you something to look at in the meantime.

 

menu.zip 88.9462890625k . file

Actually I should get started on my mount. What size/how many screws does it need?

Well after after exchanging several emails with Dave G from Carada, I pulled the trigger on the Brilliant White 102. Dave said I could have it as early as Friday. I just hope the 700 arrives this week also.

PS. I do still need to order a ceiling mount.

Mike, does the case look similar to the MT500? what mount do you think will work? One of the generic Chief mounts?

The case is larger than the MT500. It uses 4 screws that appear to be 6 mm. Of course, they don't tell you what they are in the manual because they don't want you to mount it yourself.

Going by the BenQ PE8700 color temps, I bet it goes at follows:

Warm - 5700K
Middle - 6500K
Cool - 9300K

Mike - If you can, try to post the color gamut charts (whichever flavor you are using), lumen counts and the before and after contrast numbers for the little Toshiba. This may be a new toy if it performs reasonably well.

Later,
Bill

MikeSRC

any idea if the mt700 supports 48hz native like the 7205/mt800?

Well I got the MT 700 running. Unfortunately my DVI to HDMI adapter doesn't come till tomorrow- so all impression are via component 720P from the V880. (the component output is softer looking (blurry) compared to the DVI out.

First off, I am coming from the Z2- which luckily I have on hand for one more night before it gets shipped to its new owner.

I was able to drive the Z2 via DVI and the 700 via component at the same time and project both next to each other. All impression were on a gray goo screen with variable masking.


The first thing I noticed when firing up the MT700 was rainbows and eye strain. I had a Dell 3200 for 5 months before getting the Z2 and learned not to see rainbows by keeping my eyes fairly still.

But having used an LCD for 15 months, going back to DLP was quite a shock. By the end of the night however I seem to be adjusting to it.

One of the things I had been doing to get better black levels from the Z2 was to pump the contrast of the V880- this had the desired effect, but at the expense of seriously crushing black levels and loosing detail. (BTW I am a video editor by profession- working on TV shows, commercials, etc, so I am used to looking at high end monitors and manipulating the look of footage all the time, and I often crush blacks or blow out whites for aesthetic effect)

Anyway with the MT700, the V880 contrast setting was no longer desirable- I adjusted the brightness and contrast to get the full detail from whites and blacks without blowing anything out or going too far and making it murky.

Incidentally I found the brightness and contrast on the MT700 to have more effect than on the Z2 (which I found to have a very subtle effect)

The 700 in default mode mode (but mid temp) didn't have as deep a blacks as I thought, even on my gray screen. The picture did look good though.

I then did a split screen with the z2 and MT 700 projecting at the same time. This was where I saw some real surprises. First the Z2 running on DVI had alot more detail than the COmponent driven 700. (a function of the V880 output) so I know the 700 via DVI will look outstanding.

On bright scenes with lots of contrast, the Z2 really held its own. (this is with the 700 now flipped into high lamp mode)

However- as expected it was the darker scenes where the 700 really showed the differences. Hopefully you'll see an attached shot demonstrating the black levels of both- I took many pics- but they didn't seem to show what it looked like in person even though I adjusted the still cameras LCD screen to match what my eye was seeing- so much for screen shots having much validity ( the one I attach will be a good example though)

The Z2 even with almost 1200 hours did seem just as bright though which is odd.

Things like the star field in Star Wars showed the clear dominance of the 700. Again I could have gotten the Z2 to have better blacks, but lots of detail would be thrown away to achieve the effect.

The Java the Hut scene also showed lots middle exposure shots where the black levels of the MT700 were really nice. This was all in standard mode with no bright or contrast added. Also the whites of the Z2 seemed to blown out in the very top highlights, while the 700 held them just fine. It really does have great dynamic range.

Then I shut off the Z2 and played with some of the contrast and theater modes. At first the dynamic mode looked like it was crushing blacks too much, but adding 3 points of bright and contrast to the Dynamic mode took care of this, and while it might not be technically accurate, the effect was outstanding without loosing detail.

This is often my technique for setting up each movie based on the transfer- try not to loose much (if any) detail in the whites and blacks, and get a rich looking image.

I'll report more tomorrow when run via HDMI.

Here is an example of the black levels- on the left is the MT700 on the right is the Z2. The 700's black level are not quite as black as in this shot- (at least on my samsunf LCD monitor- but it gives you some idea.

another- - this one adjust to give an idea of what I saw in person

2

One more thing- I imagine I should be running in Through mode which the manual says is pixel mapping. But the manual also says for anamorphic titles- use the full mode. In Through mode it doesnt quite fill the screen like it does in the Full mode- this seems almost like what is happening with the pre fixed HS51- Mike- any comments? Also which picture mode mode (standard, theater, etc) do you think is the best to run it in?