Say it ain't so Guy Kuo! - Page 5  

I hope you have got what I meant. :)

Congrats on your new advanture. It is a good one.

This is great. It's just like going to the 4th of July fireworks. I like to sit on the side and watch all the little sparklers go off.
Awwww ain't that pretty ;)

Oh oh, heads up, lawn darts :D

Chip

It is on the older ones as long as the panels aren't twisted compared to each other so that vertical and horizontal pixel shifts take care of it, but on the newer ones (like the HD2K) it takes software that I couldn't get. William Phelps can do it and the factory can do it, but since Dilard doesn't support the SX21 and later I don't know of any way for regular people to do this themselves on those.

I'll agree with you there.

And I think he would feel different about non-LC 8" CRTs, since I know that Guy notices ANSI CR differences.
Now that you are getting an LC you should be pretty good for ANSI CR. Not like an H78DC3 in a light controlled room, but still pretty good combined with high on/off CR. I'm not sure what you mean for the half brightness thing though. Full blackout is infinite on/off CR, so there is no 1/10th of that. 3000:1 on/off CR isn't a lot of light, so it is hard to know what you are getting at those times. I probably should run some tests, but 3000:1 in this case might be like having a D-Theater deck facing the screen with just the little display on. Not a whole lot of light. I'm guessing that you get no light entering the room at least at some times though.

--Darin

One possible problem I see with using that article as a guide is that it looks like he had the light directed so that it lit up some of the room, but that none of it fell directly on the screen. If your ambient light is the same way then you could guess somewhat based on it, but if it is also falling directly on the screen then the on/off CR off the screen would be different. As far as the article, I think he may be wrong about the inaccuracy of the sensor since he claimed it is only .001 ft-lamberts, where the specs for the Minolta LS110 say:
I think that "2 digits of displayed value" might mean that a reading of 0.006 was actually a range of 0.004 to 0.008, but I could also read 2 digits as 2 whole digits next to each other and not just plus or minus 2 in the last digit. I've always thought that wording was a little strange and ambiguous, but maybe I am the only one and somebody knows for sure what it means.

--Darin

There seems to be a growing body of evidence that watching digital makes you psychotic.

Why else have so many pro-digital (I assume they find the time to watch them as well) posters infested the CRT forum lately?


Cheers,

John

:D :D

You hit the nail on the head. Look at QQQ. :p

Stirring the pot is to QQQ as breathing air is to you and I. ;)

Chip

If someone prefers digital over CRT or the other way around the questions I would ask are these: 1) describe the room (light controlled?); 2) describe the source (RGB, DVI, HTPC, DVD player, scaler); 3) describe the settings (gamma correction available?); 4) describe the screen (high gain, low gain, size?); and 5) describe the material being viewed. Has experimentation taken place with screens, sources, settings etc.? If not, why not?

A certain screen may work well with digital, but not so well with CRT. One projector may have gamma correction available and the other not. In some cases digital may look better with a little ambient light while this might hurt CRT's on/off CR advantage, or it may hurt digital's ANSI advantage.

For me, to say I prefer one over the other would have to be qualified. I would have to say I prefer one over the other given my current screen, source, room etc. Blanket statements just don't hold any water with me.

I have seen great CRTs that look horrible and very good digitals that look horrible. Just too many variables to base opinions on without qualifing them.

Cheers,

Grant

Grant,

I applaud your statement, and I agree whole heartedly.
The unfortunate thing is that your statement will fall on deaf ears, and this debate will continue for many more years.
I think the best course of action is for each individual to find the best solution for their environment, and leave it at that.

Eric #69

I knew it would probably raise hackles to wade into this discussion since I'm so over my head here. :eek: I respectfully bow before the greatness of all my CRT overlords.....NOT :p

The hyperventalating CRT SWAT team is always at the ready to defend their shrinking bit of market share. I expect at some point there will come an apocryphal moment for all of you as you huddle in your caves watching the shadows dance on your Torus shaped walls, but only time will tell. Will the rising tide of home theater ownership lift sales for all types of FP? Let us not forget that this thread was started on the premise of a longtime CRT supporter finally coming around to the plain fact that digital is where it's at. Guy is comparing high-end CRT with high-end DLP and making the obvious choice. But what about the run-of-the-mill digitals like my lowly 6200?

It's all about diminishing returns. So many potshots at my inexpensive Benq 6200 it reminds me of a gradeschool playground (MY eight inch CRT is bigger than YOUR single chip DLP) !! I'm not picking on any SPECIFIC model of CRT, although it seems like even the truly afflicted fall back on what I COULD refer to as the NINE INCH CANARD. You know the posts. They'll start out with..."Yeah there are issues with my 8 inch CRT, but the NINE INCH cryogenically-cooled magneto focused unit is the BOMB...."

Perhaps. And why wouldn't they be? If you spend TENS of THOUSANDS of dollars you ought to get a better picture, but the real question is HOW MUCH BETTER? The cultlike (they even have their own vocab - e.g. toasty, minty, etc) CRT crowd is loathe to acknowledge that even my lowly 6200 OUTPERFORMS their CRT's in some respects and is close enough in most every other respect that vast majority of people will make the decision to purchase the extremely affordable, easy to mount and setup DLP over the clunky and/or expensive FP CRT alternatives.

So I guess it boils down to how much MORE you're willing to pay to get a SLIGHT improvement in picture quality. I posit that the point of diminishing returns is only slightly above my 6200 for the overwhelming majority of consumers and that the situation will only get worse in regards to comparison with CRT's as time goes on and the technology advances - which it appears to be doing in RECORD speed.

Put in an historical context, these CRT holdouts remind me of the last person to buy a fully-decked horse and buggy.....because the seats were more comfortable than those newfangled gas models. :D

Enjoy.

I completely agree.

I will add that I think people should be informed of how things perform under varying conditions to other's eyes so that they can have a better chance of coming up with the best solution for them. If they don't understand things like how ambient light will change things and some techniques to combat it if they do have it, then they are less likely to be able to come up with the best solution for them.

Perhaps. But it isn't just CRT zealots who think you don't know what you are talking about.

--Darin

You and I are going to get along well. :)

Having said that, I would like to point out that ad hominem attacks on my credibility in no way change the fact that my observations are SPOT ON.

Enjoy.

You know that whole "I am your father bit"

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/violent/sterb029.gif

WHO'S YOUR DADDY!

You do know that Darin is pretty knowledgable and is a digital guy, right?

Secondly, his point was not to construct an ad hominem attack. His point was that there are non-CRT guys who don't think you know what you are talking about as proven by your posts.

Frankly, what is the point in arguing with someone that just keeps stating that 2+2=5 and when you point out they are wrong, they just yell it louder?

Dave

You can't seem to decide if you mad because you think your BenQ 6200 is BETTER than a CRT, or you're just plain MAD because you can't afford to buy anything better than a BenQ 6200. Which is it? :confused: :confused:

And totally not relevant. I'm not mad at or about anything, but your question is illustrative of many CRT owners (may or may not include you) who feel threatened by the mass commercialization of home theaters, which had here-to-fore been the private sanctuary of the monied classes. My observations and comments on this topic do not in themselves indicate anything about my economic status, but this is again illuminating of the questioner's state of mind since there is an implied assumption that my Benq purchase was made on the basis of economic necessity. It would be a much safer assumption (if you're gonna go out on a limb) to say that 99.9% of folks who are purchasing ANY DLP are probably in the upper 5-10% of the chart on income since this is obviously not a critical commodity purchase and ranks pretty low on Maslow's heirarchy of needs.

I stated: "... my lowly 6200 OUTPERFORMS their CRT's in some respects" It's a fact. Not in every respect mind you, but in some VERY important ones: Size, ease of placement, ease of setup, portability, price.... I even acknowledge that the perfect cryrocooled laser focused nine inch CRT has a better picture quality. I merely point out that the DIFFERENCE in quality versus the cost isn't going to be worth it for the VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE. You may offset my cost argument by pointing to people salvaging old CRT's out of ebay or dumpsters, but there is an associated 'lost opportunity' cost in all the time and trouble necessary to bring these units back to service, not to mention the special skillset (eltro-mechanical) necessary to do such a rebuild economically. Even in a community with the comaraderie and support of AVSforum members I've seen multiple posts where people ultimately BAIL OUT OF THE CRT boondoggle, often when they realize they wanted a home theater not an ongoing electronics project. :confused:

I stand by my comments. I have seen no intellectual arguments proffered that run counter to the prima facie facts I've presented. It is obviously upsetting to some of you (hence the attempts at personal insults), and given your curious focus on MY INCOME level, it's obvious that I struck a nerve with my original thesis. :D


Enjoy.

You've said this a couple times. This kind of shows you are a little clueless. You do realize that most of us are not of the "monied classes". True we have projectors that originally cost over $20,000, but we pick them up used for a fraction of the cost. We are the "value" guys. We get tremendous bang for the buck with our used CRTs, they last forever and are repairable.

FYI, you could purchase a CRT that would spank your 6200 for about $800. You could purchase an 8" for $2500 that would spank any new digital costing twice its price.

You can have a modded 9500 (of which a new one outperforms a Qualia on film by most "expert" accounts) for less than $8000.

The PJ that Guy had (XG135LC) can be purchase for about $3500 refurbished and with a warranty. The H79 and IMX lens cost double that.

Getting the point yet? Used CRTs are the best picture you can get for the money.

If I had to guess, I'd say the average person on this forum spent much less than $3000 on their PJ for an arguably better pic than most on the over $3500 digital forum are getting.

Dave

I'm not deaf to many of your points, some of which are quite amusing. But I am to this one. I don't think these guys are threatened by the "mass commercialization of home theaters, which had here-to-fore been the private sanctuary of the monied classes". I think that overall they are the biggest bunch of cheapskates around and 95% of them own a used PJ. In fact, that's what I find so humorous about so many of the zealots over here (and many are Not zealots to be fair). It's that they love to talk about how superior CRT is and how other people "settle for digital" when the truth of the matter is the only reason they own a CRT PJ is because it was the cheapest and they found one at a flea market somewhere. It's not like they went out and spent the extra dough to "own the best".

I do think there is an elemant of truth in your point though, which is that they like to have their little clan where they can feel superior and resent the idea that some "know nothing" can now buy a new digital for the price of a used CRT, plug it in and focus it and get a pic that's as good as many a CRT and be happy with it. The thought drives them crazy.

Actually, the movie WILD THINGS is great to watch on the PJ with two female friends... :D

Hmmm. This thread is about Guy Kuo, who I am confident knows more about video than you ever will. The projector he purchased can be had in the lower warranty version (only 2 years) for $3999 MAP, he came from a higher CRT than the $2500 ones you just mentioned, and he prefers the digital. As you know, I get a chuckle out of your "videophiles buy CRTs" type comments as well as comments like your's right here. I'll trust my eyes and my friends with CRTs who would never make comments like that. I will agree on one thing though, if you were the one setting up the digital then that CRT you mentioned would likely spank it.

I remember from the past that you claimed in comparing CRT to digital it was not right to use brand new warranteed prices from AVScience to compare to your used CRT prices. Your argument was that we had to use boutique shop brand new prices for the digital (while you of course still went with used prices for the CRTs). I think it ranks up there as some of your more ridiculous stuff, but you seem to be doing it again. How much do you think a person would have to pay for an H79 and an IMX lens?

EDIT: Fixed MSRP to MAP.

--Darin

"Hyperventalating swat team" Nothing wrong with defending your terf in your terf from insergent digital terrorists bent on our demise.
Who from the CRT forum goes out of their way to rag on digital projectors in the digital forum. I don't understand the mentality. I wish you guys would just go home and let us suffer with the choices we've made.

Chip

For someone who is "satisfied" with his "performance", you seem to be shopping around an awful lot... ;)

btw, your price estimates are high, not unlike, perhaps, you would have to be to pay them... ;)

Darin - MAP on the H78 is $3995, MSRP is $4995, IIRC.

Thanks. I was thinking MAP when I wrote it, but then my fingers typed MSRP.

As far as Dave's comment about a $2500 8" CRT spanking any digital twice its price, I have mentioned in the past that I think if we compared my H79 (tweaked and setup by me) to his 8" non-LC CRT that he paid close to that $2500 for not counting his scaler, that I think at least half the people would choose my H79 from his chosen 1.45:1 viewing ratio. At the time I believe he said something like he agreed it would be 50-50. Since then I've done some more viewing and I would be quiet surprised if even close to half the people would pick the CRT if we used an appropriate videophile room (dark). But, given that I mentioned that I could get an H78DC3 (with the $4k price) and use it for any comparison like this instead (since it looks like just a marketing and warranty difference), it is interesting that at that time he would indicate what he did about that comparison and now tell people that this 8" CRT like his would spank any digital twice its price. I guess he just likes to go back to comments like these and ignore that he already gave us a pretty good indication of how clueless he is about setting up a digital, and yet relied on himself to set it up (or not set it up other than point and shoot) for a comparison, just in the last couple of weeks. One would have hoped that he would have learned something from his false assumptions, but it seems that it would have been false hope. Even Guy mentioned that he tuned the H79 before making his judgement and yet Dave holds onto his statements like above. I guess I shouldn't be surprised given that he is the same person who tells people how many times he has seen the Sharp 12k while purposely leaving out that he doesn't have a clue whether he has even seen it in the high contrast mode (and especially not setup appropriately in that mode).

--Darin

I know you didn't say all of us, but let me just say that for me, it was not a dollar issue, but a moral issue really. IMO the A/V world(more so with Audio then Video) is so full of BS and marketing that I refuse to be suckered into "High-Priced" electronics. You don't need to spend a lot of money to get true "High-END", you only need to spend a lot of money to get "High-PRICED" .... big difference.

EDIT: Error in spelling, just noticed it..LOL

"Size, ease of placement, ease of setup, portability, price...."


I agree with everything you said but price. But apparently, you don't seem to care about the important things, LIKE PICTURE QUALITY. :)

Hey, you're entitled to your opinion.....and now that you've given it, you should go back to the "Under $1.00 Digital Projector" forum where you can comiserate with the other people that feel as you do. :rolleyes: