Don't dump your CRT RPTV! - Page 371

There is a register in the service menu that deals with center versus edge focusing. However repeated attempts at improving factory setting have never done any good, so these days I just leave it alone. Perhaps a line voltage spike has caused that register to change its value.

If you feel like a 65 inch Mitsubishi CRT is not worth spending any money on, maybe I should redo my thinking on answering your questions here? Sounds like it could be a losing proposition on my part, as my time is very valuable to me and I like to spend my time where it counts. For my money they still have intense value and are worth spending loads of time and money on.

Front projectors and rear projectors are definitely not the same, BTW. Going from 1 to the other can involve lots of different changes in your viewing arena.

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Edited by Mr Bob - 7/24/12 at 10:06pm

Agreed, you have some considerations on keeping it.

Your internal reflections are partially being caused by the bright, glossy screwheads and tails and parts of the IR sensor in the optical chamber, plus exposed particle board, all of which can be painted black with simply a black Sharpie. Glow around bright objects in dark areas will also be exacerbated by the dirty optics if yours have not been cleaned recently, it has to happen once a year for your set to stay brand new looking. Could be you're a few years late on that. If so you're in for an eye-opener!

You're lucky in that Mit does not require the deeper optics cleaning, only the regular (4 surfaces instead of 10 of the 28 total, like the Pioneers need), and on a 65" there is no mylar mirror to worry about, you have the true glass front surface mirror in there. Best available, same for their viewscreens. Best (and highest gain) available.

Overscan can be cured either by service menu alone or a combo of the shimming op and service menu, and replacing the red gun only is drastically less expensive than replacing all 3. Or than replacing the green, which would require massive geometry and convergence corrections afterward, on all 3 colors. With the red being the only gun needing replacement, just retweak it afterward using green and blue as your template and you're home free.

I have never run across your focusing issue so don't know how to reply to that one. I know some models use a special STK IC just for the focusing, perhaps that has gone out and needs to be replaced, which is something you could do for yourself for simply the cost of parts if you're handy with a soldering iron.

Component is still the best way to get the HD signal to your set on CRT RPTV tech. HDMI on Mit totally sucks, but I've heard their DVI was excellent before they made the switch to HDMI. If yours is DVI, it should be working well, but I would still always default back to component if you have a choice. Definitely if you want the color space to be its best.

720p is nonexistent on Mits, yes. Just goes black.


If you are tempted to keep your set and save yourself a ton of money over buying new, I am always available for phone coaching. Not cheap but not expensive either, all things considered. If you've read any of my stuff and have seen any of my screenshots - like on page 259 of this thread and on other threads - you know I can make your set sing.

Keep us apprised -

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Edited by Mr Bob - 7/25/12 at 11:46am

I just tried to get to page 259 and they have changed their numbering sys, so you can only go 3 pages at at time. Would take forever. Any suggestions?

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Thanks, Leo!



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Yeah, that was my Mit 73" in action. Even with the mylar mirror it looks pretty grand, doesn't it?

Thanks for the kudos, but the blacks in that last shot are not as great as they could have been because I had to shoot that one in the daytime, and I don't have shutout curtains, just vertical blinds. If shot at night the blacks would have been much more crystal clear and inky. Like the famous Colleen shot of Owen's, it was taken from "Lights Camera Girls", a special gift from Leo (Superleo) and Michael (Last but not least), downloaded by Leo from his computer and transcribed into AVCHD format, which will play on bluray players at 1080i (and probably p).

Hopefully someone will come up with my version of the Colleen shot and post it here as well. When I saw Owen's version shot from his Hitachi, I just had to shoot one from my display! So I found it on the disc from Leo and tried to get exactly the same pose/frame, so the 2 shots - Owen's and mine - would be identical and thus apples and apples.

It's in here somewhere, I'm sure...

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Thanks Leo, I really appreciate your doing that for me. I especially like the vividness of the blue in her flower, down near her bodice. Can you guess how good Avatar would look?


Owners -

If you do follow that link, you'll find some outrageously nice screenshots sent in by many of us. Most of them sent in by Leo himself, but a goodly number also sent in by myself and a bunch of other proud CRT RPTV owners. All incontrovertible evidence of what our incredible CRT sets are capable of.

We are not about to retire them, no way. You'll have to pry mine out of my cold, dead hands.



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Edited by Mr Bob - 7/26/12 at 2:35pm

To wit:

Edited by Mr Bob - 7/26/12 at 2:45pm

And wit again:

How to shoot better screenshots. What I have found so far, anyway -


I use a Kodak Z712 IS, with a 12x Schneider lens and their great natural color chip, and I use manual focus, since the auto focus gets confused by the projectional nature of the CRT RPTV optical system. The Auto Focus circuit says, "How deep and far away is that picture REALLY?..."

This is one hell of a camera and I recently saw a newer Kodak with a 25x zoom Schneider lens for even less money than I paid for mine, and I got a great deal on mine. If I had not already bought mine, I'd have jumped on that one, it was only $136, refurb'd. If you want to buy mine for what I paid for mine, I'll sell it to you and get that other one, if it's still available.

You have to play with the settings on it and it can take a long time to get it right, but once gotten right you can take an unlimited number of pix with those settings. Wish the focusing were labeled with numbers on my cam but there's only a bar graph, so you never know you've got it exactly right by the cam's tiny display, you really have to expand it to full screen with a computer for that, and the focus setting may have been all wrong for that particular set of photos and you won't know it till later.

Same with exposure, which is always a balance between how open you've set your aperture to be is vs. the shutter speed. Since the shots are going to be of stills/freezeframes, the speed of the shutter is irrelevant so you have lots of latitude there. Using Auto always overexposes it tho, so don't even try. Use Manual for everything. If your cam is not Manual capable on at least exposure and focusing, you'll have very little luck.

Most important thing on whatever cam you use is to use a tripod and the cam's timer, to completely negate any possiblity of camera shake. I use the 2 second timer, not the 10 second. And freeze frame your pic on the sharpest and stillest frame possible, not one or the other of 2 adjoining moving frames, where there will be blur.

The farther away you are from the set when you take your pix the more even the inside to outside lighting and skintones will be of the shots on the display itself, so use your zoom for that and get the cam as far away as possible and still be in your room, using the zoom to make up the difference. I have actually contemplated going outside onto my porch and firing thru my front living room window, but have not gone to that much trouble yet.

Be ready to spend some time, that's the bottom line. That's another reason I have not done any for a while. Lots of catching up to do when you've been in the hospital for 11 entire days!



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Edited by Mr Bob - 7/29/12 at 9:42pm

That's why I went for the excellent Kodak Color Science Chip-equipped camera. Don't have to make any of those decisions. Just point and shoot.


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Best crispness on a CRT RPTV

(You noticed I didn't stay Sharpness, did I?)




Optics cleaning obviously, then Cantilever Technique mechanical focusing on the scanlines themselves using a mid-light-level grid, followed by electronic focusing at the focus block being very careful not to disturb the Screen pots, then a high precision convergence using a mid-light-level grid again (the built-in Pioneer internal grid is useless for this).

You can find a video on how to do the Cantilever Technique on my YouTube channel, Mrbobbigscreen at www.youtube.com/mrbobbigscreen. It's title refers to Super Tightening the optical focusing.

Run all viewed video material at Contrast midpoint rather than in the upper plus regions of the bar graph. Overdoing it on the light level/energy levels hitting your CRT face screens in there softens your focusing and tows your convergence off in bad directions. Set your Black Level for excellence in seeing shadow detail, once the Contrast is set properly. Just so you know, this is very hard to do with dirty optics. So is grayscale...

In Service Menu, there's Sharpness and Detail. I always run Detail up close to its max of 127 - like 120 - (I try to never completely max things out unless absolutely necessary). Sharpness has to be played with, but usually needs to be lowered from factory settings. In playing with it, watch the vertical lines for edge enhancement. Too much ee will make things look crisper from a distance, but the repeat opposing-color lines next to the regular vertical lines in your content will be glaringly obvious if viewed up close and personal, like videophiles like to do. We want a 510 to be regularly viewable from 6', a 610 to be viewable on a regular basis at 7', and a 710 to be viewable at 8', with excellent crispness all around. Which is basically the same kind of viewing distances recommended for DLPs.


Then send me a plane ticket and let's get this show on the road, Dave! I have been out of the hospital long enough to not be winded now by the staircase leading to the plane if I have to walk it, which was definitely not true 1 week after the operation!



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PS -

Here's a selection of shots done on another Dave's renovation of his 510, handle AquaCow, a brilliant and prominent contributor at the Pioneer Elite 510 Problem thread. Some shots of the mechanical job he did, but also some excellent screenshots on his finished product -

http://dave.oc7.org/gallery/projects/pro510hd/
Edited by Mr Bob - 7/31/12 at 4:42pm

Here's some shots of these Pioneer Elite CRT sets that I have calibrated in other parts of the country. As you can see, in the crispness factor arena, a fully dialed in Pioneer Elite CRT is definitely no slouch no matter what its size, and makes absolutely no apologies to DLP sets.

If these don't do it for you, there are other screenshots in that thread sent in from owners like Joe Barnhart and Rob Mason. Shots of Lyle Lovett, and Kung Fu Panda. Shots from cameras better than mine and from photographers better than I as well.



Remember, any excess blue edging you see in the images is due to digital camera artifacting. It does not appear on the screen itself at normal viewing distances.


Hit F11 to open up your screen and see these pix better, hit it again to go back -


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Edited by Mr Bob - 7/31/12 at 4:53pm

Here's some more from your 510/610/710 series, Dave. The immersion factor you get from such pictures is quite hypnotic -



Hugh Jackman - from The Fountain. That really weird movie where he travels thru time on various adventures and incarnations, trying to save his beloved from dying...


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Edited by Mr Bob - 8/8/12 at 8:01am

Was your set freshly calibrated when I picked it up? If not, how long ago was it cleaned - including the deep cleaning - and recalibrated? I could see at a glance its convergence was off quite a bit from freshly calibrated status. Or could that have been simply because it was still cold and we didn't have time to really warm it up?

These CRT sets do need to be freshened up now and then to retain their gleaming, crystalline, transparent picture.

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