Update on the cheap WVGA LCD with $30 lamps. - Page 2

nice response Key. good to hear a DIYer chip in his .02. I believe LL's pj will be just fine for those type of uses & an "everyday" big screen - just like today - I couldn't bring myself to watch my team (Auburn) on an SD channel using a $300 bulb - hopefully LL's will be out before the seasons over! And a (better than) good chance I'll pick up an x-box once I get this LLpj........my pc just not up to the task of handling most of the games I wanna play.....

Lol, reminds me of the "sponge worthy" episode in Seinfeld.

How many hours do you put on the bulb each week ?.

I'll apologize for appearing harsh - I really just wanted to be frank, and as i said, I will gladly eat my words if wrong.

i think I DO owe a retraction to LumeLabs on their DIY stuff. I'm all for DIY! There is a whole different motivation and satisfaction that comes from building something yourself, and that outweighs small performance differences. I do DIy speakers (Madisound - my other forum), and though I love the speakers I have built and enjoy theor sound, i wouldn't want to put them on a test bench...

The $299 projector I was actually referring to is the "Neo game projector" that was so ubiquitous on Ebay a year ago. I really had to hunt to find one now -

http://cgi.*********/NEO-Game-TV-PRO...em110031587995

- but this is the "toy" I was referring to. This, and the now available "zoombox" on Ebay, are the ones I hoped to scare people away from in my prior post. It just always made me feel sad, reading their hyperbolic ad copy, and thinking of the folks who plunked down $299 in hopes of experiencing that 'Grand Home Cinema Experience". This was really the motivation in speaking up, not to bash a company or the DIY crowd.

Despite my apologies, however, I still am very skeptical about the final image product that can be created from shining a Overhead projector lamp through an LCD panel. "Back in the day" before portable projectors, executives had those little 9 and 11 inch flat LCD panels that would hook into your laptop, then you would lay the panel on top of an Overhead projector platen and Voila! Your computer screen would be projected on the wall. High Tech overhead tramsparancies, instantly! Who cared of the image was 75/1 contrast, with washed out colors and low res - it was a digital overhead transparancy! No vis a vis markers, erasers, or static-y transparancies.

The image it created is all I can think about when I hear of these projectors using the same basic technology.

Then again - I've bought about 5 bulbs in my projector ownership history, and that $350 price tag is a KILLER! The idea of a very basic image that costs basically nothing is sure tempting.

Sort of the "EZ bake Oven" of home theater projectors...

I will also vouch for LL, they sell awesome products and have some of the coolest people I have met on their forums. I just finished building a 15" projector based off their guide and it is absolutely mind blowing, and I'm not even done tweaking it. This thing freakin rocks!!

The only thing I can say is if you are so skeptical of the DIY PJ then go check out some of the results at the LL forums. Just as in DIY speakers results differ due to build quality and skill level but alot of people have achieved amazing results. And BTW their design has nothing to do with an overhead projector.

i will be following this projector closely. i bought a 480p projector about 2 years ago which turned out to be a lemon and turned into a real money pit after replacing bulbs and getting it serviced. i sold it on ebay as it was because i couldnt afford to put anymore money into it.. it left me with a sore taste in my mouth for front projection.

the specs are actually very close to my old projector (which was highly reviewed when it came out), so the low price and $30 bulb makes this pretty attractive for me. i travel a lot so i cant really justify buying a TV. and i could care less about HD. so for someone who is a cinemaphile but not necessarily a videophile, a projector like this is a very attractive option. if it comes close to the performance of my old projector, i am signing on. of course, i will wait to see what the users say first.

An update on the lamp:

Cant be any worse PQ than my 2001 Optoma EzPro705h, i'd junk it if the bulb blew!

$500 for this is pretty steep when there's the Optoma H31 brand new for $600, or the Infocus IN72 for $650 a few weeks ago. 600:1 CR just isn't going to cut it. And the 1000 lumens? Probably more like 100-150 in a real world situation.

Considering the proximity of cost to quality PJs, this would have to drop to around $199 to be good enough to even consider for the kid's room. If bulb prices are that big a deal, just buy a 3-year bulb warantee for $100.

Lets be honest, none of us have actually seen this pj in action. Until we see a side by side comparison, we won't know how bad or how good this projector is to other LCD based pj's. Lets also not forget that contrast ratios as well as lumen outputs are known to be inflated by manufacturers. Until we can compare for ourselves how this pj turns out, we cannot attest to it's quality. .

Personally, I feel this pj is not geared towards videophiles. It is for people who want to watch movies/tv without having to worry about bulb life. I certainly agree with you that that there are going to be projectors with better PQ. And who knows, maybe I'll get a 1080p PJ for movies, and this projector for regular TV viewing. It certainly is priced low enough.

I can't imagine watching anything with a 600:1 CR (even on paper, because I'm guesing its not anywhere naer 600:1 measured at the screen).....you'll get a picture up on the wall, sure....but...it'll probably the same kind of picture you get putting a slide in front of a flashlight. :P

I'm just skeptical, and I agree it would be nice to see one of these in action...I agree if you needed something for the kids to play Xbox on then this might work...MAYBE....the CR however is killer, a CR that low means absolutely no shadow detail....none..

This would probably been a bigger deal a few years ago, when machines with similar specs were selling in the thousands.

But that's my point. It's not priced anywhere near low enough for a PJ that will have real-world CR of maybe as good as 150:1 and maybe put out around 100-150 lumens.

As for comparing, I don't have to ever drive a Ford POS to know it's a POS compared to a Lexus.

The real truth is that it's easy to pay for bulbs. If the average bulb costs $300 and you go through one bulb a year (which is a lot of viewing), it turns out to $25/month, $$6.25/week, or 83 cents/day. Could you swing not having that snack from the vending mahine daily? Could you go without eating at McDonalds once per week? Could you manage to cut back eating at Sizzler once a month? If so, there's your bulb, with very little sacrifice...and likely better health as well.

You don't know that you'll have to replace the bulb once a year, it may be more than that and it may be less. Not only that, people don't pay for a bulb day by day, they take a hit to their wallet for the full $300 (though the idea of paying for a bulb day by day is admittedly not a bad one).

And your car analogy is quite apt: no one is claiming that this pj is a Lexus. It's more of a...a....a Prius than anything! It's has specs that, if not quite matching lexus quality, will still produce a picture that the common everyday person, such as myself, will like (as long as he doesn't visit AVSforum and read about SDE, VB, etc)!

I'm hoping they get a review done at projectorreviews.com

Until then, we are just idle speculation

The owner of Lumenlab said that he would send off the projector for review (post #53):

http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index...20review&st=40

Shriek

I think he is talking about the old version in that post. So I agree that he will probably get a review done for the new version of the projector.

I'm really looking forward to this projector. I have two daughters would would like to watch disney movies and I would not want to be thinking about wasting a $300 bulb every time they turned it on.

Hmmm....you're right. Just like you, I do hope that that the newer projector will be sent in for a review. It'd be nice to see an independant third party review, especially from projectorreviews or projectorcentral.

perhaps you should head over to lumanlab and see the fantastic high resolution images people are producing from shining a lamp through an LCD panel.

Wait a second, you first apologize to Lumenlab, and then you write the above? What's going on here?

Have you even taken the time to read anything about how Lumenlab projectors are made? I'd suggest some reading is in order if you don't want to keep making an ass of yourself.

We at LL use 15"-17" monitors, ranging contrasts from 350:1-1600:1 (yes 1600:1 17" panel )

The projectors are able to display resolutions depending on your LCD panel, 15"-1024x768, 17"-1280x1028 so 720p is capable as well as 480p, most HT commercial projectors don't even do 1280x1024.

So before you insult a respected site with a great community, maybe do a bit of research, so you will actually know what your talking about.

Yeah, that first pic on post #31 is fantastic.

Lets talk about "sounding like an Ass" for a second here.

You realize those contrast ratio numbers are worthless when you buy the monitor to begin with, and then ripping them apart and start shining a super bright light through them only makes the contrast ratio disappear completely right? Have any of you guys actually run tests to compute the contrast ratios after you throw the image to your screen? Hello 400:1 contrast....if you're lucky.

Here's your 1600:1 (and it probably never even gets close to that number even when its not ripped apart) right in the description for that monitor:

"f-ENGINE technology independently enhances the brightness and color for a stunning viewing experience".

Thats a form of image AI, the monitor would evaluate the stuff going on on the screen and adjust the Cold Cathodes behind the LCD panel to try and make black appear darker. Which you destroyed when you tore the monitor apart.

Then, of course, you're shining a super bright light through those panels...which were weak in the CR department to begin with, thereby forcing more light through them when they are off, thereby reducing your CR even further.

Dont start namecalling when you're standing in the glass house, buddy.


Resolution is nothing without image quality....unless all you're planning on doing is playing Counterstrike. I looked at about a dozen threads and the screenshots I'm seeing are all looking pretty bad. Here's one thats as big as a coffee table......and the image it produces?


Thats flat out awful. Notice the massive light dropoff in all 4 corners, can't tell on focus since the whole thing looks soft to begin with. Look at that contrast ratio..oh wait, there isn't any, its just "muddy colors" and then "black"..or Grey as it were. Tonys hair looks like someone colored his head with the "SPRAY" function in Microsoft Paint.

Another one I took a look at has completely blown out whites, everything is too bright and you're getting whitecrush.


This is a terrible picture above....everything looks soft, the whites are totally blown out, all the color is muted because the light is so bright.....this is not a good picture at all. There's no shadow detail, colors are wrong, whites blown out.


Look, its Star Wars in B&W! No Color fidelity at all...look at the fuzzy troopers in the background, even at that distance you can EASILY See the screendoor pattern from the LCD panel.


Take your own advice. You are on the #1 respected Home Theatre community on the web, you know. You're acting like he punched your mom in the eye. Its ok for people to disagree on what looks good versus what does not.

PS: When you take an LCD Monitor apart and out from its housing, its exactly the same thing as the ones they'd lay down on top of an overhead projector at School.

Now...having just been a bitch in this post I want to say one thing: Those projectors are cool, Granted, after all the carpentry and the parts and stuff you're probably talking about more than $300 or $400, and these days $300 or $400 buys you quite a bit of projector, used, on ebay. Just something to consider. I do applaud those guys for what they did, however...its pretty enterprising, and the images for games and PC desktops dont look half bad. But for movies, or wanting to see a real high QUALITY image? I'm not seeing it.

Point me to some other screenshots if you think I've only chosen the worst of the worst.

Isn't this how commercial projectors work? Taking a light and shining it through an LCD, or 3 which is the case in most LCD projectors nowadays. My God I think it is...

We use 400w MH bulbs that put out 30-40 thousand lumens, this is true, however not all of those lumens make it to the LCD, on average depending on the quality of your build/reflector etc... you might get 4,000-5,000 lumens hitting the LCD screen, with a 95% transmissive LCD you might get around 250 lumens on screen.

With your theory an LCD projector that puts out 5000 lumens on screen must have a CR of 100:1 or similar, even if the LCD panel had a CR of 1000:1 to start with? If you can describe how this works, how light going through the LCD panel kills the CR, I might listen.

You might be thinking of something to the extent of raising and lowering the brightness options on the LCD, the light going through the LCD and the brightness controls on the LCD are completely seperate.

Yes if you push brightness on the LCD to 100 it will wash out the picture, but isn't this the same on a commercial unit?

At the moment a user on LL is using a ceramic arc bulb with a CRI of 96, you won't find that color rendering index in most commercial bulbs. Ceramic Arc bulb 96 CRI 150w result

Anyways if you read the PLOG of the Yoda and Star Wars pics you might have read that JonJandran didn't have his control panel working to adjust any of the basic controls, color/sharpness/tint/brightness etc..etc...

What's really funny is your insulting the star wars pictures that were taken on a 1080p 15.4" panel. This is almost ridiculous to say you can see the screendoor effect. His pictures were downsampled to a lower resolution which caused the distortion, that is not the screendoor effect, you couldn't find that unless you were 3 feet away from that projection.

If I'm the one acting like my mom got punched in the eye why did you write a 1 page reply?

A lot of the pictures taken on LL are taken by crappy cameras that aren't very good at capturing the true image, ask most LL members and they will agree that the corners though dim in pictures are not seen that way by the human eye in real life. Not everyone has a great camera, if you asked a bunch of people to take pictures of their projectors projections you would see some crappy pictures and good pictures of the same projector.

Here is a projector that the pictures do it justice.
Nice Looking Projector

Yep.


The brighter the light behind the panel, the more light bleeds through the panel and the more washed out your image becomes. A panel designed to block the brightness of a few rows of Cold Cathodes is going to lose something when you put a lamp as bright as the sun behind it.

Its the plague of all LCD projectors. The new D5 panels are supposed to have higher native contrast ratios...considering how long they took to get to market, I'm guessing getting a higher native CR out of an lcd panel was a tough nut to crack.....


No LCD panels have a native 1600:1 contrast ratio last time I checked, they could only achieve that level of CR (on paper) through varying the brightness of the image on a frame-by-frame basis (Image AI type of things) by changing the output of the bulbs, or by using a motorized Iris on a front projector..also frame by frame...to change how much light comes out of the lens. Since that functionality is linked to the ability to modulate the brightness in a flatpanel display, its kind of hard to imaging you're getting anywhere like 1600:1..hell...even 500:1....out of a panel like that. I'd love to see some measurements taken....


Interesting, since screenshots HERE of projectors with LOWER overall resolution don't seem to exhibit that same problem. Hmmmmm.......I guess the only other thing I can say is that you must be using the worst DVD software on earth to display that image then. Or is that a DIVX or something he's showing?
Don't tell me you can't see the macroblocking pattern which to be looks like screendoor on that shot.....please....if its another visual anomality besides screendoor then I retract my criticisim, but its still fugly no matter what the reason.

[quote]
If I'm the one acting like my mom got punched in the eye why did you write a 1 page reply?
[/QUORE]

To answer some questions.....only I'm not the one whos getting emotionally invested in the topic.


Whatever...when it looks good, its the projector..when it looks bad, its the camera or guy taking the picture. Whatever.


Those are pretty nice pics.....of course he shows "perfect" material like high contrast video games, I'd be curious to see some DVD or HD shots that aren't Pixar CGI Movies to get a better idea, but game wise that guy really did a nice job.
OH MY GOD ARE YOU FLOORED? I AGREE WITH YOU!? I'm not a zealot, you just said "go to the forusm and look for yourself" so I did, and the pics I saw were horriffic.

The only problem is when you see his "PJ".....thats about the size of a Yugo, and we know he probably spent $400 to $500 on the parts and stuff, would I rather have that projector or one that weighs about 5 lbs....?? I'd take the small one, even with the resolution hit. But thats me...

But, I'm going to be fair here...those screenshots really did look pretty good, I wont knock results like that. If the bulb lasts as long as they say it does without dimming thats not a bad solution for a bachelor. Now the question is how much work went into getting that done.....and what are the other issues. Whats the power consumption on those guys like? The heat no doubt is tremendous....they're probably all fire hazards......

And we still havent' addressed the issue of contrast ratios. Show me a scene thats mostly dark, not mostly light with some dark.....even a 400:1 LCD looks dark when the screen is mostly lit up with other colors.

Good reply" HeadRusch"
I was also browsing the LL forums and I noticed that 80% of the screenshots they were displaying were all the same screenshots from the same source, I mean you would have to be a total moron and half blind not to notice those details.
I can imagine if they did a side by side comparason of a DIY projector and a Commercial projector and I am willing to bet that the DIY units would lose hands down............

I started DIY. Still have that flat panel LCD (seven inch I think) and the overhead projector I bought off ebay. Specs. Contrast 150:1 'thousands of colors' and 640 x 480. Followed the LL folks for awhile. We're talking about three years ago. I bought my Benq 6200 two years ago. I had the OHP/LCD panel for some time previous, so I know my timeline is correct. I read all the posts and didn't see the following problems mentioned, and in total fairness they NEED to be.

1. I bought the OHP/LCD setup for $200 off ebay. Hooked it up to an old 486 I have that has a tv card in it (SUPER HIGH TECH STUFF AT THE 486 LEVEL -LOL). It was more of a proof of concept and it was cheap. Bulb were/are $20 and they last about 50 hours. A cheaper 'hit' when they fail, but on a per hour basis no better than the Benq. Picture quality was weak. Brightness no issue. Black levels sucked, but the biggest downside really was the CONTRAST RATIO. White dress on white background? Anybody's guess. So why didn't I just build one of those fancy jobs that LL promotes?

The main/only reason I ever considered building a $300-500 projector back then was that it was right before the FP DLP's hit (Infocus X1). I think it started out selling for about a grand but dropped to $800 pretty quick.

1. Deconstructing those LCD panels without damaging the delicate ribbon cables is a big issue. Can't be overstated.
2. Optics. I know that LL has 'standardized' a lot of this stuff since I quit following their site, but getting the optics and REFLECTOR right was and probably still is more art than science over there.
3. Heat. Those high wattage metal halides (they were the lamp of choice back then.are they still?) get hot. Burn your house down hot. And most of the 'cases' (if you can call a footlocker a case - lol) for these homebuilts were medium density fiberboard. DIYer's are ballsy bastards if nothing else!!
4. There are doubtless many other safety issues/shortcuts taken by many builders.

I'm betting this cheapo projector is better than my late gen lcd panel setup. I'm also betting it pales in comparison to the cheapest commercial unit available (whatever that is these days). There's likely only one reason to buy one of the cheapies. Diehard gamer with no cash to spare or curious newbie (which is where I was when I got the LCD/OHP so there's no shame in that). I'm not proud. I once even considered the Fresnel lens setup with a very bright 5" color TV. To be clear I'm not a DIY hater, I'm one myself. But the proper path to projection tinkerdom is not dicking around with these LCD panels. It's over in the FP CRT section. You can and will probably lose your soul over there if you pick up THAT addiction.

Enjoy.

This arguement was also debated upon at LL and the result was pretty much the same: commercials stuck to commercial, diy stuck to diy.

I can only say this since I have had 1st hand experience with a LL projector and directly compared it to my Sharp lcd XGA.

1. The contrast on a typical lcd monitor (which in this case was 15"), was no better than my pj, which is at a typical business-class rating of 450:1. So the blacks and black level detail was no better on a LL pj than mine.

2. Resolution was a different story. I could easily see that resolution was clearly superior even on a 15" XGA rated monitor over my XGA pj. Where I could see stair stepping on a certain scene, on the LL the lines were smoother. However, I must add that I was using a dvd player, and the LL was using a very high performance pc. If they used a dvd player like mine, its possible that the two would be closer in performance. But since I've never fired my pj using a pc, I'll never know if that would be the case.

3. Heat: It does run much hotter- and much louder than my pj. Understand that you are using a lamp meant for replciating sunlight indoors and pc-type fans to cool the lamp from melting the internals, so the unit more or less doubles as a heater.

4. Looks- well its rather self explanatory. Even with mirrors or paint or any other type of skin there's no denying that it is much larger and more cumbersome looking than a digital. I would guess to say that in bulkiness/weight crts are (1) LL (2) didgital (3)

The part that still draws reluctancy on me in building my own is that its quite easy to (a) damage your lcd while stripping it and (b) getting the optics to never match correctly to produce an images that either doesn't have darkish corners or an overall inferior picture.

Also the fact that a pc might be the only thing needed to get the most off this projector (something I'm not too thrilled in investing) and my reluctancy moves further along. I suppose I could "outsource" partial construction of the pj to a 3rd party but that in itself adds cost to the project also.

Don't get me wrong- I love digitals. I've installed 4805s in my friends homes and everyone who has seen their setups as wells as mine all agree that fp is the way to go. But LL is a different type of fp- its more of a 100" monitor rather than a movie projector. Not that you can't project movies on it, but the inherent limitations (connectivity, lack of a superior video processor, etc) of using a computer monitor added to that some skill in construction and the fact that your first attempt might result in damage or destruction of some electronics (ie the lcd monitor) that makes this project feasible for some but undoable for others.

As to the OT, I like the idea of having a pj with a lamp thats disposable and/or durable enough that if you damage it, the cost of takeout for one night will pay for its replacement bulb. As to picture quality, there's still plenty of people out there wanting fp but not the willingness to pay the higher costs of bulb replacement and are willing to sacrifice some picture quality in the process. Its all give and take in my book.

Anyways, that my $0.02 on this whole matter

Victor

stair stepping is more a problem with scaling rather than resolution. If you say screendoor is smaller, less noticeble on the 15" LCD, LL projector then I may buy this statement. HTPC is the BEST scaler there is while a STB DVD player into a business class XGA LCD PJ will have the WORST scaler built-in exaggerating jaggies.

I give it up to the LL guys for having the brains and skills to try their hand at what they do. But...it's not an option for the weak-kneed or non-mechanical type. With commmercial PJs being so cheap and so good, it's not worth the bother anymore. Five years ago? Absolutely. Hell, I even built one of the $10 lens boxes just for fun to have in my garage way back then, and quite honestly, it was fine for gaming, but not much else.

HeadRusch-I'm glad you are happy with your commercial projector, too me, most look grainy and harsh, with poor color temperatures (7500k) and bad CRIs. If you don't understand that because of the nature of the projector only a small number of lumens 100-500 hit the screen and that most camera's are un-able to pick-up detail at that brightness then it's not my problem. Almost any LL person will say the pictures don't do there projection justice, and having built one myself I agree fully.

But go ahead paying 300-500 for a bulb that lasts 1000-3000 hours, my last 400w MH Ceramic arc bulb cost me 7.50$ and it will last me around 15,000 hours.

The picture really goes beyond contrast ratio and brightness, you have to take in the MH bulb's color temperature and color rendering index (CRI). CRI determines the spectral distribution and the higher the number the better. As of now all or most commercial projectors use quartz arc bulbs, which have a worse CRI then the new ceramic arc bulbs. At the moment I have a ceramic arc bulb so my CRI is better then your commercial, or anyones, unless you have some evidence that compares ceramic arcs vs quartz arcs.

But hey, you seem like you enjoy buying things already made, who am I to argue with the anti-DIY. Have fun with that.


Unless commercial projector's bulbs have gone down a few hundred in the past week then I don't understand why "five years ago" would be best to have one. If anything I believe the DIY scene is growing with popularity. And with shorter arc ceramic MH bulbs coming out soon, we will have brighter more evenly lit screens.

Thats nice. Your projector gets "much better gas mileage than mine" I guess.
Luckily for me thats basically where your "advantages" end.


This is very interesting.....so, let me get this straight: Image Quality isn't really about Contrast Ratio or Brightness, but really about how your $7.50 Grow-Room bulb throws a much more accurate light than a $300 commercial projector bulb.

So...basically what you don't have is unimportant, what you do have is key.


Sounds like you're quoting a website that wants you to buy something....


Then explain to me how just about any old projector can have its greyscale calibrated to near 6500k.................without using a Xenon or other pure-light bulb.....????? HMMMMMMMMMMM.


Nobody here is anti-DIY, we're just laying out some facts on the table.....we've already said that DIY is cool, and a good idea if you have spare parts lying around, or are like 12 and dont mind having a box the size of a coffin in your room with a space-heater off the back. For some of us who aren't in that particular situation, however, commerical products produce 1) a nicer picture and 2) a nicer device to live with on a daily basis.


Because 5 years ago a projector with specs like your DIY builds cost $2000+ and the bulbs were $500 to replace. So your "$500 in parts and labor" was a bargain. Today $500 bucks you a lot of projector used or even new. $1k buys you a projector with specs that cost $8,000 - $15,000 just 2 years ago.

Listen, that 640x480 LCD projector that they are putting out for $500 bucks with the $20 lamps? Thats not any great engineering marvel........its nothing more than the LCD projectors that every other company stopped making in 1999, only powered by a $20 lamp. Its specs are atrocious....but the bulbs are cheap.

If you want a big "DIY IS GREAT AND #1" Love-fest you need to go to that church, around here we keep an open mind but the tradeoffs which you guys ignore are more important to us, so we're not as receptive.

But debate about technology isn't trashing.....nobody here should be trashing a DIY guys efforts. Pointing out flaws or questioning methodologies isn't trashing, any more than you are trashing commercials.