Back from CES.. - Page 3

Get back on topic guys!

Thanks,

Kyser

Wm,
Incredibly childish would have been my characterization.
And while we are at it, your signature isn't advertising ?! At that time you had a laundry list of services in your signature.

Art

Sorry I got this off topic. I respect and congratulate those that can take a CRT and make an outstanding HT experience. That is what we are all here for.

Maybe some of you that get the latest digital side by side with your setup wont think its better. That just reinforces what you are doing here. Maybe someday digital may be able to eclipse even the best CRT setups. Either way we should all be happy.

It's happening now. No doubt about it. Sorry for insulting you under my alcohol indused posts.

Cliff

Tryg,
You know well, as we all do , that if we want the best at some point each of us will go to a fixed pixel device. In my case when I do move I want to have that same stupid grin when I sit down that I still get with my present set up. I call that an upgrade.

Several of you know my goals for that upgrade and I'm researching for that. What I don't want to do is surgery on my room for a lateral move.

Art

For me I have not even explored HD yet! One huge upgrade to image quality, that I feel I not ready to dive into. To me HD is not there yet. I would have to spend a boatload of money on my gear, source material, then dump all the DVD's I have now as they would no longer be good enough. Who knows someone may come out with a scaler, computer program that would make SD DVD's look as good as a HD DVD.

Everyone can argue all they want about having the best display, be it digital, CRT or whatever, but the problem is, it will be a short lived argument. With the way everything is advancing so fast, if you try to stay at the top, you will find yourself changing out your gear or source material faster then you can enjoy it. HD just came out, when will enhanced or super HD come out?

It's real expensive and time consuming to stay at the top, then of course if you are married that is whole nother story

Real happy sitting in the glow of my CRT's, Deron.

A fixed pixel device, if/when they ever reach the performance level you seek, will likely be $60,000-plus and still won't have inky blacks. Your G90s with a DVX and optimum phosphor utilization would be 30% brighter and 60% sharper than your existing setup; you have seen it in action Us CRT diehards appreciate inky blacks, accurate deep grays, lack of artifacts, lack of planned obsolescence, and hardware that is mostly reliable. In five years, today's $60K lamp system will be worth $3K on eBay, hard to fix, and generally disposable so you get to buy another one.......

It doesn't really matter much if the older technology is slightly better in certain respects than the modern version. Not that long ago, with some effort, we CRT folks obtained a vastly-superior image to the digital folks.

That is simply no longer the case. I can see that with my own two eyes.

Therefore, I think a reasonable question that we owners of the under-nine-inch CRT PJs will have to at some point ask ourselves is: what am I going to buy to replace my aging projector?

Just like the question all consumers answered years ago about whether to stick with vinyl or go digital, I wonder how many of us consumers will stick with the older, but maybe still ultimately superior, image technology?

I think the answer to that last question is simple and it is the same answer to the question - How many people do you know who own records?

Even so, this is the CRT FP forum and, even if represents only a handful of die-hard adherents, and even if it were indeed an INFERIOR technology (which it obviously is not), it should not be considered a pagan world waiting to be "converted" by well-meaning digital zealots.

Now OT.

My CRT FP viewing experience over the past few years has taught me that, beyond a certain point, image quality is not really that important. Just like it was with the vinyl/digital decision, the CRT/digital decision pales in comaprison to the CONTENT decision.

For centuries (and to this very day) people thoroughly enjoyed good books, and after that they thoroughly enjoyed good TV on ridiculous-looking TVs having god-awful, tiny images. (Anyone here want to watch a movie on an ipod?)

The irony of the advance in image technology is that it INHIBITS the imagination of the viewer to "fill in the blanks" of the story. Just as when Ma used to tell us children that "there's going to be big trouble when your father gets home", leaving the details of the "trouble" up to our fertile imaginations was far more effective than getting into the punishment specifics.

When the writers of a story say that "the most beautiful woman imaginable walks into the room", wise script-writers know that it's far better to keep the camera on the wide eyes of the others in the room who witness her arrival, rather than display the woman for all to see. More than likely, most of us will probably say - "I saw a more beautiful person at the grocery store the other day!" Or, "Just look at those hairs between her eyebrows!" (Hopefully smell will never be available to our HT experience.)

To me, 99% of what the movie industry has produced over the past couple of decades is poor, and there's just no way to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Even if the image-quality of it were the equivalent of reality, I've discovered that I'd rather sit on our back deck in the sunshine, or walk down a busy city street, or hop on our motorcycle, than be in our "cave" watching beautifully-displayed s..t.

Of course the other side of the image-quality "coin" is that if the images displayed before our eyes are too "accurate" - for example, in the depiction of war - we may not want to see it at all. I have not watched any of the latest war movies for this reason. It likely would not entertain, nor enlighten, me. In this case, my thankfully-inadequate imagination is about as close as I want to get to that experience.

Gosh darn, I'd like to have me one of them Barco 808 Retros. But unless one suddendly shows up in my neighborhood, that is not likely to ever happen.

Curt: Did you happen to see the Sunfire Cinema Ribbons I was interested in? Probably not considering all you had to see that is more important to us.

If you are hooked up with a HTPC, give Intervideo WINDVD(7 if you cant get 8 to work- 8 has issues) a try with its Trimension DNM by Philips. This is the closest I have seen SD DVD look like HD- though not exactly like it. It is VERY impressive though, especially the 60fps interpolation. Scaling is also exellent. Colors do look like computer video to a point, yes, and it kills the "Film" look, but this is its purpose. With correct gamma tweaking and color settings, it looks quite true-to-life.

Worth a try, let me know if you try it what you think.

And please everyone else, I remeber posting about this before, and know half of you hate Trimension, but the other half don't.

The last 808 retro that showed up was in MA with a a big blue travel case... behind it in the photo was NINE identical travel cases.

Here is an interesting story I heard the other day from a very reliable source.
A famous director (who will remain un named but you can probably guess) who has done many ads for JVC's dila front projectors has just had his 9500 or Vision One retubed.
What does that say for the state of the art??

haha.. priceless

I sent that guy an e-mail, and he seemed to have the retro, a 1272 and bunch of "other stuff" like DLP's and mixing boards and that kind of thing. I can dig out the e-mail address if you want to find out if the person has any more.

I think Art capitalizes his first name, Terry. And it's not "the Art" just Art - he's not a trump, you know? "...State of Art" = 2 G90's

I believe he was referring to Jerry Bruckheimer.

I've never heard Art called that... Terry, is this true? He's an orthodontist and a director?

I've enjoyed this very much... hear with an Elvis accent ..Thank You !

By the way for those who have not seen the HDDVD "Fearless" you should treat yourself to a very good film and an excellent HDDVD. The evening and night stuff will give you all a grin with your CRTs. Story, action ,cinematography nice piece of work.


Art

I've been waiting for that one... even chose not to watch it when it was released at the cinemas (big Jet Li fan so this was tough), just so I could wait to see it on HDDVD... sounds like they did a good job on the transfer

Am I the only one here that thinks a single G90 with a Torus screen would be better (or at least equal to) stacked G90's? I know for Art that's not really an option because he needs a micro-perf screen... I'm thinking a side by side blend would be the best overall. I just can't see what you get with a stack other than brightness. I'd imagine sharpness would have to suffer some bit. For sure it can't be better than a single...

Just a though and probably in the wrong thread!

If anyone's curious, Curt's CES 2007 report is now online.

See here: http://www.curtpalme.com/CES2007_page1.shtm

31 pages of pictures, videos, etc. Curt does a 10 min CES report on a Seattle radio station as well...

Kal

Semi,
I concur. I think a 9" pj with a Torus is better than a stack. You get brightness with a stack, but not uniformity.

If I read this correctly, someone here is using a flexible material stretched over a frame made from pipe (ie. no fan). Could a perf screen be used here?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=787801

You get good uniformity with a unity gain screen. Of course you don't get much brightness.

I can't decide if I eventually want a stack (a blend is too expensive). I like a bright picture, but I also like a sharp image. Having 6 tubes to converge instead of 3, and having two PJs way off center and mounted at an angle to the screen, is going to hurt your sharpness (at least a little) no matter how good the PJs are.

Well you are always trading one thing for another, a stack gets you the brightness you need on a big screen that everyone can watch, a single PJ on a big super high gain screen can be fun, just for less people.

Deron.