[Brett]

Hi Alan,


Remembering your posts from yesteryear when you were actively investigating possibilities of setting up 2 CRT projectors side by side to use their full 4:3 rasters and full light output to derive an eye-popping cinemascope image.


This new graphics card from Matrox might offer such new prospects, unless it isn't entirely seamless with respect to overlap of each display's output, needs specific coding in software to be activated, lowers image quality when in multiscreen mode - or worst yet, if it requires 3 projectors to work!


Here's the links:
http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/p...und_gaming.cfm
http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/p...triplehead.cfm

Cheers,

 

[johnboy]

Very interesting indeed!


I currently have 2 NEC PG10's that I had originally planned on stacking but found it to much of a hassle. I wonder if this is the ticket. I'm willing to try if two projectors would work I just need to be guided a little.


Johnboy

 

[Tim in Phoenix]

Guys!


We were installing systems with two and three Marquee projectors driven by big Silicon Graphics computers and a Panoram edge-blend generator; to eliminate the annoying hard seam between rasters it was necessary to draw a blend zone with common pixels on the left edge of the right projector and the right edge of the left projector; the contrast was rolled off to zero by the Panoram; this blend zone took up about 15% of the image width but was the only way to be seamless. If this could be done affordably in a PC then it would be of some value in high-end home and other applications. It bothers me to only use 65% of the CRT face!

 

[Stephan]

Brett,


this is not really new. Dual-Desktop graphiccards have been used in medical imaging for quite some time. The image quality of these cards is stunning. I'm surprised that no one has tried this before.


The cards I know are from Matrox, which are used by Siemens in their workstations for CT/MRI. Barco also makes these cards, as well as several other manufacturers.


I don't see any problems using one of these cards with two projectors. The image quality does not lower in multiscreen mode. There's no overlaping on the card, this has to be adjusted on the projectors.


All we need now is a card that comes down in price, I'm not at the office right now but I rember the price to be somewhere over $4.000,-

 

[alchemist]

since we like good graphics cards....you guys forgot two important cards....the nVidia GeForce MX series with Dual head capabilities and the Radeon LE (or is it VE)....anyway both of these are excellent dual head cards. The hardest part would be getting the hard line in between the two to dissappear.....i'm too new to crt projection to know anything about it though

 

[jeep lover 2]

I've got more than one ECP in the house... If the cards were more along the 250 dollar mark, I'd sign up for this. I've got to admit, 1200 lumens sounds better than 600. I'd hate to see what a couple of XG135s can do!


Sean

 

[alchemist]

Both the ATI (radeon) and Nvida (geForce mx) are under 100$...actually closer to 50-75 depending on what model you get.....compugeeks actually has a nice geforce mx quadra that would be perfect.

 

[Alan Gouger]

Hi Guys


Over the last year I have tried every card out there including some

12k boxes and all had some issues.


I have not tried the Matrox. Im going to look into it. Brett thanks for the links.


Tim


I also spoke with Panoram. Wow 100k because they wanted to sell the whole system including the projectors. I could not get past the snobbish sales person. There stuff was definitely over priced.


By the way you did not comment on the resulting picture quality?

 

[MYoung]

I have 2 Sony 1031Qs that I was planning on stacking and thought about this as a possibility too. Definately an exciting prospect! With a side by side setup what would the general aspect ratio be? About 2:1? Would you run at 640x480 on each output? Since DVDs are 720x480 wouldn't there be some pixel aliasing? What about widescreen vs. anamorphic? Then you have virgin phosphor area, though I guess that can be solved with blanking. What is the deal with overlap? It needs to be so precise that the RGB H shift can't be dialed in? Not using only 65% of the phosphor bugs me too with a single setup. It ALMOST makes we want to watch something 4:3 pan-scanned as it's a much more enthrolling experence even if it isn't OAR.

 

[Rob Dingen]

Hello


The biggest problem with the old generation video cards with dual head are that the video overlay is only working on one output

The 65% phosphor is not so bad and maybe possible to get more but if you watch a 2.35 movie and look at the CRT face you use maybe less than 65%

The big advantage is that you use the total vertical resolution of the CRT so the picture will be much sharper

Barco has an option of soft edge (don't now the exact name) so the edge fade to black to put 2 projectors ore more side by side


Rob

 

[Alan Gouger]

There are currently numerous cards on the market $$$$ and none that I have tried will do what we want. The all have issues like one I just tried does not support direct x 8.0 It needs an older version. Its stuff like this I a running into.


I will talk to matrix today. It only mentions gaming so I am hoping theres not a catch in this one as well.


You can overlap 2 projectors without any out board electronic box. Its a pain but you mount a vertical strip of cardboard between the 2 projectors about a foot in front of the units. This strip is about 4" wide (you need to experiment) and bleeds into the edge of both projectors softening them allowing a near perfect seam. I have done it and it worked great.

A company at cedia a few years ago did the same thing.

 

[Tim in Phoenix]

Quote:

Originally posted by Alan Gouger Tim I also spoke with Panoram. Wow 100k because they wanted to sell the whole system including the projectors. I could not get past the snobbish sales person. There stuff was definitely over priced. By the way you did not comment on the resulting picture quality?

The image quality was fabulous, no insertion loss at all from the edge blender; we were looking at 100 column text. Our clients, GM Design Staff for one, were using the systems to look at full size renderings of proposed vehicles, displayed in active stereo using lcd shutter goggles, very cool stuff!

 

[Alan Gouger]

Hi Tim


Ok Ill take 2. One for the home and one for the showroom


Tim

What were the needed Panaram components to pull off what we are talking about and ball park whats the needed budget just for the Panaram.

 

[johnboy]

Allen,


I'm beginning to get goose bumps. I have 2 pg 10's and I was ready to get ride of one of them but now I'm ready to rock and roll, OBi-one-kanobi your our only hope.


Johnboy

 

[Greg_R]

Quote:

Our clients, GM Design Staff for one, were using the systems to look at full size renderings of proposed vehicles, displayed in active stereo using lcd shutter goggles, very cool stuff!

One of the learning channels recently had a first ever look behind the scenes at GM R&D. I believe they showed this system (interactive 3D model of a car)...

 

[Doug Ravizza]

I was recently in Anahem on a business trip and saw, in the ESPN Zone video arcade at Disneyland, a race car game that uses stacked NEC's throwing onto a 133° curved screen. The picture was seemless but because of ambient lighting and the fact that the game graphics being displayed weren't highly detailed, I couldn't really get a good idea of the pq but looking at the picture, the only way you could tell mutiple pj's were being used was their individual color calibtrations were off. What I found most interesting is that the game was being controlled with a LabView front end. This is the company that makes the game: http://www.illusioninc.com/productinformation.html

 

[Alan Gouger]

This looks promissing.


Read my posts in this thread.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=140852

 

[Tim in Phoenix]

Say Alan


If memory serves, the Panoram edge blender listed around $20K, and needed a PC to talk to it. The trick was to get blend zone pixels drawn twice to have an overlap region; would you have $500K in the budget for an SGI rack Onyx system??

 

[Alan Gouger]

500k...Ouch

 

[gyzmo]

This all sounds a bit much for a home cinema.


But I am about to do a job with 3 rear projection screens with special "near seamless" joins between the screens. It is going in a tourist information center, what a waste.

But it is OK they are only LCD PJs.


I will post some photos in a few weeks.


GYZMO