Anyone seen Rainbows on new color wheel?

I saw the Sharp 9000 this past Sunday, after seeing the 11HT on Saturday (neither of them make me want to drop my CRT, but that's not the point of this thread). I am sensitive to the rainbow, and I suppose I'm very sensitive because I did see them on the Sharp. They were not nearly as bad as a DLP with a normal speed color wheel, they only appeared on brightly lit objects during moments of high contrast. I found it slightly annoying, but I did not experience any fatigue while watching, which I normally do when viewing a DLP. I could sit and watch it at someone else's house, but I wouldn't buy it myself. Otherwise, it's a truly outstanding projector (except in black level, but I'm a CRT owner so take that with a grain of salt), exceptionally sharp and colorful. I did make out some graininess on the superbit of the Fifth Element, but only at an unreasonable viewing distance.


Edit - I should also state that if I put up a 100 IRE grid pattern (For Convergence) on my CRT I can also see color sepration if I look from one side of the screen to the other rapidly, but only under those circumstances.

Rainbows are an interesting creature, aren't they? I agree that the 10% figure is probably not accurate. It didn't take me long to notice them on my LT85. However, as many people have said, I think that you can learn to live with them (and perhaps even tune them out?). I guess in some ways this is probably not that different than any other "defect". Once you allow yourself to become involved in a movie, you can tune out just about any defect.


Recently, my church organized a men's night in which we showed one of the episodes of "Band of Brothers". The place we met had a great conference/lecture room with staggered seating and a big screen. The screen looked to be projected from the rear by a FP CRT (I didn't go in the back to look). When they started it up, I (and everyone) noticed about the most awful big screen picture I had seen in some time. The problem was snow. The hotel must have split their coaxial cable a hundred times before it reached this room. However, despite such an awful picture, after about 10-15 minutes, I had tuned it out and enjoyed the show.


This proves something to me (which many may disagree with here). The most important aspect to great movie watching is a big screen. I think I'd rather have a poor looking, but much more enveloping, big screen than a great looking TV. Hmm...This could make a great poll.


I'll take it one step further. I was in a local A/V dealer that specializes in high end setups (FP, etc.) and custom installation. They had a theater room and boy did they have the subwoofer booming. The whole showroom area (small place) was vibrating. They were playing "Saving Private Ryan". When I went into the room, I gained a new appreciation for loud sound, but more specifically the role of a good subwoofer. My second thought, though, was that my wife would never allow me to shake the house like that. So, despite considering myself more of a videophile than an audiophile, I think that beyond a big screen the most important aspect to having an enveloping experience is a good surround sound setup with plenty of bass. Again, I think this has more impact on the "enveloping" aspect than picture quality would.


So, why is this? Well, I think that a big screen and good sound (with good rumbling) is always there to engulf you whereas many picture defects can be "tuned out". Other thoughts?


Scott

Paul, I have seen the rainbow effect on a DLP through a HTPC running at greater than 60Hz. 72Hz to be precise. I did not get a chance to see the Sharp running through a HTPC or scaler that could vary the refresh rate, there was a Pioneer DV-37 running directly into the projector as the source. The refresh rate might help in my case, but I think not since I seem to be particularly susceptible to the effect.


William, why would you rule out a CRT projector based on videogames? I have a CRT and I play a lot games and have no ill effects. So long as you calibrate the system properly, keeping the contrast and brightness settings to sane levels, then you shouldn't have any problems with burn in. Overdriving the CRT's will give you burn in very quickly with any source material that has a still image in it, not just games. I've never seen a properly calibrated CRT with burn from games from normal use. On the contrary, I saw a Toshiba widescreen TV taken out of the box and put on display at factory settings at a Best Buy I worked at. It was playing a demo loop with text on it that changed every two minutes or so. That set had burn in with the text from Twister in a couple of months.