[cinergi]

Marantz Owners


Problem: Power on the unit. Blue power LED turns turns on solid. Nothing happens. Color wheel does does not spin up, fan does not come on, nothing happens at all. After 30 seconds or so, the warning/lamp red LED starts flashing.


What's wrong and, if possible, how do I fix it?


Thanks.

 

[amirbd]

Hi cinergi,


I'm not sure if this is related. When my machine was reatively new, It had problem related probably to the temp sensing, and would not start (I do not remmeber the exact symptom). The think that solved it was to physically disconnet the projector from the power outlet. reconnect and (assuming the machine was powered off more than 30 mins) and turn on. Only happened once to me, and I think another time to another Marantz owner.


I hope that this will help, and that you will enjoy your projector (I do a lot).


Cheers,


Amir

 

[cinergi]

unfortunately, unpluging it for 30 min has not worked. Anyone else with any ideas? By the way it did work at first and looked incredible. I turned it off, waiting until the fan stopped then unplugged it from the wall in order to see if image quality would be improved by plugging it into a PS Audio Ultimate Outlet. Soon as I turned it back on the problem started.


If anyone knows what is causing this problem please let me know.


Thanks.

 

[Dan Miller]

I don't know which one of these you are going to see first, this or my PM to you, but check the bulb cover interlock switch. Sometimes durong shipping, the screw get nudged a half turn or so, causing the PJ tho think that the bulb cover is open. On mine, I took the bulb cover off and bent the prong on the internal microswitch a tiny bit outward, just to make sure that it would never do that again...


Good luck,


Dan

 

[WanMan]

Curious to know the outcome of this one. Good luck.

 

[cinergi]

I just want everyone to know that I am a Marantz dealer. Its Saturday night about 10:00 PM and I am finishing up a custom install for a client that had been waiting for over 2 months on his projector because of the huge back order on the VP12s1. My client was sitting here staring at a blank firehawk screen and non too happy either so,


I PM'ed Dan Miller asking for his help thinking that I was on my own until probably the 1st available business day - Monday. Boy, was I wrong. Dan replied within 5 minutes with the solution. Just a little 1/2 turn of the bulb cover screw did the trick. It was a little loose probably due to shipping (the foam inserts were shredded upon arrival at my store).


Dan Miller goes beyond the call of duty to support Marantz customers. I have no better rep than Dan Miller. Dan, I thank you and my customer thanks you.


PS


Dan, I hope your over time bill doesn't put me out of business.


Have Fun everybody

 

[vdelauz]

cinergi,


I'm glad to see that you had a favorable outcome to your predicament. And, yes, you're certainly correct about Dan Miller.


Dan Miller and Don Stewart, what a pair they are!

 

[cinergi]

Well, I spoke a little to soon. Not about Dan's great service but about the pj powering on consistently. After getting it to work again by unplugging everything and tightening the bulb cover screw ( assumption being that the bulb cover screw being loose was the cause of the problem) I decided to try plugging the pj into the PS Audio ultimate outlet again. Well, the pj wouldn't power on again. Now, you would start to think the pj doesn't like being plugged into an ultimate outlet but you would be wrong.


This time I left it plugged into the ultimate and just unplugged the s-video, component video, and RGB cables. Then I plugged the s-video back in by itself. Powered on the pj and bam it worked. Powered it back off and on again to be sure and no problem. I then plugged the component cable back in and did the same routine with no problem. Finally, I plugged in the RGB cable, powered the pj on and it worked. Powered it off then back on again and NOTHING.


I then remembered that I had the RGB cable plugged into an inverter which is then plugged into a RCA DTC100. The DTC100 outputs a positive sync. Most display devices use a negative sync thus, you can have problems when the DTC100 and your display device's sync don't match.


I tried the inverter because earlier the image would not fill out the right hand side of the screen using the DTC100 where as every other device worked flawlessly. I first tried changing the long retrace timing setting on the DTC100 to short retrace which made an improvement but the image was still short of the right hand side of the screen by about 2 inches. This is when I tried the inverter which more than likely was causing the pj to not power on. Since taking it out of the loop I have had no failures.


Still need to find a solution for the image not filling out the right hand side of the screen though. All I can think of is to adjust the horizontal shift but this seems to hamper picture quality. It could just be my tired eyes. It's after midnight now.


I'll let everyone know if the ultimate outlet does anything to the picture quality. Not counting on it. Just thought I would try it out and see. They do seem to improve sound quality a little though by lowering the noise floor just a tad.


Thanks for listening.

 

[Dan Miller]

I'm curious, does the DTC's fill problems occur when viewing HD channels, or non HD channels through the HD output? If that's the case, the best thing to do (actually the best thing to do anyway) is to hook up the DTC both HD and S. There is a discrete command to turn on and off the DTC HD output, which has been posted several times to remote central. By making sure that you are just viewing the HD only through the RGB, you allow the scaler in the PJ to do the conversion to 720p vs the DTC scaling rather poorly to 540p and then the set converts to 720p which degrades the signal.


If it is all the signals, let me know. We are connecting a DTC up at our Chicago offices in a week or so (we have been using Dish until now), so we can do experiments.


Even though the DTC is one of the more problematic STBs out there, it is nontheless a very popular one, so we want to make sure it works properly.


Dan

 

[cinergi]

Yes, the fill problems occur when viewing HD channels. The DTC100 is only used for HD. An Ultimate TV is being used for normal NTSC and is hooked up to the s-video input.


Which HD box have you had the best luck with on the VP12s1?


Doug

 

[MichaelZ]

cinergi, I use a DTC-100 as well as a HiPix and both work the same as far as HD is concerned. You need to realize that the DTC-100 outputs 1080i and the Marantz remaps it to fit the 720p chip and in the remapping it comes up a little short on the full screen width. I do not understand how it could be 2 inches shorter, though, unless it is one really big screen but it is maybe a 1/2 in. on the sides on mine (just guessing from memory). Use the short retrace timing (middle selection) and then adjust the image to middle to lessen the difference. Look in the back of the manual and you can see how the Marantz remaps different resolutions to its chip set.

 

[cinergi]

That brings up a good question. Does the Marantz pass thru 1080i thru the RGB connection or does it scale it down to 720p?


I was under the impression that it passed thru 1080i


Doug

 

[Dan Miller]

Michael and Cinergi


The VP12S1 remaps everything to 720p, including 1080i. If you have used the internal crosshatch (FOCUS) to line up to the screen, and it sees either 1080i or 720p, the aspect ratio controls become disabled and the PJ will map to fit the screen. If there is a sizing problem, it is due to something in the signal. If you use a Sencore VP300 or similar device to generate a standardized CE spec HD signal, you will see that it works just the way it's supposed to. The problem is the DTC. Its output is non standard, and has been since day 1. Other STBs (my panny DST51, for one) work just fine.


DM

 

[Paulbert]

I have found that I need to set the Marantz RGB input to 1080i instead of Auto.

This prevents me from using my HTPC effectively, but it gives be a beautiful full screen image with HD from a DTC-100. It also resolved aspect ratio issues when switching to OTA HD and back to DSS 1080i or 540p.


Since I made this change I never need to touch the image size settings on the Marantz.


Paul

 

[cinergi]

Thanks Paul. Setting the RGB system to 1080i causes the image to fill out the entire screen.


Doug

 

[Dan Miller]

Oops... my bad. I forgot to suggest that. DUH!

 

[MovieMan]

Dan, and anyone else,


I have a Time Warner Digital Cable box, and when viewing anything through Component, the image syncs fine, and will fill the screen when its supposed to. The problem is, for some reason, on blacks and greys, the image has a definite green tint to it. HD is not so bad though. So, when I switch to Svideo, the green tint is still there but ITS VERY SLIGHT, and the image becomes watchable. SO when viewing non HD channels, Im watching them via Svideo.



However, the image will not fill the last 2 inches of the right side of the screen except for maybe two channels. Its odd, I can expand the picture Horizontally and it will fill up, but I do end up loosing some picture along the left side of the screen, and of course people become shorter and fatter. Keep in mind this is with original 4:3 material, and the projector is expanding the image to fit the screen. The other wierd thing is that all the menu system, and program guides will fill the entire screen. Its only the video material that doesnt. For example, Im watching a program, and the right side of the image falls short about 2 inches, when I hit the info button on the remote, the little menu that pops up, fits the screen entirely, but the image behind it still falls short.


Im sure its probably something with the cable box, I have swapped out two and still have the problems though, but I think the box is still considered Beta.


MovieMan

 

[Dan Miller]

One of the things that the engineers did that bugs me slightly was to program the set to do almost no overscan (about 2%). While for controlled source material (like DVD) this is preferable, on my Dish Network box, I don't fill the last inch on the right. Unless they change the overscan ratios ( I have asked them for 4-5% all the way around), it's just something we have to live with...


Oh well...



Dan

 

[AnonymousCoward]

Oh, I hope they don't listen.


Overscan is a real problem with HTPC. These will more and more become a source.

 

[Dan Miller]

Quote:

Originally posted by AnonymousCoward Oh, I hope they don't listen. Overscan is a real problem with HTPC. These will more and more become a source.

True, and what I've asked for is for overscan only on video based sources, i.e. S-Video input, composite, and 480i only on component.