Brightness or Black Levels...what's important to you...

I have posted my thoughts on this a few times but always inside other threads where the topic turned to projector brightness. Thanks for starting a dedicated thread to this topic.


I see people using FP in 3 distinct different applications and each has a different slant on the high lumen / low lumen question.


The first scenario is the “classic home theater†it’s the one you describe in your first post. Totally light controlled and set up to be a luxury version of the movie theater experience. Rows of tiered seating dark walls etc. we have seen hundreds of photos of these beautifully designed and built theaters. I believe the high-end projectors are designed to suit the needs of such a room.


The second scenario is the “I want a big screen on a budget gang.†With the price of front projectors dropping and some good quality units becoming living room affordable more people are taking the plunge. The underlying problem is windows adjoining rooms and in short lots of uncontrolled ambient lighting.


I fell into the third group when planning my media room at first I wanted the home theater room because PQ and control go hand in hand. But while watching the Soprano’s one night I noticed how everyone in Tony’s home theater were trying to interact and sitting sideways in the chairs talking back and forth about what they were watching. And I thought about what my home viewing requirements really were. I wanted the feeling of a living room or family room like I grew up in. where a group of people could sit around and watch movies, sports, or regular old TV with enough light to have a pizza on the coffee table or even someone being able to read a book while others enjoyed the game. And my first thoughts were well FP is out then. But I did some experimenting and saw it’s possible to have the best of both worlds if you start with total light control and then selectively add back in task lighting along with a screen designed for this environment. And the other big key was lumens. Sports bars have been trying to do this type of thing for a long time and some have been very successful at it. I wont go into lots of detail on my setup because my screen and photos of my setup are documented in my signature link below. But in short my solution contained , total light control, a high lumen business projector, a DIY neutral gray screen, and carefully placed and controlled task lighting.

The room I built was and is a experiment into what I could do along these lines, it was all done on a really tight budget so when viewing the photos you wont see tufted leather etc. but the experiment did prove the concept to me and we have spent way to much time down there now that its up and running.


What I find happening now in regards to the sun-block thing. When watching a fight with the guys or football, golf etc classic bright TV no one says can you dim the lights a little. But when it’s a dedicated sit back and watch a movie night about the time the previews are starting someone will say can you dim the lights a little.


One thing about a high lumen projector on a low gain neutral gray screen is wide viewing cone and also because it’s a highly diffusive screen you get a bright image with great whites and good contrast and blacks but you don’t get that bright shimmer you see on a higher gain screen when hit with extra lumens. IMO low gain gray with high lumens is the most immersive of viewing experiences.


Sorry for the long post but those are my thoughts on lumens.

^Exactly how I look at it. The only thing I bring home from the theater is a large screen, my sound destroys what I get at a theater. The rest of the stuff at a theater imo is setup for commercialism (seating/popcorn machines,etc) which I have no need to replicate at all. My seating of choice is a nice pit and the room is setup really nice for a screen and a family room all-in-one. It's very casual and as you mentioned I have controlled, narrow beam lighting around the pit mounted to a shelf structure at 7' I built into the ceiling right in-line with the pit, so you can get light and watch to if you desire. I also run a zero gain screen to have 180 degree's of even viewing and I am open to more lumens so I don't have to close a few shades in the back of the room and have even a more natural environment for mid-day sports viewing etc. I can always go total light control if I want to but I don't always want to. IMO I'm taking the best of everything and putting it in one instead of trying to replicate something to a tee that imo doesn't have any real worth at home.

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well that goes without saying...but it seems to me there are few sub $3500.00 PJ's out there that can pull this off without making sacrafice somewhere else.


as for what makes a dim image, that is relative...which is the point of this thread. I don't think that my image is dim, but someone coming from a light canon DLP might think otherwise.

To coin a phrase from the audio world...Dynamic Range...is there even such a rating in the projector world?.?.


In a sense...the perfect pj would have tremendous dynamic range. To me that would mean it would be able to display perfect "inky" blacks with realistic contrast and shadow detail yet still be able to make you squint a bit in a high brightness situation(explosions, sunny desert scenes, spot light beams, etc.).


Personally...I've always ran big screens and as such...I've favored brightness over black levels. Of course I'm using a 5+yr. old lcd. Just about any pj I get now, whether considered high brightness or not, will likely yield a huge improvement in the black levels compared to my 13hd.


The new panny ax100 for instance...it's fairly bright, yet according to reviews has very nice black levels...sounds like a nice combo.

My projector and screen combined I have under $1000 invested in. I do have about 15 hours time spent on the DIY screen though.


Below are two screen shot thumbnails the first is as close as I can take a picture of the image I truly see with lights out. If anything the room surrounding the screen might look a little brighter than the image shows but I feel the intensity of the image is correctly portrayed.

http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2125308310068493142TUAWqG http://thumb2.webshots.net/t/36/36/3...2TUAWqG_th.jpg


This image is what the picture looks like with all the room lights on. There are (8) 60 watt flood lights on in this photo and 4 of them are within 3 feet of the screen front. The ceiling is gloss white and there were several other table lamps on during the shot. I know it’s a test screen I took it as it shows the black white checker board pattern. I never view anything with this level of lighting in fact the 4 closest lights are never on during any viewing. It’s more of an extreme case photo. I have to take some of just a sports type image and post. (maybe this weekend)

http://entertainment.webshots.com/photo/2834404380068493142hXjHIr http://thumb2.webshots.net/t/36/36/4...2hXjHIr_th.jpg


The point I didn’t make in my above post pertaining to lumens is how this allows you the opportunity to have a darker screen and lower gain. I talked about the gain some but not what a darker screen buys you in terms of perceived contrast. No projector can project black and we see black as a combination of what the screen looks like under whatever light is in the room and also as a contrast to the relative brightness of the surrounding image. IMO that’s what perceived contrast is.


So I do disagree that you have to spend over $3500 to get an image that has brightness and blacks both. I’m seeing it on a sub $800 projector

One fact people often overlook when judging brightness of images is what there eyes are doing. In a total light control theater with 20 FL hitting the screen your eyes are probably dilated 90% if not 100%.


In a room with a little ambient present you may think the light level is double when it could actually be 10 times, sunlight coming in the window you might say it’s 4 times as bright and actually it could be 100 times. Our eye constantly adjusts to the light level around us and tries to keep what we see in a comfortable range. It’s not until the eye runs out of travel we have any trouble seeing.


I personally like the way a somewhat brighter image looks when competing with a controlled level of ambient down in the end of the room I am sitting in. I have thought about this a lot and tested it with others and I’m still not sure why this is. But combined with the social setting aspect HorrorScope pointed out so well in his post is why I went this way.


Plus I can still hear my mother saying don’t sit to close to the TV and turn on a light it’s not good for your eyes to watch in the dark.

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For me...I like big, bright, clear images and I'm not trying to brag or anything but when anyone visiting my home walks into our theater and sees a 133" image that is as bright and sharp as a good 42" plasma they're simply amazed. Do they notice the non inky blacks...well no one has mentioned it in 5yrs...though it does bother me now that better pj's are out there.


Now are light cannons, like my 13hd, the most authentic at reproducing the movie theater experience...for the most part...not really.


I've also noticed a lot of guys here with medium size screens around 100-110 range talking about using lower power modes on the brighter pj's in an effort to prolong bulb life. Where with lower lumen pj's that may not be an option on medium and larger screens.


Basically with the brightness "headroom" that brighter pj's can have...one can implement filters etc. to get a very good image yet still be able to have a "plasma" like image that's measured in feet rather than inches.


I'm kinda at a x-roads right now myself...my 13hd is getting long in the tooth and I'm wanting to go 1080p...but all the recently announced pj's are a bit lumen shy. Then the new brighter 720p panny comes out...leaving me wondering which way to go.

I backed into the high lumen / ambient light scenario. Several years ago we built a dedicated bat-cave CRT theatre in the basement. We have a satellite feed down there, and we did go down to watch the occasional hockey game or event stuff like the Oscars, but, because of the low lumens and huge ( 12' x 7' ) screen, it's a strickly lights out theatre.


My GF is a big Olympics fan, and as they were approaching we decided to get an HD decoder. I was all set to rig this up in the theatre, when it became obvious that you really don't want to sit down there in the dark for hours and hours on end watching the Olympics.


I had bought a little Mits HC3 for use as a widescreen computer monitor in my small home office ( which worked great! a 65" monitor that takes up no desk space! ). I was impressed with how bright the thing was ( about 900 lumens in low lamp mode ), that I thought there was a chance it could work in our non-light controlled livingroom. I did some quick research here and the Greywolf was getting good reviews for it's ambient light rejection properties, and was dirt cheap. I grabbed a 92" one from a local dealer and hung it over the fireplace in the livingroom. I grabbed the HC3 from upstairs and plopped it down on a box on the sofa table behind the couch. Within a couple of hours from start to finish, presto! The 'Olympic Theatre' was born.


We have about 40' of floor to ceiling windows adjacent to the screen, and we didn't want to put up drapes, so, I was skeptical that it would be watchable in the daytime ( when the Olympics were on ). I was wrong. It works great during the day if you sit in the high gain cone ( not hard for us, as all the couch is in the cone ). At night, you can sit anywhere and still get a very bright punchy pic.


Friends we had over were always impressed with the bat-cave theatre, but no one really wanted make that kind of comittment for themselves ( well, a 175lb beast on the ceiling kinda scared them too! ). However, once we had the livingroom theatre up and running, and people saw the pic, and how the whole setup was virtually invisable when not in use, we had several of them take the plunge themselves, and more on the way.


The one problem with the HC3 is the pityful CR. This is no problem for sports or TV, but, I can't bear to watch a movie on it. ( which is fine, of course, as we have the bat cave ). But, with the new crop ( AX100, Epson 400, Mits WD2000 - all bright with lens shift ) I think you could get a much better lights out movie experience than I can get with the HC3. Even though we don't NEED it .. I think one of these three little light cannons is in our future. ( after all, ... I do NEED to get my widescreen 'monitor' back for work use! )


Jonathan

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I know exactly what you mean. For quite some time I used a pull down screen in the same room, so that we could place a RPTV behind it and use it to watch SD and HD content for prolonged times with the lights on.


Clearly projectors with high light output give much more flexibility for lighting conditions. And thus for most people that own such a PJ and have responded do indeed do some ambient light viewing...which is what I was trying to determine.


I had actuallty considered getting the AX100 while I was shopping around, but I felt that for my viewing habits the extra light output would be wasted. I also had no use for the dynamic eye that adjusts the light output, but I can see how that is appealing to some people that do not have dedicated rooms...which appears to be the group that Panny is targeting it.

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that's pretty impressive with the the ambient lighting. What Pj are you using?

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I wouldn't necessarily jump to that conclusion. Certainly there is a percentage of people that choose bright PJs for overcoming ambient light, but there are also a great many people who need/want a bright PJ in order to drive a large screen. I have a dedicated room (dark walls, ceiling, & carpeting, no windows) and I like having a bright PJ (IN76) because it allows me to use a unity gain 112" screen and not worry about maintaining sufficient brightness as the lamp dims as it ages. You feel your HS51 gives you all the brightness you need on your 92" screen. You may feel differently however, if you ever decide to use a 120" screen!


That's the whole thing - you aren't necessarily sacrificing black levels when you choose a bright projector. It really depends on how large of an image you're projecting and the gain of your screen. A brighter projector on a large 1.0 screen can have the same Ft-L as a dimmer projector on a small 1.0 screen. All other things being equal, that should mean equivalent black levels.


And of course, you can always add an ND filter to a bright PJ if needed...

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agreed, I don't see the sony pushing something bigger than 100" without changing over to a high gain screen, nor could my AE700. Lucky for me my room wont support a screen that big


By no means am I saying that there is no need for brighter projectors, quite the opposite really...I think it's great that manufactures are able to punch more and more out of these little machines, but I was curious what types of environments the majority of these machines were being used in, especially with all the interest in the AX100.


Clearly there are many people here that prefer the vivid and brighter pictures...as a matter of fact I distinctly get the feeling that I am in the minority here.