I finally got an "in home" demo of CP-SX 5500 at a friend's place. We projected on a DaLite Screen (gain unknown, but would guess 1.0-1.3)) from about 3,5 meters away. Zoom at max image size.
Source was Philips 962SA PAL/NTSC progressive via Y/Pb/Pr component outputs.
We used all sorts of settings available to tweak the picture except the service menu. We tried all gamma settings, black enhancement on/off, contrast/brightness settings, etc.
Good things first:
+ No visible pixel structure - very un-digital in this regard
+ Bright and dimensional image (with the screen we tried, maybe too so, even in whisper mode with normal gamma and brigthness turned down)
Then the disappointing things:
- A bit too loud. Yes, loud. This is very subjective, but to me this is still too loud. I'd require at least another 3dB away off the noise. Even AE-100 is more tolerable (even if the dB rating is quite similar)
- Black level (remember our screen, no service menu, no filters) isn't there. It was almost LCD bad - IMHO untolerable
- the darkest c. 5-10% is lost in the image (i.e. the dark end clogs up)
- definite colour cast - deep reds were way off and so were skin tones (this was to be expected and should be curable with filters/service menu for the most part)
- pixel noise (doesn't look like video source noise): single pixels changing their hue/ligthness quite rapidly. It's like ants moving very fast
- slight solarisation / banding problems with some gradients
All in all, this particular unit - without serious tweaks - was a disappointment.
If somebody can tweak a watchable projector out of this (as people here have demonstrated), then this thing would be *very nice*. Personally I think it needs a grey screen to improve the black levels.
However, for almost 10 000 euros (where I live) and requiring heavy tweaking I think the projector is merely a promising sign of hopefully things to come, but not enjoyable for me as a HT projector.
I'm really getting desperate now... I've tried them all now DLP (rainbows for me), LCD (too many problems to mention) and LCOS (as above). Looks like I'm heading to crt-land the way I'm going.
I wish you guys here wouldn't have taught me to be so critical
cheers,
Halcy
Source was Philips 962SA PAL/NTSC progressive via Y/Pb/Pr component outputs.
We used all sorts of settings available to tweak the picture except the service menu. We tried all gamma settings, black enhancement on/off, contrast/brightness settings, etc.
Good things first:
+ No visible pixel structure - very un-digital in this regard
+ Bright and dimensional image (with the screen we tried, maybe too so, even in whisper mode with normal gamma and brigthness turned down)
Then the disappointing things:
- A bit too loud. Yes, loud. This is very subjective, but to me this is still too loud. I'd require at least another 3dB away off the noise. Even AE-100 is more tolerable (even if the dB rating is quite similar)
- Black level (remember our screen, no service menu, no filters) isn't there. It was almost LCD bad - IMHO untolerable
- the darkest c. 5-10% is lost in the image (i.e. the dark end clogs up)
- definite colour cast - deep reds were way off and so were skin tones (this was to be expected and should be curable with filters/service menu for the most part)
- pixel noise (doesn't look like video source noise): single pixels changing their hue/ligthness quite rapidly. It's like ants moving very fast
- slight solarisation / banding problems with some gradients
All in all, this particular unit - without serious tweaks - was a disappointment.
If somebody can tweak a watchable projector out of this (as people here have demonstrated), then this thing would be *very nice*. Personally I think it needs a grey screen to improve the black levels.
However, for almost 10 000 euros (where I live) and requiring heavy tweaking I think the projector is merely a promising sign of hopefully things to come, but not enjoyable for me as a HT projector.
I'm really getting desperate now... I've tried them all now DLP (rainbows for me), LCD (too many problems to mention) and LCOS (as above). Looks like I'm heading to crt-land the way I'm going.
I wish you guys here wouldn't have taught me to be so critical
cheers,
Halcy