[Mark]

I've been reading many many many opinions on the 530 but I'm yet not able to find out if the new 530 is a good machine for HT use. My use would be ONLY with S-Video signals. So do you think this machine is the right for me or not ? Does it have a good internal deinterlacer ?


Bye


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Mark

 

[rtyuiop]

Take my advice with a grain of salt, as I'm a newbie myself - still shopping for my first projector.


But I believe the current consensus is that the 530 is a very good mahine for home theatre, but for the price difference between it and the LT150 you'd really have to need the extra brightness.


Apparently it's got a very, very good deinterlacer. As in very similar quality to the much ballyhooed external deinterlacers and HTPCs (under some circumstances).

 

[lennyr]

I recently got a 530 and checked out the internal deinterlacer last night for the first time. I hooked up an OK but not great DVD player to it via S-Video and watched Gladiator and 5th Element


The Faroudja chip is good, but not great. Its considerably than all the internal scalers I've seen except for the DWIN and Runcos (if those count as internal, since they're breakout boxes), which cost way more. However, it is not in the same league as a good external scaler or an HTPC.


One peculiar thing that I'm still trying to understand is that using the DVD player via the S-Video made Gladiator very rainbowey. I didn't notice any rainbows on 5th Element, and nothing I've viewed sourced from the PC has had noticable rainbows (I'm not very sensitive to them).



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-l

 

[Huey]

Infocus and Sony are well known for their deinterlacer and scaler with Infocus being the best. So yes, LP530 should do great with S-video but won't be at its best until you feed it progressive signal via HTPC or similar.


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Huey ;-]

 

[Oren]

Well, I got my LP530 yesterday. Swung by home during lunch to try it out (user tip: live close to work) and later that evening. Wow! What an image! Just being able to watch a large, smooth image on a flat surface (wall) was great! I had a regular DVD player hooked up to it via s-video and I calibrated it using Avia. As I walked in with it, I couldn't believe I was carrying a 120" TV under my arm.


Now, the bad news.


(a) The Halo. The 4 x 3 image basically has a white frame around it, which tapers off both going out and in a bit. When watching letterboxed material, the top and bottom edges of the frame are, of course, far from the image. In other words, the halo frames the DMD, not the image. I want the video image to appear to float on the wall.


(b) Black. I would be perfectly happy if black were the color of the wall with the lights off, but this actually projects light into the black areas. Thus with no signal at all (the DVD stopped, or off) there is a large 120" grey square on my wall. It lights up the room.


For $4300, I expect to feel like I'm in a theater! I suspect that I will be sending it back. Is this as good as it gets with DLP/LCD (in this price range)? I may just get a $400 27" TV.

 

[RNaval]

LennyR,


Do you have any high def sources via staellite or OTA? If so, how well does the 530 display HD images? Also, did you have the same experience regarding the Halo effect as described in the post above?



Thanks...Rohit

 

[lennyr]

I don't have an HD source yet (but will soon).


Yes, the halo looks pretty much as Oren describes it; the light leakage is also pretty bad. I've done a little fiddling with temporary masking, and think that when I finish the room, masking will be an OK solution to both problems.



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-l

 

[rlsmith]

Black masking (from JoAnn's fabrics) has worked well for me and my older Infocus. I believe that the 530 has less halo than the older models.

 

[honcho]

Mark,


I've got to agree with Oren. The halo is very bothersome. Also, I found that the de-interlacer has some problems (see the shootout for more details and a better projector). If you want to sync it to a HTPC, then you MUST be very careful! I couldn't get it to sync to my laptop.


Honcho


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Honcho

 

[chris5977]

Oren,


Before you send your machine back, try it with a proper screen. Your projector can only be as good as what your shooting on.


Yes, the light border IS bothersome. However, it can be completely eliminated with a black border.


Black levels can be dramatically improved with a grey screen.


You can go out and spend thousands on a Greyhawk, or do what I did: I have a dedicated theater in my basement. I painted the ceiling and the screen wall flat black. The rest of the room should also be an earthtone to cut down on stray reflections. On this black wall I painted a screen. The effect of an image floating in space is absolutely amazing.


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Christopher Young

Seattle, WA

 

[lennyr]

2 more cents:


I never had a synching problem. The PC worked fine in several resolutions $ refresh rates with no fiddling at all. I'd imagine that the unit in the shootout was defective, since running off laptops and showing spreadsheets is InFocus' stock in trade - they couldn't screw that up.



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-l