[turbe]

I can't believe this f***ing projector (would have been a excellent buy at $2,700.00)


I simply installed it on my computer desk, pointed it towards a wall around 6 feet away (wall color is a flat beige color). This gives me a screen around 60" diagonal and I don't even have it square to the wall. I am sitting about 5 feet away from the wall.


I have a lot of outside light coming in (even when my vertical blinds are down).


My Configuration:

White segment off, Gamma set to Natural 1, Resolution is 1024x768 72hz, running on a PIII 500Mhz, 256Mb, Geforce256 DDR base card, WinDVD 3.0.


Colors are awesome (even without a screen) and the LT150 is plenty bright under my conditions. The Window's Desktop is very sharp and stable.


I watched parts of The Fifth Element and Gladiator... WOW, WOW, I can't believe it. The colors are incredible and the image is so sharp and detailed. I can't wait to get a Hi Power screen.


Thank you so much Grant and the others who helped me with my purchasing decision.. I feel very lucky to have been able to buy this projector at $1,700.00 delivered Overnight. This would not of happened for me without this forum.


Well, those are my first comments...


-Shawn




[This message has been edited by turbe (edited 08-01-2001).]

 

[Fatshaft]

Shawn,


Congratulations! This projector does ROCK! I'm freaking out too.


Wait till you see it in HiDef...you're going to freak-out on how "Crystal clear" this little sucker is!


Congrats and go nuts...it's ok to let it out.

I thank Grant too


Regards,

 

[Lou Sytsma]

I agree - this unit rocks!


------------------

Every man is my superior, in that I may learn from him.

 

[j albert morgan]

I agree. It would have been a deal at $2700. At $1700 it is a steal. This is some value. I got mine this morning and did what Shawn did, except mine is hooked up to a Dell laptop (PIII, 800MHz, 256Mb, WinDVD). I am projecting against a beige wall from 10 feet. Awesome, just awesome. I also have the white segment off and Gamma set to Natural 1. Now, if only I could find a breakout cable.


Thanks to this board and to Grant and Tom in particular.


[This message has been edited by j albert morgan (edited 08-01-2001).]

 

[turbe]

I'd like to see comments from others who are seeing the LT150 in action for the first time...

http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

[Sword]

I got my LT150 through AV Science for the $2700 price, so I wasn't part of the Dell feeding frenzy.


I am using a HTPC at 1024x768, 72Hz, Radeon and am just blown away by the LT150. I am projecting to a 64" wide tripod screen that has seen better days.


My order for a ceiling mount is on its way; I can't get enough throw distance on a table. I'll determine what screen options are open to me, but I may build one for starters at 80" wide and see how that does

 

[jin kim]

I only have it hooked up via s-video from my DVD player and it looks great projected on a matte white wall. Can't wait till I get a scalar.

 

[halljb]

I received my Dell LT150 the day before yesterday (I had to wait a week for ground shipping)and I agree that this projector rocks!


I projected it on a cream colored wall from about 13 feet which gave an image about 8 feet wide. The colors and black levels are great even with no screen and no calibration.


My only issues are the rainbows and the fan noise. I demoed the Runco SVGA DLP and could only force myself to see

rainbows by violently darting my eyes. It's much easier to see them with this projector (white segment off, using htpc)I think that the rainbows will be less of a problem if I use a smaller screen (I was having to watch this 8' wide screen from about 10' away). The Runco I saw was on a 7.5' or so screen and at an 18-20' viewing distance.


Just for kicks I set it up last night on my only other blank wall which is a 2 story vault. The projector was throwing about 20' and the image was 11-12' wide. I was pleasantly surprised by the picture I got! I assumed that there wouldn't be enough light to go that large, but the picture was nice and bright! Also the rainbows even improved a bit on the larger screen (I have no idea why). It was a very theater-like experience.


Overall this projector gets to big thumbs up (especially for the price)!


Brian

 

[mcody]

I have been a "lurker" here for 2 months or. Not having a HT, I did not have a lot to contribute yet and just researched. I do not even have the room finished. As such, a projector was supposed to be my LAST PURCHASE, not my first. Boy, am I glad that didn't end up happening.


When the Dell deal came up (to which I am eternally grateful to this forum for bringing to my attention) I thought "seems like a good deal and if not, I haven't lost too much since I can just return the unit to Dell." I was planning on getting the Sharp unit coming up for $9000, so this was a big savings.


Maybe I'm impressed because I have never owned a front projector or seen a DVD run through a HTPC (my Dell laptop in this case). Whatever the case, when I got the LT150 set up last night and shot it onto a 60 x 60 presentation screen from my WinDVD source I was blown away. The colors and shadow detail are great! I watched the Disney CG animated Dinasour and it really looked awesome. I had looked at the Sony 10HT ($8,000 at Tweeters) but the contrast wasn't nearly as good.


I did notice the rainbow effect when I was watching U-571. The white subtitles against the black background were the only place I saw them and it wasn't too bad. I was surprised at how loud the fan was. Unfortunately I had the thing right next to my chair. Even my girlfriend (who thinks I should save this money to by her a bigger engagement ring)said "as soon as you can make that thing quieter this will be perfect". Fortunatley, it should be easy to find a place for it. I can't believe how small this thing is. It fits in one hand.



The image seemed plenty bright on a 60 x 60 matte screen. I have a Hi-Power 60 x 80 on order but I hope it is not TOO bright. Maybe I should get a bigger screen (hehehehe).


I used my Dell 750mhz laptop, running WinDVD 3.0 as a source. I also tried my 2 year old Sony DVD player via S-Video. The laptop was much, much smoother.


I think I will build a HTPC to get the most out of this projector. With a HD video capture card, Dscaler, and a new ATI Radeon graphics card - this thing should look AWESOME.


I cannot wait to get home and play.

 

[Ken Blauvelt]

Turbe-ville...


Congrats on the LT150 deal. What can I say, you scored big-time. I'm envious of the portability of that little guy. If ya ever wanna do a G15/LT shootout, you'll be the one travelling.


Let me know,


------------------

Ken B.

 

[turbe]

HaHa... I thought that was you....


No need for shootout, those DILA's are too big (beautiful picture though)...


We will all be upgrading by 2nd quarter next year... http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif


-Shawn

 

[ckolchak]

got mine this afternoon and burned about 10 hours off the bulb already (where did the time go??!).

my observations probably won't be worth much to most people since

1) i'm using a DIY screen of blackout material

and

2) just using an interlaced dvd signal thru s-video


with those two things in mind,

i'll say i was happily surprised by some qualities of this projector, and dissapointed but optimistic with some other areas.

to me the HUGE cool factor with this projector is the size.

the picture , while never horrible or unwatchable, just doesn't come close (at this point) to what i get from my digital Sony rptv. i am having a lot of problems calibrating the colors. a picture calibrated to display fine at one chapter, ends up looking blown-out 2 chapters later. i don't know how much if anything this has to do with the s-video connection. Most of the time, faces tend towards magenta, and yellow tends towards green.

maybe i just have to sit there and play with it a few more hours, but i've cycled thru all the gamma, temp, white balance settings 20 times already. as soon as i got the picture satisfactory for one movie, the next movie needing fixin'. i'm kinda worried if i bring up the menus anymore, it may blow a gasket.

hopefully most of this can be cured with a pro screen. i'll be asking for some hi-power samples first thing tomorrow.

the next big dissapointment i had was what i assume is either the scaling or deinterlacing of the picture. jagged edges, smearing, poor resolution, etc. From what everyone has said so far, i'm optimistic a p/s player (or less likely for me, a HTPC) will go a ways to rectifying this aspect.

one curious thing i've noticed is that non-anamorphic movies don't look all that much worse from anamorphic ones.

that is if they are 1.85 or less. WALKABOUT which is pretty dissapointing on the digital RP without a progressive player, actually looked pretty good on the pj, and not that much worse than some of the state-of-the-art anamorphic transfers.

the last big problem for me is , of all things....screendoor (!?)

from a little over 10' feet away, on a 80" wide screen i could make out the screendoor pretty frequently. this was usually really obvious during pans.

i'm glad i stoped dreaming about LCD's, if this is just a hint of the kind of image they have to deal with.

i would like to put in a 96" wide constant height/variable width screen, but this factor may prevent that. 80" is a nice step up from the 40" on my HS10, but if i could get up to a 96" , i don't think i'd ever go to a pay theater again.

the screendoor is dissapointing since it's one more thing that takes me out of the movie.


and now , ... the rainbows

- i do see them, and on some movies pretty frequently. The Thin Red Line had near constant rgb artifacts, along with X-Men and Gilda (one of my favorite B&W's), but then the clips from 12 Angry Men (another B&W Classic) played almost entirely rainbow free. probably because of the more extensive range of grays, whereas Gilda had some high contrast areas (black jackets w/ white shirts were a big source of of the problem).

all in all,somewhat less than i had feared, and in one case (Gladiator) MUCH, MUCH less than the $17000 Runco i saw.

inconsistent from scene to scene or movie to movie. They are starting to aggravate me. maybe its a psychological thing, and if i stop fighting them, and just learn to relax, they won't be so bad...it's gonna be hard.


i do miss the trade off in picture quality compared to my 53HS10. although i know i can get better eventually with the right additions and tweaks, there seems to be a sense of work when i sit down to watch something on this projector. It takes some effort not to be bothered by the rainbows or be distracted by screendoor, or to ignore the story while i try to rectify the picture settings for the current scene.

i'm looking forward to picking up some black fabric today because I KNOW some kind of matting system is going to add to the picture tremendously. it did with the rptv.

although it won't alleviate some of the other problems.

when i take into account that i paid $1000 less for this than i did for my RP just 6 months ago, and that i can have any size image i want, and if i need to, just pack it up and put it in the closet, well that just totally floors me.

Thanks to Grant & Tom ( and the guys at AVS for putting up with all these posts)and of course whoever screwed up at NEC or DEll.

i'm not completely sold on it yet. Between the intermitant rainbows and the problems calibrating color and the other picture settings, i haven't really, in the last 10 hrs of looking at images , been captivated enough to just get lost in the movie.

this did happen when i first got the RP. the large size can be awesome for certain scenes, but it seems like something always crops up eventually to take me 'out of the moment'. at this point i'd keep the NEC more for its size and portability, than for the image it produces. Frequently, even with s-vid, the image is pretty spectacular, but it's just so damned inconsistent.




[This message has been edited by ckolchak (edited 08-03-2001).]

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Well this little guy continues to impress! Even with poor cabling and only a bedsheet to project onto I am amazed at what I am watching.


Last night I watched Blade and the black levels in this predominantly dark picture were truly impressive! The different shadings of black displayed was amazing! This is with a 100" diagonal picture.


Things can only get better when my screen and improved cabling are added.


For the first time I really feel I have Home THEATRE!




------------------

Every man is my superior, in that I may learn from him.

 

[jchiu]

Just got my LT150 two days ago, and I've tried both the s-video and VGA connection with my interlaced Pioneer DVD player (DV5). All my viewing was done on a 100" 4:3 Da-lite Matte White tripod screen. I do have a Da-Lite 16:9 HiPower screen but I have to mount it on my ceiling first before I can use it.


After a couple of hours playing around with the unit, here are my impressions (I used to own a Sony W400Q before):


First the bad -


1. Rainbow galore. Using the s-video connection, I watched Gladiator first as that's the real test. And the rainbow effect was bad, real bad. I was seeing rainbow everytime I blinked my eyes, and I could only watch the movie for a few minutes before my head started spinning and I had to turn it off. Other brighter movies fared a little bit better (ie. Charlies Angels), but the rainbows would still come up once every minute or so. I then decided to try out the VGA breakout cable, and the situation was improved quite a bit. I am now only seeing rainbow maybe once every couple of minutes in Gladiator, and just occasionally in brighter movies. I am hoping a Progressive Scan player would improve things even further in this area.


2. Crawlies/Shimmering/jagged edges. I assume this is caused by the interlaced signal coming from my dvd player. I never had this problem on my Sony W400 before though.


3. Loud Fan noise. It's almost as loud as my Sony W400Q, and that was one of the loudest projectos around.


4. Colors not as vibrant as the Sony W400Q. The bright colors coming from my Sony are vibrant and accurate, the LT150 is close but still not as good (IMO).


Now the good -


1. Amazing contrast and almost real blacks. Comparing this with the Sony 400, well, there is no comparison. Dark scenes from my Sony look greyish with no details. Playing the same scenes on the LT150, I can now see things that I could never see before from my Sony.


2. Sharp picture. Having used to the soft picture produced by the Sony, the LT150 produces a remarkably sharp picture that almost looks like something coming from my 19" PC monitor.


3. Bright picture. 800 lumens is plenty for me, I can now turn on my dimmer light, and still get a reasonably watchable picture. The Sony W400 pales in comparison in this area. Mind you the Sony is only rated at 400 lumens, and I don't think I am seeing twice the brightness coming from the LT150.


4. Small. I can move this around with ease. This is important for me because I have a kid running around all the time, and I want to store it somewhere else when not in use.


Although the rainbows are annoying, I still prefer the LT150 than the W400 mainly because of the much better contrast and the sharper picture. I am now trying to decide on my next purchase. Should I go with a Progressive Scan DVD player (RP91) or a HTPC? I know the HTPC produces a better image, but I am leaning towards the RP91, as I don't want to fiddle around with a PC when I watch a movie. Does anyone know if there is a big difference in picture quality between the Panny RP91 and the Pioneer DV5 interlaced player?


-John

 

[Mark Hunter]

Just for reference...how many folks have owned another projector before?


I'm just curious, as I have an LT-150 on the way, but I have a G11 and a G15 D-ILA in my theater at the moment as well.


I am reading all of these positive comments, and I hope to have a similar reaction, but was wondering if some of these are the initial "Wow! I have a really huge picture" type reactions, or if this little guy really does hold its own next to the big boys.


I know, I know...I will find out soon enough. Just wondering if anyone could set my expectations first.


Thanks!

 

[Mark Hunter]

OK. Thanks, guys. I can't wait to check this out. I, too, am also hoping that it's "All That".

 

[turbe]

I have a G11 at my office with a DaLite 100" Matte White screen. Though I am always impressed by the picture from the DILA, it is just too big and noisy for my HT. Most of my viewing will be DVD's so the added resolution of the DILA doesn't do much for me.


My initial impressions of the LT150 to this point: I like the picture from the LT150 more (probably due to the higher contrast of this little projector). Colors, I don't even have a HiPower screen, yet the colors are beautiful on the LT150 (as they are on the DILA).


I am using HTPC's with both projectors (with Geforce based cards). For those of you using an older non-progressive DVD player, you owe it to yourself to try one of the better progressive players (or HTPC). I only have the Panasonic A110 (waiting for the DVD Shootout II before I purchase another) and I won't be connecting this to my LT150.


-Shawn

 

[ckolchak]

******

edited to include some 2nd and 3rd impressions:

******


fired up the projector tonight to help me hang my screen right. i spent $30 at Home Depot and $50 at the fabric store and by this time tomorrow should have sweet little enclosure/masking frame for the screen.

Yes!

Matting the letterbox bars and areas of light spill has now improved the perception of the picture SUBSTANTIALLY. the black velvet works wonders sucking up all the stray light and setting off just the movie image. (I looked at Felt, which has been recommended many times, but it seemed much more reflective. the velvet was $10 a yard and well worth the cost!)

With my RP, making mattes was probably the single greatest tweak i did, and it works just as well in this situation.

i had to disconnect the speakers while i was working on the frame, so i sat and worked in silence for about 4 hrs, just taking in the images. i also tried sitting all the way back againt the wall. the extra few feet back also seemed to improve the picture.

when i get the cinema seats , i may end up putting in fewer, and putting those farther back than i had planned.

defocusing a bit seems to be just the ticketto help with the screendoor (although pans revealed the same probelms as before...this however is basically nit-picking. i can easily live with that minor flaw). screendoor was not an issue at all in the last 4 hrs of viewing.

Thankfully, Rainbows were fewer & farther between than they were last night (watching THE THIN RED LINE made me want to shove a railroad spike thru my head).I honestly can't believe that there are people who NEVER see these things. i feel like i should skim thru my entire dvd collection just so there aren't any unpleasant surprises later.

i think DRS, in another post hit the 'psychology of rainbows' on the head. the more hours i log on this little wonder, the less of a novelty rainbows become, and the less i go out of my way looking for them. there were quite a few lengthy passage tonight that were absolutely rainbow-free.

i would even try to look for them and couldn't find any.

on the whole i was much, much happier tonight!

part of what motivated so much negativity in my first post was a bit of buyers remorse. not that i overpaid or shouldn't have bought it, but just that this seems way too good to be true, so there MUST be something wrong with it.

usually, with a purchase like this, it will take a few months before i really feel comfortable and can just sink into it, without looking for every little flaw.

I feel fairly skeptical about the improvement from going to a p/scan player over interlaced s-video because some of the shots i'm seeing with the latter are already jaw dropping.

i've watched the same chapter from Starship Troopers about 7 or 8 times now, in the last 2 days. This is unreal!


yes, this was one spectacular deal, and can't believe i was actually fortunate enough to get in on it, but i can see now that even at $2700, this is a helluva bargin. Honestly, except for lacking a hi-end prog scan to feed it, this little puppy kicks A$$ all over the Runco i saw...at 1/10 th the price!!!


why don't i see this projector being discussed on any of the other forums? people should be shouting about this from evey corner of the net, but nope...only this forum seems to have a clue. this one unit alone, even at $2700, could start an whole new HT/FP revolution.






[This message has been edited by ckolchak (edited 08-04-2001).]

 

[Mane3215]

I just picked up my lt150's from fedex today. I ran home ripped it open and threw it on a box and fired it up. I am in the process of building my HT and dont have a whole lot to look at (source wise) on the projector so I threw my ps2 on there with GT3.


This is indeed my first projector so maybe I am not as critical as I should be. The picture was shot up on a blue wall (less then ideal =)) and from what I could see the pic looked very good. The image seemed to shake vertically and never did I figure out what it was. I assumed just a bad connection to the proj from a not so great device (s-vid).


I took my computer d/led windvd and hooked it up. I thought the picture was awesome. I cant really spend alot of time with this cause I hate having things alll rigged up, so I will order my screen and get an HTPC together with some other sources before doing anything in detail but I am very impressed with this projector so far.


I dont notice the scren door till I am right on top of the projected image, everything seems great, I have to try to get used to the screen size now and get a better understanding of the aspect ratios but after that I should be good to go.



Chris

 

[Grant Smyth]

For those having problems with shadow detail etc. I would suggest you check the LT150 Index thread and read all you can about how to set this projector up - there are some very helpful posts from some very knowledgeable members of this forum.


Here are some quick tips:

Read your manual;

click off the white segment;

control ambient light;

use a white screen - blackout material will work;

mask your screen;

try gamma natural 1 or natural 2 setting;

you must use a good proscan DVD player, scaler or HTPC; and

If you're still not happy then send your unit back because it is defective or, in the alternative, the LT150 is not for you. If the LT150 doesn't impress you don't give up - there's lots of great projectors to investigate and it sure is fun looking!


Cheers,


Grant