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NEW NEC LT150 Functions

990 Views 13 Replies 7 Participants Last post by Grant Smyth, Jul 25, 2001

Darian

Discussion Starter · Apr 15, 2001

Just got my new projector but the screen has yet to arrive. Here are some funtionality things that you may want to know.

Accepts HDTV in RGB and Component form.

In RGB Mode 1080i bounces or jitters. 720P does not have this problem. Component 720 and 1080i look amazing!

Component 480i/p

Using component input you get aspect ratio control and video settings. 480P via RGB gives you 2 choices of resolution: Auto (Full Screen) or Native (little image).

DVDO Connections.

If you flip the iScan to Component the H and V sync remain active. This means you get a Green image that the projector thinks is RGB. Using a breakout cable I used a DVDO NRE board to check the outputs. DVDO in component mode with no connection of H and V sync gives you a Component picture with aspect ratio control. If you have an iScan or wish to use the iscan with this projector there are a few ways to go about it.

1. Use the iScan in RGB mode and give up aspect ratio control. You will also have to set up your DVD player as a 4:3 TV. Anamorphic DVDs will not be seen in full glory.

2. Buy 2 breakout cables and connect the RGB's together of each cable. Put the iScan in Compoennt mode and retain aspect ratio control at the projector.

3. (Untested) Take a VGA cable and remove pins 4,5,9,10,11,12,13,14 and 15. If you want to try this approach... you might want to try removing 10, 13 and 14. These are all the connectors for Sync. (I make no claims to if option 3 will work as it is in theory.)

Composite Video.

YUCK! Jaggies... Crawlies... AVOID USING THIS INPUT.

S-Video:

Not yet tested out.

Menus take a little getting used to but they remember when you left off if it times out. So if you were to switch the aspect at the biggening of a movie, at the end when you hit { or } it will go to the aspect ratio screen.

Need to figure out a way to block the Halo that comes out of this thing. There is the image around the picture. Then there is a light HALO up from that, its not straight lines. Anyone concured this internally yet???

Now I need a Component video switcher and my screen to show up.

So far... this is one cool display device!

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Grant Smyth

· #2 · Apr 15, 2001

Thanks for the information Darian! I haven't tried the LT150 with HDTV yet, but will soon and your comments are very helpful. The DVDO Iscan may be my next purchase.

I suspect you have already done this but, if not, click off the "white segment" found in the advanced menu for a video noise free picture. I also found that the natural 1 and natural 2 gamma settings work really well. I use an AVS HTPC with both the LT150 (and my Marantz) and the picture quality for DVD playback is really, really good. I can hardly wait to get my Panamorph!

You can buy a cable from NEC (Component to RGB) Several of the pins have been removed. This allows you to use a progressive scan DVD player for an amazing picture - the colours just come alive and no motion artifacts! As you mentioned you retain full control over aspect ratio and video settings!

Your light halo can be expunged by black curtains to the sides and black material above and below your screen - this really sets off your screen. The halo is endemic to all DLPs - use the proper borders (curtains) and this simply is not an issue. I have painted 8X4 sheets of stryofoam black and attached them to my white ceiling just in front of my screen. This helps with acoustics and reflected light. I also have the walls covered in black material.

Cheers,

Grant Smyth

Remember, seeing is believing!

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Darian

Discussion Starter · #3 · Apr 15, 2001

DVDO NRE board is built into my EAD TheaterVision P (Like the Camelot). So i have a pretty serious progressive scan DVD player already.

I did the Natural 1 thng already and turned off the white segment. How about some setting like:

R (Brightness and Contrast)

G

B

Color Temp

Color Matrix settings (HDTV/SDTV PBPR CBCR)

I am cutting out card board and affixing black construction paper already. When you guys talk about a Halo I think we are talking about different things. What I see is pretty far away from the picture. I am going to cut a trapazodial hole for the lense to shoot through.

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Steve Dodds

· #4 · Apr 15, 2001

I get the same light leakage from the Sharp semi-L85 clone.. I'd be curious if you fix works.

Steve

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Darian

Discussion Starter · #5 · Apr 17, 2001

Halo:

Yes cutting out a piece of construction paper for the image to shoot thorugh fixed the distant halo. There is still the halo around the pictrue itself. When I get the projector to its final position the near halo will be projected onto the black felt that frames the screen. As I mentioned before the far halos are off to the right of the image by over a 2 feet and above the image by more than a foot going daigonal. The crustion paper masks enough of this light to make the actual image look better.

I have hit a stumbeling block or two. If I go to RGB I lose aspect ratio control. That was to be expected but sometimes the projector forgets what it is displaying. Nothing comes up on the screen and even going into the set up menu and telling the unit it is looking at RGB doesn't fix it. Connecting and recconecting the cables only results in the NEC default Blue screen. Plugging the projector into the interlaced component often resyncs it. (640x480)

Now if I am using the projector in RGB and flip to component. I get a black and green image. Change the set up menu and get no change in AUTO, RGB or COMPONENT. Sometimes plugging the unit into interlaced outs resyncs it. (640x480)

HD... If I turn on the projector with the HD via component... I get a stunning picture. I moved the component ins back to the pro DVD player and get a picture. Go back to the HD, no problem. Go back to the DVD for about 20 mins to watch a demo. Flip back to the HD and get Black and White ONLY. Thats odd. Plug it into the DVD interlaced to get the unit to resync. Move plug back to HD and get the Blue Screen.

Maybe my unit needs an upgrade to its detection firmware. Should I contact NEC on this one? I think I should...

(Update)

Called NEC and explained the sync problem. Took about 10 mins to describe everything. "Sound like there might be something out of spec. We will have a new one to you by 10:00AM tomorrow."

[This message has been edited by Darian (edited 04-17-2001).]

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PaulM

· #6 · Apr 17, 2001

That's an impressive response from NEC... very reassuring.

I haven't seen such problems on my LT150, tho I have only played with S-video and RGB inputs. Forgive me if this is too obvious to mention, but just in case: have you found the "auto adjust" button? At first I was afraid it would muck with settings like brightness & contrast so I avoided it for a while, but all it does is resync the RGB signal. It has worked like a charm for me many times.

Good luck,

Paul

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Darian

Discussion Starter · #7 · Apr 18, 2001

So you have this 4:3 1024x768 imaging device that can not get burn in. Lets look at the applications for this thing. DVD? Heck yeah! HDTV? You better believe it! NTSC??? Hmmm what about good old NTSC?

Here is my line of reasoning.

Should I just get a 16:9 screen? I watch anamorphc DVDs and HiDef most of the time on this projector. When I actually want to watch something in good old NTSC 4:3 what should I do??? Well the scaller and deinterlacer in this thng s not perfect. It is pretty good thou. I noticed a nice little feature. When displaying something be it in RGB or video there is a selection for AUTO and NATIVE. Auto scales the image to fill up the DMD panel. Now native just puts the image SMACK DAB in the middle of the DMD. There is no scalling to this image and it maps to 640x480. It looks pretty good infact it looks pretty sharp too. If you take the native display and back it up to fill the 100" screen, you can see the screen door effect. (No need to build a slidding track!)

So if 85% of my viewing is going to be HDTV or 16:9 DVDs would I be better served with a 16:9 screen. When I want to watch 4:3 NTSC I could just flip the projector to Native. I would get a smaller but sharper 4:3 image in the middle of the DMD panel.

How much improvement would I get going from a Vutec 1.3 gain screen to a GreyHawk?

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Darian

Discussion Starter · #8 · May 2, 2001

Auto Adjust does not work unless the signal is RGB. You get a "This function not available" message.

HDTV:

Well I have the replacement projector and continue to be impressed with it. Yesterday I moved the component cables from the DVD player to the DiSH 6000. Blue screen. Changed inputs and came back. Blue Screen. Turned the 6000 on and off. Blue Screen. Pulled out the Green cable and reconnected it. BINGO! HDTV via component. Now I have found that if the projector refuses to display an image via component. Plug in all three wires. Then pull the Green and put it back in. Works like a charm.

Halo Blocking:

I am getting better at this. I am expecting to mount my projector on the ceiling by next week. After I mount it I will creat the final halo blocker. The thing of it is this. You get a MUCH BETTER PICTURE if you don't just block the Halo near the projector, but angle it away. using black construction paper, (STOP LAUGHING!) butting the paper right upagainst the side of the image and turning the paper at an angle to deflect the light off to the sides... WHOOOO. Contrast improves. Colors get better saturation... BLAH BLAH! IT MAKES IT BETTER! NOw I am not talking about the Halo right at the edge of the image. I am talking about the light spill beyond that. YES there is a lot of it. Light spills off to the sides, top and bottom of the image. This lighty does spill into the projected image. cutting it off is worth doing!

Once the projector is mounted I can make something a little more permemnate and presice.

I am looking hard at an external scalar for this unit. The Vigatec is the front runner currently.

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Darian

Discussion Starter · #9 · May 2, 2001

Quote:

Originally posted by scottyb:
Hey Darian, Didn't understand your halo blocking idea. Is it by the projector or by the screen. Also what do you have your settings at for DVD component in. I'm in the process of testing this projector and just got the cable for component in from my progressive DVD player. Also where in the menu is "Native"?

Grant if your out there looking for help on this as I'll be doing the testing tonight. I turned the white segment off already. Do any of the gamma corrections work better than normal. Any and all help will be appreciated!!!

Scott

Native Setting:

Menu

Image Options

Advanced

Resolution

Native/Auto

(Doesn't wrok with Progressive Component)

Currently I have the Gamma Correction set for SDTV and PRPB

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Grant Smyth

· #10 · May 2, 2001

Scott,

If you have Toystory 2 go to the seup menu and click on THX so you can do a simple calibration (contrast and plunge test). Use the natural 1 gamma setting to do this. If you set contrast at 75% and brightness at 60% you will get a very punchy picture with the natural 1 setting. If you use the original calibration then try the natural 2 gamma setting. I have found that for animated movies the natural 1 setting is very good and for most other movies the natural 2 gamma setting works well!

I have never seen any light halo with this projector. Why? I have black curtains that run from the edge of the screen right to the end of the wall on both sides and black borders above and below the screen. This will enhance the picture for any DLP (and most other projectors as well).

I did a little experiment - there is a calibration programme on my HTPC and I went to the colour section showing black and then a number of colours. I then crossed a pen in front of the lens where the black was, just to see how much of a shadow it would cast. It looked black, and it was, since the shadow was barely noticable. Some of the fade outs on DVD movies that you would think would be black don't look black on this projector or on my RPTV (CRT). I don't think they are black - the blacks in movies and on my calibration programme look very black (I know what dark gray looks like and this isn't it!).

Anyway, have fun.

Cheers, Grant Smyth

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scottyb

· #11 · May 3, 2001

Hey Darian, Didn't understand your halo blocking idea. Is it by the projector or by the screen. Also what do you have your settings at for DVD component in. I'm in the process of testing this projector and just got the cable for component in from my progressive DVD player. Also where in the menu is "Native"?

Grant if your out there looking for help on this as I'll be doing the testing tonight. I turned the white segment off already. Do any of the gamma corrections work better than normal. Any and all help will be appreciated!!!

Scott

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PeterF

· #12 · Jul 24, 2001

bump

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bgeery

· #13 · Jul 24, 2001

Quote:

Originally posted by Grant Smyth:
Scott,

If you have Toystory 2 go to the seup menu and click on THX so you can do a simple calibration (contrast and plunge test).

Warning: You should not use the THX optimode to calibrate a display. This will optimize the display for that single title, but can throw it off for all your other titles and video sources. Use something like the AVIA DVD to do the calibration for best results.

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Grant Smyth

· #14 · Jul 25, 2001

I used display mate on my HTPC to calibrate - sorry folks didn't work for me! Once again I am blowing against the wind (just like when I first recommended the LT150 and hi-power screen). Problem is different movies use different lighting techniques, different types of film etc., etc. etc.

IMO calibrating using AVIA or Video Essentials is fine if you're going to just watch AVIA or Video Essentials. I like calibrating for each individual DVD (if required).

I refuse to get locked into the accepted way of doing things - I have never run with the herd and don't intend to start now!

Each to their own. Funny how things that used to be accepted like - sun tans are healthy, smoking is cool, asbestos is a safe insulator etc. etc. are no longer accepted carte blanche. I have been around long enough to know that what is proper one day may very well not be tomorrow!

If calibrating with AVIA or Video Essentials works for you, then by all means do it - but no cheating, you'll just have to watch Fight Club and Magnolia the way you've calibrated it! Good luck!

Cheers,

Grant

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