[CCLAY]

115 degrees here today and the box that came out of the Fed Ex truck was hot to the touch. Very hot. Blast, I mumbled, why can't these trucks be air conditioned?


Arming myself with a couple shop rags, one each stuffed in my front pant pockets, I opened the box top and carefully removed the holy grail. I did so at arms lenght to avoid the expected goo spill, much in the manner like a new father would at his first diaper changing.


Being a believer in the lost art of recycling, I quickly positioned the plastic wrapped black jewel over my oil drip pan thinking, what the hay, I can use the slippery solution for my next Ford oil change. That or to cook my taco shells in tonight.


But Alas! To my shock and chagrin there was nary a drop to be found. No droplets, no residue, no smeared glass. Just a smaller than expected peice of modern artwork for the home theater.


Black is indeed beautiful, especially when it's anodized. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif


A glorious moment to be sure, and now into the evening for the first look.........


Chris

 

[Mane3215]

I dont believe you send it to me for final inspection =).

 

[David Wallis]

I look forward to reading what you think. The Panamorph sure is hot property to own by all accounts. I just can not get over Tommyboy having two of these puppies. He must be busy cause he has yet to fully report.

The Panamorph is no doubt one of the best answers for those of us wanting all of their projectors capabilities.


I feel the need for a new toy (just got to get it past the wife)


DavidW


[This message has been edited by David Wallis (edited 08-06-2001).]

 

[Gary P. Gibbs]

I wonder if yours has the oil leak mod.




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

Gary


STOP DVI/HDCP!

DVI/HDCP! ~= HD-DIVX!!!

DO NOT SUPPORT JVC or anyone else who supports this!

 

[REF]

Chris,


Did you get any notification before the package arrived?



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

--Bob

 

[CCLAY]

I would have to say that mine does have the oil leak fix. The documentation included was for the "752", at least on the template paper.


I got two notifications. One confirming my shipping address and one to state that it had been shipped along with a tracking number.


Now, if I can figure out how to set the ATI player to send out a 4:3 image, I'll be ready to go.


You'd think that with having a year to figure this stuff out, I'd pretty well know what's involved, but.......


Chris

 

[Mark Hunter]

Good luck, Chris (lucky dog).


Tell us how it works out!

 

[CCLAY]

Well, as the wee hours of the night are now upon me, I have a few good things and a few bad things to say.


First of all, from my experience tonight, the lens really needs to be, IMO, mounted to a level Pj with the lens level along with it. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get rid of the distortion on the icons near the edges of my desktop with any kind of tilt coming from the Pj. This distortion is totally unacceptable. Is this what you call barrel distortion?


Speaking of the desktop, I never really considered this before, but the desktop that is native at 4:3 and perfectly symmetrical then compressed by the lens to 16:9 becomes no longer symmetrical. Everything is stretched, making the icons shorter and/or wider. I've tried to think of a workaround to this, but how can you make the original 4:3 desktop taller and skinnier so the lens can compress it back to a correct symmetry without losing width? Hopefully I'm missing something obvious.


Even though the unit is pretty simple, I found it to be a little cumbersome to fine tune.


The new build with the light baffle makes the lens have very little room for error when establishing the height. In fact, when I first looked at the lens, I wondered how the light coming out of the G11 lens was even going be able to fully go into the Pannie, given the narrow gap between the baffle and the top lens frame, but it does.


Speaking of the height, with my Pj pure level on its feet and the lens fully slid up in the brackets(table mount), I had to put a short 2 x 4 under the bottom of the bracket to get the 752 high enough to work properly. Very strange.


Personally, I would prefer a lens that just clamped to the front lens housing of my G11 and be done with it. No room for error that way.


Ok, now for the good. Sort of.


Before I started this tonight, my lovely wife asked me if she would be able to see a difference. Probably not I responded. Before I could correct my blunderous statement, she asked "then why did you buy it?"


After exiting our house with a crisp new Frankie from my billfold to go shopping with(and me thinking why why why did I say that?), I sat down to finally reach that glorious moment I've been waiting a year for.


I use Starship Troopers a lot because it's a good transfer, it's got good blacks at the start, then gets into some good colors and facial closeups.


The Panamorph gives exactly what it claims to give, 33% more projector resolution. The colors seemed to be richer with more punch, the blacks had better contrast to them and facial closeups definitely had better detail.


With the way I have my G11 set up in order to pick up low level detail, darker scenes sometimes take on a little bit of a washed out look. Most of that is gone now.


Night and day difference? 10 times better? Not hardly.


Is it worth the $600 price I paid. You betcha.


It always cracks me up when on the PC forum(no offense to anyone) I see some say things like "the Radeon just blows away the GeForce, it's 10 times better, blah, blah, blah."


It just aint so.


We have a device that gives us what we paid for and as soon as I get this mounting thing worked out, I'll be darn satisfied.


BTW, the image drop ratio of .080(.081?) is every bit true, and for me, it was a little tough to adjust to in comparing images with and without the lens in place.


Chris

 

[propeller_beach]

Chris,


Congratulations on getting your lens. I am worried about the barrel distortion as well, now that I've read what you've bee going through. Knowing you, it must have been a pain in the butt to set this thing up. All that struggling with frustration to get going to achieve as perfect a picture as you demand to meet your expectations, tells me I'm gonna be in the same exact boat you're in soon. I bet it must've also been a strange night for you in your sleep, thinking of all you've waited so patiently for this past year, and finally getting in.


Hang in there, Chris! Hopefully, as time goes by, we'll all get a better grasp on how things are supposed to be tackled during the installation of the lens.


It would be nice if Shawn posted some detailed procedures in a PDF file to coach through step by step on installing and optimizing the lens (at least on a DILA, since it is what so many of Panamorph buyers are using).


Luca


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

PICTURES OF MY THEATER
albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1659592&a=12715694&f=0

 

[jsnable]

Chris,


What sort of zoom are you using? I remember Shawn saying that the distortion decreases with the spot size.


Thanks for the write-up!


Jay

 

[baltar]

You paid $600???. I thought it was 1600$

 

[Mark Hunter]

Quote:

Everything is stretched, making the icons shorter and/or wider. I've tried to think of a workaround to this, but how can you make the original 4:3 desktop taller and skinnier so the lens can compress it back to a correct symmetry without losing width?

Hi Chris,


Since I don't have a Pannie yet, maybe you try some of the "out there" techniques I have been championing.


Try keeping your 16:9 Windows desktop instead of going to 4:3. Use Dilard to vertically stretch the 16:9 desktop to 4:3 aspect ratio. Use the Pannie to compress this 4:3 back to 16:9, with the full resolution and brightness of the projector contained.


It won't be a "pixelly perfect" desktop anymore, but your round icons should still be round, and everything will have correct symmetry.


Although the pixel perfection won't be there, see what video looks like. Put on a DVD you are familiar with and see how it looks.


I like this technique (if it works) for several reasons:

• Desktop retains proper proportions
• Switching from 4:3 to 16:9 (and back) is a remote control button push instead of a Panamorph rail slide
• It will work for all sources, including HDTV, DVD, full-screen games and even 4:3 material.
• Using YXY, for example, will work fine for DVDs but won't do anything to full-screen HDTV or games. I want to see if the Panamorph benefit can be applied full-time.

Good luck, Chris! We are all ears to hear what you have to say next...

 

[CCLAY]

Hi Luca,


My current scenario has my G11 table mount perched on a 24" x 24" cutting board that sits atop a sturdy cardboard box. This box sits about 3' behind my couch. The current height of the G11 lens is around 42" off the floor. The bottom of my screen is about 24" off the floor. The top of my couch is about 36" high. I've been watching my Pj with about 6.5 degrees of downward tilt over the past year. It sits higher than my couch top and shoots downward to fill my 16:9 screen all the way to the bottom. This config has worked pretty good, with a minimal amount of keystoning, but adding the 752 made it quite a bit worse.


I can't move my screen upward, so tonight I'll have to move my couch and get the G11 closer to the floor to get a better feel for just how much the unit will take in tilting.


Quotes:

"What sort of zoom are you using? I remember Shawn saying that the distortion decreases with the spot size."


Currently I'm at about 80% wide. Tonight after I get a good setup, I'll try zooming in and see if the distortion improves(with a tilted Pj), but I have feeling it won't. It's hard to describe, but it lookes like the glass is somehow distorted at anything but a level situation. It's weird. One icon will be perfectly clear and the one right next to it is very fuzzy, with a definite ghosting going on. Gotta be something I'm missing.


I've set up the lens exactly how the instructions show. The light baffle plate is perfectly level with the G11.


David, I'll try and take a closer look tonight and give a better description. You're right, I'll need to confirm everything with VE, but I don't have it in DVD. I do have AVIA though. Does AVIA have the same pattern?


"Also the height of the Panamorph mount to the center of the Panamorph lens is height adjustable via the brackets vertical slide, so are you saying you cannot move the lens higher in the bracket?"


That's exactly what I'm saying. I have to shim the 752 up with a 2 x 4 to get even close. Keep in mind that this with a table mount. This would change if you were mounting the 752 to the inside bottom of a hushbox with an inverted Pj perhaps.


"To play it safe I would use the least zoom I could to get the focus and light beam size down to min."


Are you saying zoomed in would be better, or zoomed out better? No matter, because given an already fixed setup, how could you watch anything in a different zoom position than what you have now? I can zoom in to test the difference in distortion, but I'll have to zoom back to exactly where I've been this past year for full screen images, right? This would be ok for a new install I guess, but even then, as we discussed a few months ago, with a near full zoomed in scenario, there wouldn't be any room left to zoom in for 4:3 material and still fit the 16:9 screen. I do it all the time, but now maybe that will all change.


"What is you zero tilt reference on the Panamorph ?

With the Panamorph in bypass mode you should be down (ceiling) or up (floor) x 0.81 from your 1:33:1 image (correct?).

To get you in the ball park I would put the Panamorph half way in front of the lens so one side is native 1:33:1 and the other side is the compressed Panamorph image."


The math for my distance put me with a 13" image raise; NOT easy to adjust with tilt I found. I did the half and half thing which works great btw, and confirmed the 13".


Hi Mark, thanks for the suggestion. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif I now remember you saying something about that awhile ago. I'll try that tonight.


Chris

 

[Dave T]

Quote:

Originally posted by CCLAY: Speaking of the desktop, I never really considered this before, but the desktop that is native at 4:3 and perfectly symmetrical then compressed by the lens to 16:9 becomes no longer symmetrical. Everything is stretched, making the icons shorter and/or wider. I've tried to think of a workaround to this, but how can you make the original 4:3 desktop taller and skinnier so the lens can compress it back to a correct symmetry without losing width? Hopefully I'm missing something obvious. Chris

I have another suggestion, that IMHO is the best way to go. I would use the 16x9 desktop (1360x768) and have the projector stretch it vertically, and the panny compress it, as Milori suggested. However, I'd only use this for PC viewing, and switch to a 4x3 (1360x1024) desktop for DVD viewing. Simple to switch the resolution back and forth with a hotkey sequence if you have Powerstrip, and if you have a Pronto or something similar, you could have the "Play Movie" macro do the resolution switch for you.


- Dave

 

[Cameron]

So Chris...


If I understand you correctly, you have your projector at a 6.5 degree tilt going into the Panamorph? Or did I miss something. I am going to need a little bit of tilt, but not nearly that much.


Thanks,


Cameron


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

-- Well I have really blown my budget now. --

 

[Morbius]

baltar,


When Cygnus needed "seed money" for the Panamorph project

a year ago - they offered the Panamorph for $600. Several

months into the project, the price went up to about $1000.


Shawn Kelly of Cygnus all along said that the retail price

would be greater than the pre-buy price.


For all the waiting the pre-buyers had to do - the payoff

was that they got the Panamorph for a sweet price.


Greg

 

[David Wallis]

Chris

I hate late nights as nothing seems to go as expected.

Quote:

Speaking of the desktop, I never really considered this before, but the desktop that is native at 4:3 and perfectly symmetrical then compressed by the lens to 16:9 becomes no longer symmetrical. Everything is stretched, making the icons shorter and/or wider. I've tried to think of a workaround to this, but how can you make the original 4:3 desktop taller and skinnier so the lens can compress it back to a correct symmetry without losing width?

If you want to leave the Panamorph in place you need to scale the image to 1024 x 1024 and the panamorph will squeeze it back down.


Chris can you describe the barrel distortion ? I can not imagine it is bad or else others would have reported this.

Are you just seeing overcompression which may show circles as ovals on the top or bottom. You really need to put on VE to tune the compression and tilt.


Also the height of the Panamorph mount to the center of the Panamorph lens is height adjustable via the brackets vertical slide, so are you saying you cannot move the lens higher in the bracket ?

Or is the splash tray hitting the bottom of the projectors lens, thus stopping you going up higher ?

You can move the Panamorph away from the projector more to give you clearance as the focus doesn't take a nose dive from all accounts.


You may also want to watch for light clipping both on the screen and inside the Panamorph itself (in a dark room you can see the light path through the Panamorph clearly). To play it safe I would use the least zoom I could to get the focus and light beam size down to min.


What is you zero tilt reference on the Panamorph ?

With the Panamorph in bypass mode you should be down (ceiling) or up (floor) x 0.81 from your 1:33:1 image (correct?).

To get you in the ball park I would put the Panamorph half way in front of the lens so one side is native 1:33:1 and the other side is the compressed Panamorph image.


DavidW




[This message has been edited by David Wallis (edited 08-07-2001).]

 

[CCLAY]

Cameron,


I did have my G11 pointing down 6.5 degrees. That was before the Pannie.


I've taken the whole night and done every conceivable position to try and get the 752 to give me a whole desktop without any blurry spots. I failed.


I think it may be in the lens itself. These are random spots across the desktop, like a smudge. I look into the lens itself while on and I can see little specs of something in between the two pieces of glass on the front lens, and what looks like smoke film on the inside of the rear glass. Hey, who was blazin' one that day at Cygnus? http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/eek.gif


All I'm able to clean is the outsides of the two pieces of glass.


I have now a pefectly level G11 and a 752 position that gives me exactly a 1.78 ratio, so I'm pretty confident the setup is correct.


Sliding the lens out of the way gives me a perfectly clear desktop. Sliding the lens a little each way makes the fuzzy spots move with the lens.


I'm running out of thoughts. I hope I'm the only one who sees this, then I'll know it may be a bad unit.


Needless to say, I haven't had any time to do or test anything else.



Chris

 

[CCLAY]

This is a quote from Larry Davis on his initial thoughts of the 752.


"There is also a critical line of focus running (horizontally) across the near center of the image. I'd say this is probably the spot that we should pay attention to while adjusting the tilt of the Panamorph. As the proper tilt is obtained, this out of focus line gets sharper and sharper. At it's sharpest point, the barrel distortion appears equal. I don't want to examine corner to corner focus. My image is too big and I don't know how small to make it to approximate what the average user will see."


I'm definitely seeing this. Oddly, the closer I get to a true 16:9 ratio, the worse it is. I was at a 1.65.1 ratio and the out of focus center got better. Slowly tilting the lens assy. back towards the point of giving me a 1.77 ratio made the center more out of focus.


My upper left corner is also way out of focus. Right lower corner is fine.


FWIW, I was able to move the 752 away from the G11 lens almost 2" before shadows started to appear. That's a good thing. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif The 752 does not have to be crammed right up against the Pj(the DILA anyway)lens.


Chris

 

[David Wallis]

Quote:

My upper left corner is also way out of focus. Right lower corner is fine.

Chris

Swing the Panamorph left or right in relationship to your DILA lens. This will give you a seagull wing effect but you might get it to balance.

Have you talked to Shawn ?


DavidW