Thanks to AJ for letting rbsmith and I spend a few hours with the Sharp.
We watched it exclusively with DVD on a progressive scan player. The screen was 110" 16:9 microperf, I don't know the gain.
The sharpness and the internal scaling is very good, enough so that I wouldn't bother with a HTPC.
After playing with the adjustments a bit, I couldn't really specifically fault the color, but it just didn't seem quite as rich as CRT or D-ILA.
If the LT150 is 600:1, I'm guessing the Sharp approaches its claimed contrast; it was brighter on the white end and darker on the low end. But for me, the black levels are still not low enough. We adjusted brightness and contrast with VE and verified that the blacks were as good as they could get by turning the brightness all the way down. With no signal, the screen was a darkish but luminous gray, and dark scenes to me were slightly hazy looking.
It didn't help that while we waited to see the Sharp, we watched Fifth Element on I think a Panasonic plasma set. It was gorgeous, close to HD in sharpness with the blacks and brightness of a good CRT.
I wonder if digital can ever achieve really good blacks. I don't know how good cinema DLP's are supposed to be, but I saw a digiatlly projected movie at the San Jose Film Festival (the one where the character's had known each other in past lives), and it was the same story.
Now I wonder if even 2000:1 contrast ratio is enough.
------------------
Noah
We watched it exclusively with DVD on a progressive scan player. The screen was 110" 16:9 microperf, I don't know the gain.
The sharpness and the internal scaling is very good, enough so that I wouldn't bother with a HTPC.
After playing with the adjustments a bit, I couldn't really specifically fault the color, but it just didn't seem quite as rich as CRT or D-ILA.
If the LT150 is 600:1, I'm guessing the Sharp approaches its claimed contrast; it was brighter on the white end and darker on the low end. But for me, the black levels are still not low enough. We adjusted brightness and contrast with VE and verified that the blacks were as good as they could get by turning the brightness all the way down. With no signal, the screen was a darkish but luminous gray, and dark scenes to me were slightly hazy looking.
It didn't help that while we waited to see the Sharp, we watched Fifth Element on I think a Panasonic plasma set. It was gorgeous, close to HD in sharpness with the blacks and brightness of a good CRT.
I wonder if digital can ever achieve really good blacks. I don't know how good cinema DLP's are supposed to be, but I saw a digiatlly projected movie at the San Jose Film Festival (the one where the character's had known each other in past lives), and it was the same story.
Now I wonder if even 2000:1 contrast ratio is enough.
------------------
Noah