[noah katz]

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.


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Noah

 

[Spizz]

Noah thanks for your impressions. How quiet was the Sharp unit?


Spero D.


[This message has been edited by Spizz (edited 09-09-2001).]

 

[noah katz]

It was very quiet; it was just a few feet above and behind our heads, and I never thought to observe that aspect til we were leaving.


A few other things:


Re the "shadow test" for black level, holding a hand up gave a shadow MUCH darker than projected black.


I don't know how good the deinterlacing is, I forgot to try switching the DVD player to interlaced; darn.


Overall, if black level isn't too big of a deal to you, you can get damn close to the Sharp's image quality with the LT150 with a scaler or HTPC (perhaps better with th latter).


It probably sounds like I wasn't all that impressed, and in a way, I wasn't. For that you can blame the LT150, which raised the bar when I saw it a few weeks ago, and the fact that the biggest improvement I was looking for, blacks, wasn't there to the extent I had hoped.


Just to put things in perspective, on anything that wouldn't be characterized as a dark scene, it looked terrific, with great contrast and image depth, and sharper at the same viewing distance than my 61" ISF'd RPTV.


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Noah

 

[winston.wang]

I will go to see it too. But I think for the price, I will wait 11HT for a while. If they can go for JP street price at ~$5000, it maybe a best buy over Sanyo or Sony.

 

[noah katz]

I forget, is this 16:9 DMD one of the "dark" (blackened) chips, or is that the next one to be released?


Thanks


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Noah


[This message has been edited by noah katz (edited 09-09-2001).]

 

[Spizz]

The Sharp 9000 has to have better blacks than the Sony 11HT. As I am upgrading from the Sony 400QM I hope to be impressed with the Sharp 9000 as I have seen many screen caps of the Sharp in action and the colours, picture look terrific IMO, though I presume it can look different in person. Another user commented that the picture didn't look that dissimilar from the Seleco 300 at the CEDIA show which hopefully says something considering the Seleco costs $4999US more. It's a shame the Sharp didn't impress you and meet your expectations http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/frown.gif though hopefully when I see it it will impress me and meet mine. Good to hear the unit is quite as that is something else I want from the projector I purchase next. Thanks for comments and keep them coming Noah.


Spero D.


[This message has been edited by Spizz (edited 09-09-2001).]

 

[indygreg]

after seeing all four at cedia i think the sharp is going for the volume play. they tend to be brighter but not on the videophile end. if you are really concerned about blacks then i would be interested in what you think of the marrantz dlp on a greyhawk. their pitch is that they could have made the pj a zillion lumens like everyone else but they kept it to 800 and focused on getting really high contrast and good black level. it looked pretty good but my hand still cast a shadow for sure. i think anything would. i know that if i turn any plasma or tube on in a black room i have no trouble finding the tv. it's not like it emits no light.


greg


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

Compaq MP2800 DLP, 1Ghz htpc w radeon aiw, 45 x 80" diy accoustically transparent screen, lexicon dc-1. ipaq touchscreen for control

 

[Cain]

I'm not sold on the hand-cast-a-shadow test.


I'll bet you could do that with a CRT and also see a darker shadow, don't you think so too??


-- Cain

 

[JHouse]

Indygreg and Cain, when my ProScan 32" shows a blacked out screen, as where there is no source working, you can find things on the floor with the light it puts out. So is anyone on the CRT forum doing the hand shadow test with FP CRT?


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

Joe


"Well, it didn't look like a two-horse town, but try finding a decent hair jelly."

 

[Cain]

BTW Joe, I love your quote..


That movie cracks me up, my Cousin and I love it, and always repeat lines to each other..


"We're in a tight spot!!!"


"That's it for me boyz, I'm on the straight and narrow from now on!!"

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

 

[Grant Smyth]

Noah, thanks for this. What do you think - I am interested in the Sharp, but it will probably cost me $16,000 or $17,000 Canadian (if I am lucky) while the Dell LT150 cost me $2,700.00 Canadian. You don't seem to think the Sharp is that much better? This is 16:9 vs. 4:3! Is a lot of the 16:9 stuff hype or is there an earth shattering difference - needs to be for the price differential.


What about - rainbow, dithering, Matrix etc. with the Sharp?


Cheers,


Grant

 

[Cain]

Grant, e-mail me..


You buy me some Paradigm Speakers and ship them to me, and I'll buy a Sharp projector and ship it to you..


Seriously..


-- Cain

 

[jmrobbins]

I saw it Thursday and returned Saturday to check it out more. I thought the blacks were the best I've seen on anything other than a CRT projector which in my opinion is not what you see in a theater anyway. I would expect to see the shadow of my hand with any projector that uses a lamp. They were using a 100" Greyhawk with the 9000 and the component in and the picture was just fantastic. I brought "Shakespere in Love" and they had "Gladiator" and the other people seeing it were also very impressed also. I won't be happy until I own this one or a clone of it.


[This message has been edited by jmrobbins (edited 09-09-2001).]

 

[RobertWood]

Joe,


I for one won't argue that a digital projector has to get an A+ on the "hand shadow" test to give me what I'm looking for. I do want better black than anything I've seen so far but I'm not expecting nor do I require it to be as close to black as my CRT projectors are capable of.


I will, however, answer your question. We can and routinely do get actual real black with our CRT fp's and the answer is emphatically YES, they can be adjusted so that a hand will not leave a shadow on the screen. And a well adjusted projector will do this and continue to show all the low light detail in a movie scene.

I can already anticipate what you might be thinking. That since this is not the case with film projection why is it even important? I don't disagree that we're making it even blacker than film. We are. But I think you may have to actually see with your eyes a properly tuned CRT projector displaying a dark movie scene to appreciate how good this can look.


Bob



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~ The Sultan of Cheap ~

 

[winston.wang]

I was there today.

The Sharp has very good black and contrast, and I see no rainbow.

But, I have to say I am not so impressed. I have W400 which I am considering upgrade it. The color is pale compare to my w400. When 2 years ago I saw 10ht the first time, I know it's not the one. The contast has no any improvement. And I saw z9000 today I have to say no too for this price. For better resolution, deeper black level and $5000, I will think about it and give up a bit color degrade. Or, I'd rather go for a Sanyo or wait and see how 11ht performs.

One more thing, not so important but have to take in account, it's not bright enough. Worse than 10ht in theater black mode as I can remember.


By the way, Ashwan (AJ) at Laserland is a nice and knowledgeable guy. I will recommend use such local dealers when you buy stuff like projectors rather than mail order.



[This message has been edited by winston.wang (edited 09-09-2001).]

 

[Ashwan]

Noah-


Glad you and and RLSmith liked it. Hopefully once its on in our other room we'll be able to run some more tests including NTSC signals as well as see some high def material. I'm still waiting to see a LT150 for myself, so if you could get me Les's email I'd appreciate it.


-AJ

 

[Jim Ferguson]

Quote:

I'll bet you could do that with a CRT and also see a darker shadow, don't you think so too??

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

 

[noah katz]

Grant,


I am apparently not sensitive to rainbows; I didn't even see them on the LT150.


To be fair, we only saw it with DVD. Perhaps thye rsoultion would have been noticeably better than the LT150 with HTPC. But the latter is already excellent and not something I crave more of (except that more DVD's were as good as 5th Element).


As for the blacks, I'm not complaining because a hand's shadow is discernible - it's because there's a large difference between the projected black and the shadow's.


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Noah