Sim2 HT300+ Settings

Hi Stevie,

That's a hefty charge for the calibration. My ISF installer is going to charge $275 U.S.


If you access the service menu, be certain to write down the factory settings before making any changes. Otherwise, you could really mess up the picture.


We'll have a new screen in a few weeks and will do the ISF calibration then. Currently I'm using an 80" wide matte white 1.0 gain Da-Lite screen. Viewing position is 9' from the screen (a bit close).


Using AVIA, Our settings (so far) are:

Brightness: 63

Contrast: 45

Color: 52

Tint: 50

Sharpness: 2

Filter: 5


Gamma: Video

Color Temperature: User (Green -1, to take care of a green push).


I hope this helps. Yes, the picture is gorgeous.



Good Vieiwng,

John G

Hey john,


I have been playing around with the 300+ for a few days now, and I have, give or take, the same settings you have.


I wonder though why you're using the "user" col tem, and not "medium" or any other "fixed" col tem?

I am also seeing a severe Green push, BUT it only appears in Input 6, when I feed a progressive signal (Sony999ES) to the projector. The Green push is all gone when I'm using interlace signal in input 4. Accordingly if I wish to use a progressive signal I have to play around with the user col tem to adjust the Green push, but when using an interlace signal, I just pick "medium", and voila, the colors are perfect.


Best,

Ran

Hi Ran,

I see a "green push" on R2 input 4 interlaced, so I changed the Color Temp to 'User' and dropped green by -1. That dialed it in for me. I didn't think to check other inputs, but will take a look now that I've read your post.


How is the picture when using Progressive vs Interlaced? What settings are you using for Progresssive?


It's interesting that we came up with basically the same settings. What screen and size are you using?

Good Viewing,

John G

John and Ran,


Thanks for your suggested settings, I'll try them out tonight. I've read about the 'green push' before so I'd be interested to see what difference changing green will make. It's interesting that our brightness levels are different (whereas most of the others are quite similar) perhaps that's because the Firehawk has a gain of 1.3? I'm sat about 15' from the screen, which seems about right and the 300+ is behind me so I'm not bothered by the light spill that others have mentioned. I will admit that the 300+ can be a bit noisy but a hush box would fix that and my only real complaint would be that condsidering the cost you'd think that Sim2 would make the remote back lit!


Ran, I'm surprised that you're using the progressive scan output of your DVD player, surely the Faroudja deinterlacer in the 300+ is superior? I'm using the interlaced output of my Pioneer DV-47A and 'Attack of the Clones' looked amazing last night, although to be fair I haven't really done a comparison of the interlaced and progressive pictures.


On the subject of an ISF calibration, the ISF installer here in HK works on the basis of charging 10% of the cost of your system if you bought the gear from him and 20% if you didn't! Now I've already done the installation myself and I didn't buy the gear from him so whereas I'd happily pay $300 for a calibration I'll be damned if I'm paying $2,000. John, if you could let me know how your ISF calibration turns out I'd be very interested.

Thanks for the advice John, I managed to find another ISF installer who has just done a full ISF calibration for me at a cost of $400. After over two hours I have a fully calibrated 300+ and I must say the picture looks fantastic. My settings are now:


Brightness 67

Contrast 43

Colour 57

Tint 49

Sharpness 2

Filter 2

Gamma Film

Colour Temp Red +1

Green -1

Blue -4


Let me know how your calibration goes John and if anyone else has had their 300+ fully calibrated, perhaps they would like to compare the results?

You're right Jeff, calibrating a single lens projector is a far cry from calibrating a CRT and I assume that the main areas to be calibrated are colour temp and grey scale.


He seemed to spend most of his time with a machine (that he said cost $17,000) on a tripod that he was using to measure the colour temperature.


I'm not sure if the ISF guy did go into the service menu but I'm seeing him tomorrow so I'll ask.


I don't think the picture looks a lot different, I thought it looked pretty good right out of the box but I do think the colours seem a little better and the shadow detail seems better. Having said that, I think he's set the brightness too high and I've put it down to 62, which I think gives a more pleasing black.


Has anybody else had an ISF calibration on a DLP projector?

Hi Stevie,

When you speak to your calibrator, it is in your best interests to ask him to write down for you the Service Menu settings "before" and "after". Copy these settings and tape them inside the owners manual. If you ever want to modify settings, or should need service on the projector, having the "default" settings from the service menu are very important.


To get into the Service Menu, he would have been required to use both the bottons on the projector AND the remote control, and he had to enter an access 'code'. Adjustment of the service menu is required for an ISF calibration, so he had to note the original settings and his adjustments in order to have reference points.


Oh, while my Sim2 won't be calibrated until I receive my new screen, the gentleman who will be doing the ISF adjustments has performend this service on many DLP''s, also on many CRT and LCD projectors and direct-view tv's. This is someone I've known personally for many years and trust his "eyes" (and his training) without question.


Good Vieiwng,

John G

I have calibrated several HT300 projectors and have found that as on all other DLP projectors that the service mode of the projector for either memory location needs to have the High Green reduced substantially! The reason manufacturers crank the Green channel up is to achieve a certain brightness spec.


I will be calibrating an HT300+ on Tuesday and am quite condfident that the Green error will hold true for the 300+ as well. The new software version for the HT300+ is simply for the new formatter board and HD2 chipset as the lightpath, color wheel, and lamp have remained the same. There is supposed to be an additional (3rd) memory in the 300+ for an additional set of calibrated values to be stored in. The HT300 has only two memory locations.


Stevie W,


Your calibrator charges more than it would cost for you to purchase a color analyzer to perform the calibration yourself. Since there are only three memories for him to calibrate in the display which will not take even two hours to complete at most he is really having you pay for his test equipment at an outrageous fee.

Can you elaborate on the process you follow to calibrate a DLP projector? What tools and software to do you use?

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