[PAP]

I've had a constant height 2.35 setup for years, had one of the first lens setups years and years ago and have had a prismasonic lens now for probably 7-8 years. I don't know what model it is. I've got a Panasonic AE4000 projector and it's fed by a lumagen Radiance XD video processor.


My problem is this: we have two xboxes and the one hooked up to a sony 52" LCD tv is WAY sharper and easy to see/game on. In contrast, the one hooked to the projector is somewhat blurry and I swear lags as well.


My main goal is to improve the gaming performance of this setup.


Can I buy a newer projector that will do 2.35 without a lens? Are newer lenses much better than the ones 7-8 years ago. I look at prismasonic and they are 3-4K now! I think I paid around 2 grand for mine years ago.


I want maximum sharpness which I don't have with lens and also minimum lag - I'm not sure if my older lumagen can keep up with 1080p

 

[stanger89]



Quote:
Originally Posted by PAP  /t/1420613/xbox-gaming-my-lens-setup-is-too-blurry-best-gaming-options#post_22225953


I've had a constant height 2.35 setup for years, had one of the first lens setups years and years ago and have had a prismasonic lens now for probably 7-8 years. I don't know what model it is. I've got a Panasonic AE4000 projector and it's fed by a lumagen Radiance XD video processor.

My problem is this: we have two xboxes and the one hooked up to a sony 52" LCD tv is WAY sharper and easy to see/game on. In contrast, the one hooked to the projector is somewhat blurry and I swear lags as well.

My main goal is to improve the gaming performance of this setup.

Well question one is, are you sure it's the lens's fault? Have you tried it without the lens in place? The AE4000 is definitely not the sharpest of projectors (Smoothscreen and all). I got nice sharp images even with my old Panamorph P752 with my DLP projectors.

Quote:
Can I buy a newer projector that will do 2.35 without a lens?

You can but they're $30k+

Quote:
Are newer lenses much better than the ones 7-8 years ago. I look at prismasonic and they are 3-4K now! I think I paid around 2 grand for mine years ago.

More expensive lenses are better than less expensive ones (in general) though if you spent $2k on it, it should be a decent one with CA and Astigmatism correction. I'd try your projector without the lens and see if it's any better before going any further.

Quote:
I want maximum sharpness which I don't have with lens and also minimum lag - I'm not sure if my older lumagen can keep up with 1080p

The XD should have no problem with 1080p, I was just looking through the XD/XE manual and it's got a Game Mode and Genlock that would reduce the lag it introduces.


Personally, I'd guess your projector is the "problem" and not the lens or the Lumagen.

 

[Mike Garrett]

First you need to try the image without the lens. I suspect that the problem is at least partially (maybe mostly) the projector. The 4000 was not known for it's sharpness. Yes, the Prismasonic A-lens have improved much over the years. The latest version, HD6000 is a cylindrical lens.


As for projectors that you can do 2.35 without the lens, at this price point you have to look at projectors that have lens memory. In other words, constant image height by zoom method. You lose brightness with this method. The JVC's do this. Also the Sony VW95 and the Panasonic AE7000. The Mits HC4000 also has this ability. Though the Panny and Mits are not doing this by using lens memory, they are shifting the image on the chip. This means the mounting location for those two is more limited.

 

[PAP]

well I removed the lens and the image is much sharper. However I'm now not using my full panel when watching 2.35 movies, so I'm disappointed in that. At this point however I guess I'm going to wait and see what the next generation panny has - the ae7000 should be replaced soon I would think and I'll reassess a new projector then. I'm not in the 30K budget range, so those are out. If I could get a demo of the new lenses, I'd consider it, but I don't want to spend that kind of money unless I'm sure they would look a lot better than the one I removed. It was great for movies, but just not cutting it for gaming/computer.

 

[John Schuermann]

If the image is soft for games, it's soft for movies too. A good anamorphic lens will not add any real noticeable softness - EXCEPT if it is mounted outside of its focus range. How far back is the projector from your screen, and how big is the screen? If the Prismasonic is anything like one of the Panamorph pieces, if it's closer than about 12 feet or further than 20 feet away the image will be soft. If you are within the spec'd throw range of the Prismasonic, then something else is going on with the lens itself.


I've used my Panamorph for computer graphics many times and it's razor sharp. I can't imagine the Prismasonic is so much worse that the image would appear "much" sharper without it.

 

[prismasonic]



Quote:
Originally Posted by PAP  /t/1420613/xbox-gaming-my-lens-setup-is-too-blurry-best-gaming-options#post_22225953


Are newer lenses much better than the ones 7-8 years ago.

Yes they are much developed from those days. You probable have a 2-element prism lens with no Chromatic Aberration or Astigmatism correction.


Nowadays, all our prism and cylindrical lens models have both corrected, so there is a large difference in sharpness..

 

[CRGINC]

Perhaps the problem is another issue or this is another contributor. For computer generated images like games you do not want to use scaling of any kind. You need one for one pixel mapping. Think when you connected a computer to any LCD screen. You set the video card for the generic resolution of the display. If you don't you get scaling errors and not a very sharp image. You have to do the same with a game console to a projector. Make sure the video processor is not scaling the image.

 

[stanger89]



Quote:
Originally Posted by CRGINC  /t/1420613/xbox-gaming-my-lens-setup-is-too-blurry-best-gaming-options#post_22328154


Perhaps the problem is another issue or this is another contributor. For computer generated images like games you do not want to use scaling of any kind. You need one for one pixel mapping. Think when you connected a computer to any LCD screen. You set the video card for the generic resolution of the display. If you don't you get scaling errors and not a very sharp image. You have to do the same with a game console to a projector. Make sure the video processor is not scaling the image.

That doesn't really apply for the Xbox (or PS3 I think) since they don't actually render the game at the output resolution, they are rendered at some "optimal" (for frame rate) resolution and then scaled by the console to whatever output resolution you choose.

 

[Pyxle]

The bad news is that this depends on the game. The Xbox 360 has an internal framebuffer as well as an internal hardware scalar. They operate at different resolutions.


For example, Halo 3 renders to the framebuffer at 1152x640. This will get scaled to whatever the Xbox's output is set to by the hardware scalar.


You will get the most consistent pixel sharpness by setting the 360 to output to the native resolution of your projector, which disables the scalar in the projector itself. However, since scaling is still going on, you may be able to achieve a better result for specific games that output in native 720p--like Battlefield 3--by setting the Xbox 360 to output 720p. This disables the hardware scaler in the Xbox360 because the framebuffer is already at the target resolution. Then if you have a better scaler somewhere else in the pipeline--no idea what the Radiance XD is like--you can rely on that to do the scaling as long as it has low input lag. But this setup will be worse for non-720p native games because now you are double-scaling.


I have an HQV Vida processor and it does a substantially clearer job in game mode than the XBox hardware scaler for the 720p-1080p upconversion, although I think it induces about 10ms additional lag. The upconversion in my Epson projector is much worse. The Xbox hardware scaler is jaggy, but very, very fast.


The AE4000 looks pretty cool with the automatic constant image height adjustment. I would try removing the Radiance XD from the processing chain and setting the 360 to output 1080p.