Sony Ruby, is it really al that?

[draganm]

the first reports about the Ruby are coming in from people I know and respect. It appears it's not the majic bullet it was pumped up to be. siginificant brightness uniformity issues on high APL scenes, color shift, large light-output drop over the first 500 hours on the bulb to name a few and of course it has nowhere the near the absolute black pedestal of CRT (most of it's high CR comes in at the upper range). Despite all this it still appears to be a huge leap forward for pixel display tech, has anyone here seen seen it yet?

[David Meek]

I haven't.

[RebelMan]

Maybe at CES?

[George Bellefontaine]

Well it is a new Sony product so like most new Sony products ( projectors in particular ), we can expect it to have issues/problems.

[draganm]

Well it is a new Sony product so like most new Sony products ( projectors in particular ), we can expect it to have issues/problems.

So I take it your a big Sony fan, huh George? :B even with it's little problems, this thing seems to be a serious contender for home theatre projection king at $8K. I mean a top of the line 9" CRT will still outperform it in most pic quality aspects but many people will decide that last little bit of pic performance is not worth the hassle of hanging a 200 pound in their house. 8" CRT's which seem to be about equal overall performance (from what i've heard) will probably take aother little step down on the used market. I guess the important thing is that digital projection has taken a major leap forward, with an improvement to CR by 300% 8O I think thta's very good news, now if they could just get rid of that $1000. bulb

[LEVESQUE]

I mean a top of the line 9" CRT will still outperform it in most pic quality aspects

That's simply not true.

I'm using a "Ruby" since 1 month already and yes the Ruby is "all that".

Mhafner on AVS did compare the Ruby to a Cine9 (one of if not the best 9" CRT on the market) and he was really impressed. And this guys knows how to set-up a CRT projector.

Here's the post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6817822#post6817822

If you read carefully, you will see there is alot of "comparable" in this review. And not alot of "outperforms" in there. And the Ruby was OOTB, w/o even any calibration.

The Ruby is not perfect, but it's an awesome digital projector for the price. :T It's really a breakthrough product.

And it's better or comparable in alot of aspects then the best 9" CRTs out there. I'm only talking about PQ. And the Ruby is right up there with the best 9" CRTs I have seen.

[George Bellefontaine]

Greg Rogers does a thorough review of the Ruby in the December issue of Widescreen Review. Anyone seriously buying this Lcos projector should read this review. Rogers covers it all.

[draganm]

That's simply not true.
Mhafner on AVS did compare the Ruby to a Cine9 (one of if not the best 9" CRT on the market) and he was really impressed. And this guys knows how to set-up a CRT projector.

that's odd, he told me Barco set it up, and that because of less than ideal environment it's mounted too far back. With CRT throw distance is critical, and sitting too far back lowers resolution and light output. It also sounds like he was using 1080i to compare? I can see scan lines from 1080i on an 8" machine plain as day, so i'm not sure how much of that compariosn was really usefull?I read a review from someone who is considered a pro with the sony G90 and he said the ruby was a big leap forward but had too many problems overall, not in the league of a 9" CRT yet.
The fact that ruby still has no black pedestal to speak of is a real deal killer for me as total fade to black is very improtant aspect of movie watching, not to mention all the other problems. sounds like you're very happy with it though, i'm sure it's not a bad picture at all.