The year of 1080 for digitals

[Brandon B]

Well with the announcements from this year's CEDIA, it seems like buyers at quite nearly EVERY price point have a very nice option for a decent 1080p projector.

Panasonic is releasing two succesors to the AE900, a far brighter 720 machine, and a 1080 machine with about the same brightness. The 1080 machine uses Epsons new C2Fine LCD technology which boasts a 300-400% native contrast increase and from all early reports, has completely banished vertical banding and quite nearly done the same with screen door. And given the next PJ I will mention, I would bet their introductory price of $4K list will drop to a somewhat lower sstreet price rather quickly.

Mitsubishi is releasing the HC5000, at something under 1000 lumens, also high native contrast and a dynamic iris system to take it up to 10,000:1. And an HQV Reon processor (baby brother to the Realta). $4,500 list.

Sony has the new Pearl, at $4999 MAP and same specs as the Ruby basically, only cheaper UHP lamp.

And new to the mix, JVC is finally making a re-entry to the market with a 1080 machine for something under $8K that has a true 800 calibrated lumens and 8000:1 CR with no dynamic iris involved.

There are also a large variety of single and 3 chip DLP 1080 entries (not as up on those as I am bothered by rainbows and can't afford 3 chips ), although most of those are over $5K (I think there is a BenQ that is an exception to that).

So if you can swing anything over $3K, it looks like you'll have an option this year.

BB

So basically, if

[draganm]

1080P, another overhyped feature with very little actual performance increase . I think the most interesting thing from the show is all the reports coming in from the FH-video demo. A sony G90 and VPL100 Ruby showing side by side. I would almost have paid the $80. door price to see that.

[Chris D]

I'll say YAY! This is always good news to see the industry march along. I'm still happy with my Panny AE700 720p PJ for now, but when the time comes, looks like I'll get a nice upgrade for a good price.

[Brandon B]

1080P, another overhyped feature with very little actual performance increase . I think the most interesting thing from the show is all the reports coming in from the FH-video demo. A sony G90 and VPL100 Ruby showing side by side. I would almost have paid the $80. door price to see that.

That's a pretty sweeping statement. I sit at about 1.1 screen widths away, and my current PJ has pretty obvious VB and SDE. It would be a pretty noticable performance increase for me.

You are also ignoring the near order-of-magnitude increase in CR performance of the digitals. But given your preference in PJs, not surprising. Just would hope for a little more objective commentary.

BB

[Brandon B]

1080P, another overhyped feature with very little actual performance increase . I think the most interesting thing from the show is all the reports coming in from the FH-video demo. A sony G90 and VPL100 Ruby showing side by side. I would almost have paid the $80. door price to see that.

That's a pretty sweeping statement. I sit at about 1.1 screen widths away, and my current PJ has pretty obvious VB and SDE. It would be a pretty noticable performance increase for me.

You are also ignoring the near order-of-magnitude increase in CR performance of the digitals. But given your preference in PJs, not surprising. Just would hope for a little more objective commentary.

In fact, I purposely added "for digitals" to the htread title to sort of head off the "yawn" response from the CRT crowd. Guess it didn't work.

BB

[draganm]

That's a pretty sweeping statement. I sit at about 1.1 screen widths away, and my current PJ has pretty obvious VB and SDE. It would be a pretty noticable performance increase for me..

I sit that far away from my screen too but I have to go out on the porch to see a screen door :W

In fact, I purposely added "for digitals" to the htread title to sort of head off the "yawn" response from the CRT crowd. Guess it didn't work.
BB

yeah, i know it's a big deal for bulb machine owners but us CRT guys have been running 960P and 1080P for 10 years so "yawn" is right.
AFA "objective commentary" I'm afraid don't have any, didn't want to pay the $80. entry fee to get into CEDIA. I think 1080 is a good improvement but like auto Iris, it still doesn't put the pixel machines where they need to be. I'm still hoping for a totally new technology to come out with no bulbs or tubes either for that matter.

[LEVESQUE]

Darinp2 did post his impressions about that G90 vs Ruby at CEDIA on AVS. And like he said, it was such a fair comparaison... :roll: Yawn... Those poor guys selling CRTs and repair parts are so desperate. Fh-video bought 200 G90 5 years ago and they still have 125 to sell after 5 years... Talk about high demand for those... They sold 75 units in 5 years. Sony is probably selling 75 Ruby every week or more!

BTW. The Ruby is the highest selling projector over 3000$ in the USA in the last 12 months...

But back to CEDIA... The contrast on the Ruby was at 25 instead of 80. Sigh... FH-video didn't even try to calibrate the Ruby in the user menu like it should, but the G90 they are trying to sell SOOOO desperately were pretty well calibrated. Like we are surprised about that... :roll:

From Darin that was there and have seen that "demo" at CEDIA:

"Smart guy. I'm sure some will want to believe that the CRT guy got the digital setup perfectly for this comparison, but you'll probably laugh when I tell you that they had to lower the Contrast on the Ruby to 25 to equalize the white levels. As you probably know, the default is 80 and lowering it that far on a digital will really hurt the on/off CR and the light output.

Quote:
Originally Posted by draganm
"why is this so confusing to you? It has been reported widely that with Auto Iris ON the Ruby doesn't put out any more light than a typical 8 or 9" inch CRT projector. Maybe you missed all the posts about the Ruby being Dim? "

I'm sure he has seen them, but people repeating that stuff doesn't make it true. Given that you believe those posts, why do you think it is that when I asked the FHV guy why the Contrast setting on the Ruby was so low he told me that it was because the whites were so much brighter on the Ruby than the G90 and so he did that to equalize the levels?

Granted, they were using a scaler, I don't know the settings coming out of that or the number of hours on the lamp (I assume it was low), but he did tell me that he purposely made the Ruby dimmer to equalize them. I told him that I understood why he did that, but I would leave the Contrast at closer to its normal setting and use a neutral density filter if I wanted to make a Ruby dimmer. He said that the way he did it still gave it all its contrast ratio and I explained that it doesn't because it lowers the white level without lowering the black level (so leaves the black level where it was, but reduces CR). I give him credit for trying although he really doesn't seem to know how to setup a digital (at least not how to set it up to make it look its best as opposed to a side-by-side where the idea is to showoff the CRT).

BTW: When do I get to setup the CRT for our comparisons? I'm kidding, the way we do our comparisons around Seattle is I setup the digital and the CRT guy sets up the CRT. Neither of us touches the other one and each of us just tries to make the one we are responsible for look its best.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ericglo
"It sounds like they need a tse gamma card! "

This is exactly what I told the guy who did the setup, as well as Henry Chen of FHV. I'll get to that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tse
"It would help that situation for the G90 but wouldn't help the Ruby any. "

If the G90 had that maybe they wouldn't have completely crushed the shadow detail on the Ruby by setting the Brightness about 12 points too low on it.

I'm going to back up. I hadn't seen FHV listed and didn't know they were there, but somebody told me about the side-by-side. I was going to go see it and then Art called me and told me I needed to go over there, so I did. When I walked in they were playing one of the scenes that is probably one of a dozen or so that I and friends use when doing comparisons with a G70 and where the G70 wins in our eyes. So, what the comparison showed didn't surprise me that much. It largely went along with what I explained in my article about contrast ratio. That super high on/off CR helps in dark scenes that aren't blackouts and that the digitals still have a ways to go for those. Art mentioned that the areas without detail were black on the G90 and gray on the Ruby. I thought that the low level detail might be getting crushed and asked how they were setup.

Roger from FHV said we could try some of the disks Art and I had brought with us and we first tried a scene from "The Two Towers" that is a scene with a little bit of brighter stuff in it (not a ton) and some good shadow detail in the source. It is one we've discussed here and I discussed in my article where Wormtongue's coat has quite a bit of detail. With this setup there was just about no detail in his coat from either projector. Basically, on the G90 it was a ways toward the head-on-a-black-hole effect that I've mentioned to some people. I asked Roger where the Brightness setting was on the Ruby and he grabbed the remote. He had it at 58 and raised it up until I told him that it looked to be in the range I would consider correct for the Brightness setting. That was 71. He was running through a scaler, so different than normal settings, but 12-13 steps is a lot. We did the same on the G90 and he had to raise the Brightness a lot to get the detail, but I don't remember how many points (I'm pretty sure it was more than 10). He said that he didn't have a test pattern disk for the HD DVD player, so I told him I would give him the one I made and had with me.

We then looked at a scene from "Sky Captain" that Art and I have discussed. I told Roger how great it is that they had setup this demo where Art and I could be in the same room and check this out after discussing it. The scene there is one where these planes fly underwater and with the way the G90 had been setup we could pretty much only see two lights on a black background. I asked Roger to raise the Brightness on the G90 again and then we could see that there is all sorts of detail in that scene. Art pointed out where it was about the way he has it setup and I believe that was 8 points higher than the way the G90 was setup for these demos in the FHV booth.

Last night I was thinking about the comparison some more and although I think the absolute black level difference would still have been pretty pronounced, some things I saw with the Ruby just didn't seem right. Like I might have expected if it was set to iris "On" instead of "Auto". So, I went back today. I looked in at the iris and couldn't tell if it was moving or not. I asked Roger and he said it was on "Auto", so at least I knew that he understood not to put it to "On" and think the dynamic iris was enabled. He brought up the menu with the settings and saw that the Contrast was set to 25. So, that pretty much explained why the iris wasn't moving much at all. Decreasing the white level that much will keep the iris closer to closed and that probably gave it a little more on/off CR than the iris "On" setting, but not as much as with "Auto" and a normal Contrast setting. I saw that they had the Brightness on the Ruby back to 58 (those crushed details) and Roger said that he hadn't seen any pluge pattern on the disk I gave him. I can check the same test disk later, but I believe the reason he didn't see the pluge pattern is that he was crushing the low level details so bad that 2% and 4% pluge bars would have been gone.

I also got to talk to Henry Chen for a while. I had mentioned tse's (Scott's) circuit to Roger yesterday and Henry asked me about that. I guess there was a Scott from Chicago a few years ago who talked to Henry about modifying G90s and Henry lost his business card. So, if anybody knows who that is, it sounds like Henry would like to contact him.

Anyway, Henry and I talked about the market a little bit. I mentioned that maybe the new HD formats would help him sell some of the high end G90s and he told me that they are getting some orders from overseas, like in Japan. I said that it seems to me that average screens sizes might be smaller in Japan, but that in the US many people are pushing toward larger screens. I mentioned the Blendzilla system and that he might want to check that out. He told me that the price for the G90s is $21,500 (I think I have that right) and mid $6k for the D50. He said he has about 100 of each and I mentioned that I thought selling the D50s was going to get tougher and tougher. He asked if I thought they needed to lower the prices on those and I basically said sorry, but I think that is probably going to be necessary.

Anyway, even with the issues of the Ruby being setup in a way that I would consider pretty messed up if somebody did that in a real install and the G90 having pretty much equally crushed shadow detail in my view, I think the comparison was pretty informative. I would like for anybody who says that the digitals don't have any room for improvement in on/off CR to see something like that. But then, I would like to see a comparison with both projectors setup to look their best and with various material also (especially on a big screen). I'm sure the G90 would still win in the scene they chose. I didn't ask to see some of the brighter stuff I had with me (like from "Gladiator") because I figured it was their demonstration of where the G90 really excels.

--Darin"

[George Bellefontaine]

I'll say YAY! This is always good news to see the industry march along. I'm still happy with my Panny AE700 720p PJ for now, but when the time comes, looks like I'll get a nice upgrade for a good price.

Agreed, Chris. In a couple of years you'll be able to buy 1080p lcds ( and maybe even dlp) for less than $2K. For now , though, I am quite happy with my old NEC HT1000 and Yamaha LPX 510.

[Brandon B]

Thanks for the support LEVESQUE, but didn't really want to get into a big debate with Dragan or anyone over how CRTs have had all this for years and all. I just know some of the people here don't read much over at AVS or other places about the really big advances in PJs, and thought a thread about the snazzy options this year were worth looking into.

BB

[George Bellefontaine]

Draganm is a nice fellow and all, but yeah, he really does have a narrow view when it comes to front projection and that's okay as far as I'm concerned. But let's face it, front projection has really taken off in the last three or four years and it ain't because of crt. With 1080p digital PJs coming out at entry level pricing, front projection will only get a bigger and better acceptance, so thanks for starting the thread, Brandon.

[aud19]

I can't wait for LED/Laser powered 1080p sub $3k projectors myself! Now THAT will be interesting!!! :P :yesnod:

[George Bellefontaine]

I can't wait for LED/Laser powered 1080p sub $3k projectors myself! Now THAT will be interesting!!! :P :yesnod:

They're just around the corner... :B

[draganm]

Darinp2 did post his impressions about that G90 vs Ruby at CEDIA on AVS. And like he said, it was such a fair comparaison... :roll: Yawn... Those poor guys selling CRTs and repair parts are so desperate. The contrast on the Ruby was at 25 instead of 80. Sigh... FH-video didn't even try to calibrate the Ruby in the user menu like it should, but the G90 they are trying to sell SOOOO desperately were pretty well calibrated. Like we are surprised about that... :roll:
--Darin"

well your the only one so far who has actually accused FH video of deliberately crippling the Ruby to skew the test results simply to sell G90's. They are actually a Sony authorized dealer and sell both G90's and the Ruby. If you read Darin's impressions he states that they tried to make it fair but just didn't undertsand the relationship between Contrast setting and how it interacted with the ruby's Auto Iris. If the Ruby's light ouput was turned down to a point below what a normal set-up would require then that is unfortunate. I would have liked the test to show both machines at their best.
To turn this thread in a different direction, I also heard that other manufacturers were using the Ruby in their demo's against their latest/greatest digital PJ offering. I guess this does say a lot about the Ruby, does anyone have any reviews or comments on those booths?

Draganm is a nice fellow and all, but yeah, he really does have a narrow view when it comes to front projection and that's okay as far as I'm concerned. But let's face it, front projection has really taken off in the last three or four years and it ain't because of crt. With 1080p digital PJs coming out at entry level pricing, front projection will only get a bigger and better acceptance, so thanks for starting the thread, Brandon.

George do you really believe that HT and big screen projection has taken of because digital PJ's finally reached 720P, or 1080P, or 5K:1/10K:1 contrast ratio? The ugly reality is It's taken off because you can get a PJ at Best Buy or Costco for $800. Some of the biggest threads I remember seeing were about the horrible POS X1 and guys raving about how awesome it was. :roll: Truth is 90% of consumers can't even tell you what 1080P is. The cutting edge stuff being argued about at CEDIA is really a very small percentage of hard-core enthusiasts, which is where most arguments of any sort usually wind up

[George Bellefontaine]

George do you really believe that HT and big screen projection has taken of because digital PJ's finally reached 720P, or 1080P, or 5K:1/10K:1 contrast ratio? The ugly reality is It's taken off because you can get a PJ at Best Buy or Costco for $800. Some of the biggest threads I remember seeing were about the horrible POS X1 and guys raving about how awesome it was. :roll: Truth is 90% of consumers can't even tell you what 1080P is. The cutting edge stuff being argued about at CEDIA is really a very small percentage of hard-core enthusiasts, which is where most arguments of any sort usually wind up

No, I should have qualified what I said more carefully. Yes indeed, it is because of the lower prices but I wouldn't call it an ugly reality. It is just front projection for the masses, and what's wrong with that ? And that little X1 was just fine for those who wanted a reasonably detailed picture on a big screen.

Lighten up, Draganm, life is short.

[LEVESQUE]

They are actually a Sony authorized dealer and sell both G90's and the Ruby.

It was also said on AVS that FH-video are not selling the Ruby. And also, they are selling the G90s 21000$.

So if they were selling the Ruby (but they are not), they would make a much bigger margin when selling a G90 compared to a Ruby.

BTW, where did you find that digital are at 10000:1 CR only? My fully tweaked and calibrated Ruby was measured at 22000:1 with some iris tweaking. :B

CEDIA is the 1080p show. 720p is out. 1080p is in. That's all. 1080p all around. HD is here.

And because of the Ruby, we wouldn't have 1080p projectors for under 5000$, something that would not be true if not because of Sony and the breakthrough product that was the Sony Ruby. The "Ruby effect" is clearly seen now. It was the highest selling projector over 3000$ in the last year. And now it shows...

Chapeau Sony! The Pearl will probably become the highest selling projector over 3000$, just like the Ruby was.

The new Panasonic 1080p will make a splash for under 4000$ or even under 3000$. The new Mitshubishi also.

It's a great time for someone thinking of buying a projector in the coming months. Plenty of choices, and for alot LESS then we thought it would be not more then 1 year ago before the Ruby came out!

Who would have thought not more then 1 year ago that we would be able to buy a 1080p 3 chip SXRD projector, with around 15K:1 CR, 800-900 lumens, with fully motorized lens shift and 22db only of noise for under 5000$ in 2006? :E Unbelievable.

[draganm]

Who would have thought not more then 1 year ago that we would be able to buy a 1080p 3 chip SXRD projector, with around 15K:1 CR, 800-900 lumens, with fully motorized lens shift and 22db only of noise for under 5000$ in 2006? :E Unbelievable.

I'm sure the Pearl is Son'ys response to all the complaints about Ruby bulb cost and dimming. If the Pearl can really deliver those numbers for about $5K then that will really be a new benchmark, huge step forward for price/performance ratio.

[Brandon B]

It has delivered those numbers. The first units have been in buyers' hands for a couple of days now.

And I don't tink the Pearl was Sony's response to complaints about the Ruby, I think they are laying some smackdown to the industry, adn to DLP in particular, and saying here's what we do at the $5K price point. Make your move.

BB

[draganm]

well speaking of G90's and Ruby's, (maybe the 2 best things sony ever did?), the number of people wgo will prefer one over the other isn't going to change much. The guy who won this flea-bay auction had a Ruby in his theatre for testing and just didn't like it at all. This is his secod G90 and it's headed for a stack on a pretty big screen

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...arch%26fvi%3D1

[ti33er]

Damn! 1080p projectors, I just bought an Infocus 7210 (720p) but man am I happy with the Picture Quality! - honestly I can just make out the screen door effect with her on a 90" screen sitting just short of 4 meters back so 1080p on the same screen size will surely beckon another upgrade (when the price is right!) ...anyway people who diss the incredible PQ of front projection in this day and age have psychological issues, especially with these Daylight screens becoming more affordable, what more could you want??? http://www.prcdirect.co.uk/showprodu...t&pid=MONACO80

[ti33er]

PS. I hook my PC up to her as well and 1080p is going to be a fantastic resolution - 720p is ok (much better than my old Infocus 4805 at 480p) but I do want more...I am certain others will or do too SO BRING IT ON!

[George Bellefontaine]

The 7210 is a good PJ and will serve you well even if it is only 720p. I have two PJs that are not 1080p but I am more than happy. At the ripe old age of 70 I'm not sure I will be doing any more upgrades so I just may have to settle for 720p or 1080i.