OT - CRT projectors

[Chris]

You got it Doc... enuff said... Go with Curt, he sounds like the perfect guy as you know..... and BTW , my friends cinema room isnt all that large and his Barco is HUGE!!!  It is pretty funny watching the videos with this BIG A## unit looming over your head.. but you soon forget about it because you are sucked in by the quality, that is until it falls on your head and kills you... hey , its indonesia.. ....

[Doc B.]

To follow up on getting Netflix to work, I found a solution. Using a VPN seems to fix the throttling issue. I did have a problem with getting disconnected after 30 minutes, which sucks when watching a 45 minute episode of Breaking Bad (Queenie's and my latest obsession).

After digging around for answers yesterday I think I finally worked that issue out by upgrading the Mini from OS 10.6.8 to Mavericks. Gotta say I was impressed that mavericks is a free upgrade. Brilliant bit of marketing.

@chris, yeah I have been taking some measurements to determine if hanging one of the monsters from the ceiling is possible for the size screen I'm using. This would be my 4th projector and the first that I had to consider whether it would actually fit in the room!

[Doc B.]

The detail I left out is that I am looking at a Sony right now and Sony did a really nice throw distance calculator program that Curt has downloadable from his site. So if that is the proj I end up with all is good, with about 20" of wiggle room. After I mulled over the problem I remembered that my first proj ( a DIY one) ended up with a similar CRT proj lens in front of an LCD panel and I had a very adequate short throw distance that allowed hanging the big box from the ceiling without even getting close to the back wall.

Man, that was a project and a half. By the time I finished it projector prices had dropped enough that I could buy a better projector for less than I had put into the DIY project. So I did, and parted out the DIY one. Heluva learning experience though.

[Doc B.]

Found a pic of the LCD panel projector I built 9 years ago. And I thought it was big.

[Doc B.]

This was delivered by Curt Palme this morning, a Sony VPH-G70. That is one of our office chairs behind it to give you a sense of the size, which I would call XXOMFG. Curt is a super nice guy, very knowledgable about both projectors and reel to reel tape decks. We spent a few very pleasant hours talking shop. My old homebrew projector that seemed so big when I built it now seems kinda small, and the Dwin TV3 in the HT right now seems positively tiny.

I'm running a 2010 Mac Mini as my new HTPC (thanks, Bill!), which should hook right up to this puppy.

[Chris]

Looks Great... and it WILL be pretty awesome.. Sony made some of the best crt projectors a few years back.. They started around $16k I think also...

[Doc B.]

OK, I'm getting an inkling of why people say these projectors are so great. The thing was really out of cal, but I'm slowly going through and pulling the image together. Still have the old Dwin TV3 proj up on ceiling and the 'new' one on the floor so I can compare. I streamed a netflix movie through the Mac Mini. Getting this to work long term from the VGA output that I am using at the moment is probably not worth it and I have ordered a card for the projector that will update it to input HDMI from the mini or a bluray player. But even with that less than optimal setup I can see why people rave about the black blacks and subtle tones that the digital proj just doesn't seem to quite get. In the minus column the DLP projector pretty much clobbers the CRT on sharpness at this early point in the game. Hopefully better cabling will make as big a difference as I suspect it will. Plus I still have quite a bit of tuning to do to focus and convergence.

I would say at this point that a higher end CRT projector is highly recommended if you like to watch movies rather than sports and you have the budget for the projector and to hire someone to set it up for you. Or you have a certain masochistic streak for learning overly complex obscure gear like I do. Unless you grasp what an undertaking DIYing one of these installations is it will just be a letdown. Better to call Curt Palme to set it up for you.

On the other hand, though it's only 720p the old Dwin still rocks and that sucker is pretty much plug n play with the Mac. And the Mac color adjustment feature works really well to calibrate the Dwin, which is not possible otherwise without a service menu that I could never locate. I was looking at my cousin's mid level 1080P LCD projector at Thanksgiving and aside from the higher resolution picture I prefer the Dwin for movies. I guess once they give out they are not salvageable, and hence they are CHEAP! I have only relamped mine once and I clean it inside regularly. I had planned to sell the Dwin if the Sony worked out, to offset a little of the expense. But they go for so cheap that I will probably just hang on to it. If you can risk a hundred or so bucks and won't cry if it dies on you the Dwin could be a killer way to get into front projection HT.

[mcandmar]

Now thats a projector!  If its anything like TV's and computer monitors i would go back to a quality CRT any day. For computer use i can see an argument for flat panels as they are sharper, better able to draw lines with clearly defined edges and all that, but for watching TV/Movies all you get is grainy image with more noticeable compression artifacts on lower quality sources.  At least with a CRT all that blends away, and with the more natural colours it just looks better to me. Guess its a bit like opamps vs valve amps, ones technically better but we all know which we would rather be listening to

[Tubejack]

I feel the same way about Plasma vs LCD FP screens.  I have a Pioneer 50 (Exited Plasma 3 years ago) and a Panasonic 55 (Exited Plasma 3 months ago, the last to exit plasma - sad) that my LCD 42's can't compare in contract and black ratio.  All about volume and price point.

Granted, I haven't seen an OLED screen yet ..... but that price point really needs to come down before I can seriously consider ... 

[Chris]

I just saw that my HBO programming this month is showing "Pirahnaconda".... Yep, This kind of quality is EXACTLY why we have projector systems....

[Doc B.]

See that's why I changed to Netflix, much higher quality programming. I watched Dredd last week. It's a very cerebral and unique story about a cop in the future who shoots a lot of people. After that he shoots a lot more of them. I can't imagine how the writers come up with these original story lines.

Received the Moome HDMI input card that I ordered for the Sony today. Hopefully that will create a little sharper picture than the VGA feed I am watching right now. If I can just crisp it up a bit I will be a very happy camper. The blacks from the CRT are really something else. In our blacked out room (black ceiling and front wall, dark gray side and back walls with brown trim, floral rug with black background, black curtains in front of opaque window panels, black chairs) the black in scenes gets amazingly close to the black of the velvet masking the screen.

Been slowly tweaking the geometry all week. Pretty good now but it does seem to drift around a little bit. I do miss the set and forget aspect of the digital projector. Tomorrow I will attempt to enlist all able bodies in the house to get the monster hung from the ceiling. Once the Moome card is in it will be time for some color calibration. The plan is to end up with a room where we can demo Bottlehead and Blumenstein gear for HT applications.

[Doc B.]

My oh my. Installed the Moome card last night. Ths gives me the ability to plug an HDMI cable into the analog projector. First I plugged in the Mac Mini since my plan was to use it rather than the Samsung bluray player we have used in the past. The Mini recognized the card via its HDMI output and said it was sending a 1080p signal, but I couldn't get it to properly size the bluray image. I got it good enough to watch for a bit, then we decided to try the Bluray player.

Holy s**t.

Basically plug n play, no hassles with setting up connection or sizing, and a stunning 1080P image. We watched Pacific Rim, which we expected to be a pretty hokey giant monster vs giant robot movie. Turned out to be very entertaining, and the cinematography was great with a surprising amount of practical effects and very well integrated CGI. I did have to apologize to the poor Orcas afterward for subjecting them to the power of a Stereomour reproducing 80 foot tall robot footsteps but they held up to my abuse. Ran the TOSLINK out of the bluray into an earlier prototype Bottlehead DAC.

So, CRT projector - once dialed in, fed HDMI and tweaked it's stunning
Mac mini as video server - not so great, decent image but lacking adjustability
Orcas for HT - wonderful, just watch out for those giant robots

[caffeinator]

If you liked "Piranhaconda," then you'll love "Sharktopus," and, of course, we should all see "Sharknado" before it's added to the AFI Top 100 and it's impossible to find on DVD.

Speaking of Dredd, I couldn't resist adding a bit of trivia - the best pithy film review I ever read; for "Judge Dredd," ostensibly the progenitor of "Dredd," though I suppose the second could add some vital social commentary about future cops shooting future people.

Review of "Judge Dredd"

Judged dreadful.

[Chris]

Glad you are happy Doc.. you had the same reaction that I did when watching my friends Barco on blu ray.. And he uses a Samsung player as well...

[xcortes]

The plan is to end up with a room where we can demo Bottlehead and Blumenstein gear for HT applications

Ran the TOSLINK out of the bluray into an earlier prototype Bottlehead DAC.

OK, so you did stereo right? I think the secret here will be using three BH dacs to do 5.1 (or four for 7.1). Surround works great for movies and the center channel is very important when there