New projector arrived today!

[Youthman]

I had a nice ride home with my new friend. She was quiet as I did most
of the talking. Got her home, unpacked and HOLY COW! She's HUGE! When I
took the patch off, her one eye was just staring at me. I think I hurt
her feelings when I said that though. I had to apologize and say I'm
sorry. I told her she was just the right size. I've worked with
projection units before at church. Have one in my youth room, main
sanctuary, my wife has one at school. Let me say, this is no school
projector. I placed it next to my PS3 and it made the PS3 look "cute and
cuddly" in comparison.

Pannyla (like Pamela) and the PS3 quickly hit it off and were attached
at the hip via HDMI. There was definitely a connection between them. I
believe they will be together for a long time. I cranked them both up
to see what they could do together. The settings are straight out of
the box, no adjustments yet other than zoom and focus. Here is a
screenshot with my cheap Nikon Coolpix camera. I've posted a few other screenshots here.

Wish I had a better camera to capture the details more. Some of the
colors seem a little off but even out of the box, it's very nice. I
can't wait to get it mounted and calibrated.



I told Pannyla and PS3 goodnight. Hope they can behave themselves when
I'm not around. Better not be any late night movie action going on when
the doors are closed. I won't be having any of that. I don't want her
to wear out her bulb before I get a chance to enjoy my first movie with
our family.

[DU73]

Congratulations Youthman Picture looks amazing.. Enjoy..

[Youthman]

Thx! Can't wait to get the room finished.

[dtel]

Thats going to look great, projectors sure went up in quality and down on price compared to a few years ago.

[Youthman]

Don't remind me. You are predicting the future of mine. LOL.

[Pronex]

Congrats Youthman! Looks great!! You said your screen was 103" right? That's the size I was thinking about myself. What are your first impressions seeing a picture on it?

What size does your friend Jason have?

[DU73]

I just went through the other pics via your link, O M G !!!!!!!!

Geesss,, can it get any clearer, I don’t think so… I wanted to give an example of which one I thought was the best shot.. but I don’t know all super amazing. Too hard to choose a favourite pic.. maybe one of Tai Lung.. Why don’t I have the rooooooom in my house.

[Youthman]

You said your screen was 103" right? That's the size I was thinking about myself. What are your first impressions seeing a picture on it?
What size does your friend Jason have?

Yes, mine is a 103" diagonal cinescope screen. When I first got it, I second guessed myself whether I should have gotten the next size up which was the 115". It looks kinda short compared to what you are used to seeing with a 16:9 screen. After hooking it up tonight, it's plenty big enough for my enjoyment. Could I have gone larger, probably. But to do so meant I would have to put my RF-83's very close to the side wall and that effects the sound too much. I don't want to sacrifice sound for picture. I want to have a good balance of both and I feel that I've acheived that.

I just was testing out the memory zoom, very cool. When a movie comes on, if it is 16:9, I hit two buttons and it zooms to that ratio. When I put in Kung Fu Panda, two clicks and it zooms and focuses for 2.35:1. I love it!

Only two negative things I see so far but there is nothing you can do about it. The panny is doing a fake 2:35:1. You are basically zooming in until the grey bars on top and bottom are pushed off the screen which they dissappear into my wall. Now the picture fills the entire screen. But if you need subtitles (which I don't think I ever have), if the producer put them in the grey bars, guess what, they will be shown below your screen. Some producers put them on the picture so that would show up just fine. As you can see in my images, when I hit the FREEZE on the panny, the menu shows below my screen on the wall, same principle happening here. But to me, that is no big deal at all.

I just played some games on my PS3 in 16:9, some games are wider so I set a zoom memory for that. Very cool to be able to switch back and forth. When you are watching 16:9, there are grey bars on the sides but after the movie starts, I don't even notice them. I much prefer grey bars on the sides than the top and bottom. Less distracting. It would be very easy to get some felt to mask the grey bars if I want.

I believe Jason has a 125" or maybe a 130" but he is using bookshelf speakers beneath his screen so his screen can go much wider than I can. My RF-83's stand tall so I would have to mount the bottom of the screen over 4' off the floor and that just will not work.

[edwinr]

I was kinda thinking that to be polite I should congratulate you on your new projector. But frankly I'm too jealous, so I won't congratulate you at all... [^o)]

[Pronex]

Youthman, that is really nice having the memory zoom feature like that!! As far as the problem with zooming in on 2:35:1, don't they sell anamorphic lenses to fix that? Although it might be more of a pain putting it on and taking it off when you don't need it.

[Youthman]

Yes, they do make an anamorphic lense and from my understanding you need a scaler then a sled. Adds up very quick. You might be looking at at least another 1,000 but I think it easily is more than that. I really have no desire to sink 5k in a projector so the zoom memory was a good fit for my budget. Still a HUGE upgrade from my current 32" CRT TV.

[Pronex]

Still a HUGE upgrade from my current 32" CRT TV.

No kidding there!! That's also pretty crazy how expensive it can get to try and fix the zoom problem. I wouldn't have much of an issue with it, other than my wife likes to watch a lot of French films. So the subtitle thing could cause trouble for me. Oh well. We could always just watch those ones in a different room.

Just wondering, you mentioned the colors were just a tad off right out of the box. Are you going to calibrate it yourself? I don't have any experience working with projectors, how difficult would it be to do that?

[Youthman]

I wouldn't have much of an issue with it, other than my wife likes to watch a lot of French films. So the subtitle thing could cause trouble for me. Oh well. We could always just watch those ones in a different room.

You could zoom out until and move the image to the top of the screen so that the top bar is off the screen but the bottom bar is shown at the bottom of the screen where the subtitles usually are. You could watch it in letterbox format and have bars at top and bottom. Some work arounds.

[Vital]

Congrats on the new toy! I can't wait to get one myself. I've been eyeing the epson 6500 and 7500. Hopefully I can get one around August.

[Youthman]

Just wondering, you mentioned the colors were just a tad off right out of the box. Are you going to calibrate it yourself? I don't have any experience working with projectors, how difficult would it be to do that?

It's all new to me, absolutely no idea. I bought the Avia II disk that I will either use or I have an A/V friend that does this stuff for a living that can help me calibrate it. I'll probably see what he can do first, then tweek it if necessary.

[Youthman]

Congrats on the new toy! I can't wait to get one myself. I've been eyeing the epson 6500 and 7500. Hopefully I can get one around August.

Thx vital. The longer you wait, the cheaper they will get. Too bad mine never went on sale.

[JJkizak]

As was explained to me (in the Cinemascope thread) they scale out the picture (16 x 9) vertically only to just eliminate the top and bottom black bar which then utilizes the full 1080P resolution. Then you have to use the anamorphic lens to expand out in the horizontal plane only to get back to 2.35 x 1. The anamorphic ratio (which could be many) was not disclosed. Using this setup utilizes the full 1080P resolution instead of zooming to eliminate the black bars. Ausiemorphic lens is about $1200.00.

JJK

[Youthman]

JKK, that is my understanding as well. The scaler stretches the image vertically to remove the grey bars and the lense then corrects the proportions to make the full 2.35 image. The problem for me is that would be an extra $1200, then you have to buy a scaler (not sure if this is done within the projector or if this is an external application and not sure much that is) and then you have to have some sort of sled (manual or electrical) that can move the lense in front of the projector lense for cinescope movies and move out of the way for 16:9 content. You could go the cheap route and not have a sled, but then you have to bring out the step ladder to manually screw on and off the lense. Not very practical. For me, the AE3000 fits the bill. Eliminates the black bars, stunning image, feature heavy and in my budget. It's not for everyone.

[Eskimo1]

Enjoy it!! I don't regret buying mine a single bit, especially now with the 'scope screen..

[Youthman]

Enjoy it!! I don't regret buying mine a single bit, especially now with the 'scope screen..

If my cabinet guy would ever get into gear and get over here to install the entertainment center/false wall, we could really begin enjoying it. Right now, the screen is sitting on two barstools at the front of the room, the projector and receiver are on two barstools between my two rows of seating. I'm using my rear RB-35's as mains (which are mounted on the back wall). LOL. The RF-83's and RC-64 are in the bedroom till he gets the cabinets installed. I haven't even hooked up the RC-64 since I bought it a few weeks ago. Crazy huh? I'm getting pretty impatient at this point. I'm about ready to make a false wall myself. Hope to hear from him soon.