Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater high cost of anamorphic lens

Do LED projectors ever suffer from diminished brightness, or do they pretty much operate at the same level until they croak?

I don't know of any LED projectors out right now. They are supposed to be coming though. I know that the first generation Samsung LED DLP rear projection tv had problems with unifomly lighting the screen. It was bright in the center and then dim as you radially move outward. I bet that they will fix this within the next couple generations though. Taking this into account it will probably be at least three or four years until LED front projectors are implemented well. I guess that I didn't answer your question did I. It would be a nice thing if they did have the same brightness until they burn out though.

- Nick

I guess I'm waiting for front projectors featuring PhlatLight technology from Luminus Devices. Their website claims it is capable of uniform brightness over the entire LED surface. Here's hoping they can implement LED front projectors well in the next two years, as that's probably when I'll be too impatient to wait anymore. Ha ha.

I'm also kind of interested in PhlatLight for general lighting purposes. I guess we'll see how that pans out. I almost want to invest in the company.

So is it a better investment to get a projector that does more lumens, or a high gain screen to help out with a lower lumen count from a projector?

I think the rest of the thread answered the question...it appears the projector with the higher lumens is the better bet, which is what I would have guessed.

If I do go with a 110" screen, what would be an optimal seating distance for viewing 1080P? What about a 720P cable broadcast or even a 480P DVD?

Nick,

I like your idea using some generic material. I’d take that even one step further. Just paint the wall flat white (or just use a white pigmented prime coat because it is flat and very white which should give you a gain of .8 – 1.0) and then you will be able to determine FL, but you can play with screen size and physical location. I ended up moving my screen three different times up and down before I got it situated just right. You can go down to your local fabric store and pick up the cheapest black velvet or other fabric you can find, then just staple it up around the image size you want. Try that for a while, then zoom in or out some until you get the screen the exact size and location you want it. Then all you do is build or buy a screen that size, fill the staple holes with mud, touch up with more primer and then finish painting the wall the color you decided on and you won’t ever wonder…..

Curved screens are great when use an HE anamorphic lens, but not necessary. All HE lenses will exhibit pincushion and some level of CA when in the beam path. Typically, all you do is over scan or zoom the image out to where the far right / left sides of the image are up on the screen velvet and you never see it. But if you have a curved screen, this is not required. The extremist videophiles claim you have a more uniform picture with a curved screen. I can understand the rational of that opinion, but haven’t seen it first hand to comment. I do think a curved screen would make the movie a bit more immersive though. CA is strictly related to the quality of the optics that the lens has (which is also something to consider when buying a projector as the budget projectors use questionable optics).

I just saw this posted at AVS by a Planer rep. Very promising. The 8150 is sounding better and better every day. I think you should just buy one and tell me all about it… LOL

Quote:
Originally Posted by funlvr1965
Brian any idea when the next firmware release for the white clipping issue that some reviewers are finding? I spoke with someone over at Planar and he said that he was going to see Bob williams later that day and he would ask. Well he was nice enough to call back and tell me that he spoke to Bob and that at that time there didnt seem to be any definate time line for the new firmware. In all fairness the clipping issue I believe was on measurements and not really in real world viewing so Im wondering if that being the case if its not a priority at this point, any info on that and if the 8150 are still on backorder or are the units flowing out to dealers?. Thanks in advance
We are working on a SW update, and the validation is being completed as we speak - so assuming all is well, it should be out this month. It will include many updates, including the 'clipping' issue. You are correct that this issue would not be seen in real world applications, but we want to make it perfect non-real-world applications also...

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All SW updates will be posted on the Planar web site for you to download, so if you get your projector now, you will get the update faster than waiting for it to show up already loaded in production.

We get PD8150's and PD8130's in weekly and they are selling out as fast as we get them in, but we are cranking up production to try and get ahead.
__________________
Brian Carskadon
Director of Product Management
Planar Systems, Home Theater Business Unit
Brands: Runco, Vidikron, Planar

Well, there’s two different thought processes with this.. 1) digital projector technology is changing rapidly now with HD material becoming main stream. If you like to upgrade a lot, you might want to just put your money towards a good screen. That’s what I did because I tend to buy A/V equipment like I do socks. 2) the other thought is buy as much projector as you can afford and just build yourself a screen or buy a mid level screen. You can find many screens under $1000 that work very well for most situations.



Screen size is totally subjective. It’s all a personal choice. Do you like sitting in the front row or in the back? Only you can decide what is right for you. If you are worried about SDE, don’t worry about it with 1080P, you won’t see any unless you get within two to three feet of the image. Depending on the projector your buy and the video processor it has, or if you use an outboard VP, 720 and 480 can look almost as good as 1080i/1080P source material, or they might look like crap. You still shouldn’t worry about SDE with 1080P output though. You won’t see the pixels, just a big crappy image, or a good up-scaled image.

Deleted post.

I replied to a post at the end of the first page without noticing there were several more pages of replies to go.