Projectors (merged)

[Ch3tan]

I have the QED Qunex components as well. I have tried one other component cable, was a £30 odd one from Richer Sounds, and I can actually see the difference.

Would say the reviews on avforums for the home made cable one bloke sells there do make me want to get one and try the difference.

 

[old.user4556]

Any difference between those and a short cable then?

Totally didn't see this question.

I've not tried the 1 metre high quality component straight into the projector, instead i've got the 1 metre component -> 7m high quality extension lead (one above) -> projector. I'd imagine that it might be slightly better again still, not sure.

In other developments, i'm experimenting using a grey screen instead of matte white to deepen and improve black/dark levels at the expense of brightness (DLP is perhaps edging on too bright anyway). I'll let you know how it looks.

 

[old.user4556]

Neutral grey is the way forward: what an amazing difference.

Blacks are proper black, colours are deeper and more detailed. Overall brightness is lower, but the improvement in the contrast ratio is far more important. Get a grey screen if you ever consider front projection.

 

[Chilly]

how deep is the grey? on a scale of 1-100 1-white 100-black what would you rate it?

 

[old.user4556]

I'm guessing about 25 maybe?

I'll take a pic against a white piece of paper to demonstrate. I've got the name of the paint i've used incase anyone wants to make their own screen / paint their own wall.

 

[Clown]

G, when your projector is the right way up, does it throw the picture higher than the projector itself or directly in-front of it? I swear my projector is only about a metre up and I still have to tilt it downwards

 

[Panda On Smack]

Mine points down (ooer) but i can adjust the 'throw' of my screen up/down and left/right by quite a bit with some little adjuster things on the front

 

[old.user4556]

G, when your projector is the right way up, does it throw the picture higher than the projector itself or directly in-front of it? I swear my projector is only about a metre up and I still have to tilt it downwards

Yes, the light throw is offset; not uniformly infront of. A bit like this:

 

[Clown]

That's what I feared. I might turn it upside down.

 

[Panda On Smack]

no matter what your age, a comedy penis drawing is always welcomed

 

[old.user4556]

That's what I feared. I might turn it upside down.

Yeah, that's what i've done.

 

[Clown]

What's that? Where from?

 

[TdC]

I'm guessing about 25 maybe?

I'll take a pic against a white piece of paper to demonstrate. I've got the name of the paint i've used incase anyone wants to make their own screen / paint their own wall.

back when I did photography we used a grey-card for measuring light following something called the zone system. it's a special grey that has it's own iso number and reflects exactly 18% (iirc eep) of the light that falls on it, and matches what your camera or measuring instrument is normalising for.

anyway, that's all besides the point, which is that I believe that there must be a standard grey tone that best matches...say cinema screen tint grey? surely projectors are normalised for a certain standard background and will perform best when viewed against that colour at standard settings? is there such a colour or am I just shooting my mouth off?

 

[Ch3tan]

I can spray your wall with a salty off white for a small fee Teeds.

 

[TdC]

you just keep on dreaming I'll let you and all is cool

 

[nath]

I don't know if this has nothing to do with what you're talking about teed but I hear that the best screens to use for accurate colour reproduction are slightly grey. They're darker, so you need to dark the room more but the colour fidelity will be far greater.

Fleh.

 

[TdC]

yeah, that's about what I mean, only the screen will be a certain standard grey, reflecting a certain abount of light. screens undoubtably cost money, and specialist paint does too, but hopefully less than screens if you know what I mean. I was thinking there must be a shop that sells said paint and you'd get best results every time.

 

[old.user4556]

They're darker, so you need to dark the room more but the colour fidelity will be far greater.

It's the other way about, high contrast grey screens allow you to watch films in environments where ambient light is a problem or not removed completely.

Ultimately, the best screen is matt white in a pitch black room - however, the lumens output of today's DLP/LCD projectors is so high that bright whites can be overpowering. The beauty of this is that you can use a grey screen instead, which increases the contrast ratio, deepens blacks, enhances/richens colours and generally gives a more life like picture. The only thing sacrificed is the overall screen brightness, which isn't a problem with the brightness of today's DLP/LCD.

Teeds,

Try looking here for info on the different types/colours/gains of home cinema screens. You're right, there will probably be an optimum grey. I tried three different levels of grey and decided on which one gave me the best brightness/blackness trade off.

Remember that the optimum grey will perhaps only be optimum for a given room condition.

To answer your question, the projector can be tuned in many ways from contrast/brightness/gamma to individual RGB contrast/brightness. The projector needs to be setup/calibrated and is never setup properly out of the box. If you move from white to grey, you need to re-calibrate it as all the contrast/brightness levels will be wrong.

I can say this: grey wins hands down over a white screen for my projector.

 

[old.user4556]

What's that? Where from?

The stand? It's a bookshelf wall mount speaker stand, i just used it to mount the projector.

Speaking of comedy cocks in diagrams, saw this over on b3ta: