First W/E with the CRT

[Jeff]

Roland came to install a BD1209s on Friday, the projector looked a little smaller and weighed a little less than what I was expecting, although Roland did say he was carrying the heavy bit. I still nearly managed to drop the thing as we negotiated the front door. After that it was plain sailing all the way (well mostly). I always had these visions of Roland doing his trademark hanging off the projector mount and the whole roof caving in. So I did stand back a little and was positioned for a quick getaway had my worst fears come true. I needn't had worried since Roland could hang there even with the projector in place and the ceiling hardly creaked. Unfortunately neither of us had a compatible video cable so this was a good chance for Roland to show off his cable making skills. With the projector and the expertly made VGA to BNC cable in place Roland set to work on all the various calibration and setup tasks. Being a CRT newbie I did try to learn from what Roland was doing but I soon got overwhelmed, so I just sat back and watched in quiet admiration. With the setup complete it was time to pop in a DVD and see it in action. My screen is a reminder of my failed digital days a Stewart Grayhawk measuring 1600x900mm. With a screen this size the 1209s had no problems producing a punchy image with good contrast despite the 0.95 gain and greyness of the screen. One issue that did come up was that when displaying a full white screen you could see a blue tint to the left and red tint to the right, my guess this is caused to the projector being so physically close to the screen due to its size. Its possible that the effect is made worse by the Grayhawk. Under close scrutiny it is possible to see the effect during bright scenes, but its something I can probably live with. I certainly don't see a good reason to change the Grayhawk just yet. The first DVD we tried was Pearl Harbour, its been a while since I've had a projector in action, but it looked pretty good to me, maybe a bit soft. I know from what others have said the the picture quality improves a lot after Rolands second visit so I'm not too worried at this stage. Roland also stated that the VDC tubes need further run-in, in particular the green tube has a considerable amount of flare which makes the focus look off. During the W/E I spent some time working out the projector settings and I had a go at doing the convergence for the first time. This was difficult to do since the flare of the green made it difficult to converge so that the red and blue matched up. I also kept getting the copy profile wrong and a couple of times ended up overwriting my good work and had to start again (What a newbie!). I soon got bored with tweaking so I watched few movies. The only thing that really bothered me was the reds, very orangey. Just as I was getting used to the colour my wife walked in and commented on it. This from a woman that hardly ever comments about PQ and would rather watch DVDs on a normal telly rather than a high end home theatre system. To take my mind off it, I went for Final Fantasy. When I tried to watch it on my old DLP projector I found it to be unwatchable due to rainbows and poor detail in the greys and blacks (most of the film). On the CRT it looked a totally different film, in fact it looked so good I didn't mind the poor dialogue and the constipated look of the CGI faces. Other things to note are noise and heat. After a couple of hours my small room gets rather uncomfortable and with the fans now going at full pelt the noise is also a bit overwhelming. Roland has yet to replace to fans so hopefully this will improve. For the heat I'll need to look at either air con or channelling the projector fan exhaust out of the room. All in all I'm happy so far, but I'm still some way off the true potential of the projector. Many thanks to Roland for getting me started, without him CRT would probably have not been an option

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

You will be assimilated.....


Gordon

[Matinee]

how large is your room Jeff? Bit smaller than 4m, using the HD10L lenses on the BG1209?

I am, of course, exceptionally envious Enjoy your pj!

PK

[Jeff]

Hi PK,

My room is a mere 7x14 ft, although the ceiling height is quite good. I do have some concerns over focus with my HD300 lenses and that HD10Ls might have been more suitable. I'm in good hands, I'm sure Roland will get the projector singing on the return visit.

[Roland @ B4]

Jeff glad you are pleased with the first pass.
I have found time and again that projectors need to bed in before they are truely tweeked and calibrated. The chasis needs to settle and the electronics get used to their new magnetic fields.

It's interesting what you said about Reds I must confess I did'nt notice it at the time but you having had experience of the lamped projectors if there is one thing that should come out well on CRT it's RED.

I had real problems adapting to the Greyhawk screen. Comparitivly it is quite a high gain screen it just has this grey material instead of pure white. Hence the colour shift.

The HD300's are more than able to cope with the resolutions of home cinema. They are close to their limits but still have a fraction of adjustment left. If any one has a set of HD10L lenses lying about though.

Jeff's fans need changing but that is not the answer to heat build up in the room. In order to keep the projector really quiet it needs to have the hot air removed.

I look forwards to the next session.
Many thanks for all the coffee

Jeff,
A few words of advice if I may.
The single biggest improvement you could make to your overall image quality would be to get rid of the GreyHawk. I know this is left over from your single lense days but its degrading your PQ to a fairly high degree.
While the GreyHawk offers plus points to DLP/LCD with its deeper perceived blacks etc, the effect it has on your CRT is highly derogatory.
The GreyHawk will make the colours murky and less vibrant while at the same time giving them much darker hue's. Whites will also be dull. Importantly, due to the 'darker whites' the percieved contrast ratio will be lower making the images less snappy and 3D like in appearance.

At the earliest possible time I recommend that you replace the GreyHawk with a Studiotek 130. I see that your room is 7ft wide, if possible get a larger screen than the current 5ft (approx) screen you have at the moment. 6 to 7 wide foot would mean that you can move your PJ further back thereby killing a few birds with one stone.
As you can't go bigger than 7ft, may I suggest one more thing. Un-filtered Barco's like the 1209, with or without calibration, do indeed have orangey reds. To get more accurate colours, you need to have a set of colour filters installed. If Roland doesn't do them, get in touch with either Phil from TAW or Curt Palme from AVS. They sell colour filters which come in a set of two and are not expensive at all.
You will lose a small percentage of light output, 10-15% but this is no problem with the combination of the big 1209 and a limited screen size.

A Studiotek 130 will give you superb colour uniformity, beautiful whites and more vibrant colours. I'd say the overall improvement in realism will be huge.

Welcome to the world of CRT.

Eric

[Paul D]

Hi Jeff...

Going from Bulb to CRT does take some adjustment, as it's not "all" better etc, but overall gives a great image.

The first thing that will bug you is the "apparent" softer picture. This is true to some extent, but is manly down to the totally smooth nature of the CRT picture. It is true that CRT gives you a near "film like" experience, but if you hanker for false "edge" induced sharpness, try running at a low resolution. The wide gaps between the scan lines give the impression of sharpness!(but NOT recommended!!!).

I found "bright" scenes tend to show softer, almost bleached as the light bounces around between the CRT face and lense etc. Infact this is the only downside i have found with CRT, but liquid coupled CRTs are better at reducing this.

I now keep the room at around 22'C, this helps due to the large lenses involved(big lense take a while to heat up!). When Roland visited the room was at least 30'C! and the sharpness only fully returned when the room reached 30'C again!.
So once the room temp is stablised, do a physical focus on the lenses (I used the wife on the lenses, while i stood an inch from the screen with a "grid" showing etc), then a electrical focus and then convergence. I found this helped stop the convergence from drifting and keeps the focus spot on. Each memory block needs a new electrical focus and convergence etc.

I installed a "Through the wall" aircon unit from B&Q (£99! should have been about £250) and have found it to be well capable of chilling the room right down. In winter i used a small room heater etc.

I'm sure Roland gets some sort of sadistic pleasure while you await his second visit! .
Only he knows how much better the picture will be, but leaves on the first day telling you how the picture is nearly perfect, yet calls back again and totally transforms it!.

He will perform his little piece of magic with his laptop and some strange Pixie dust!.

So you will have to await this moment, as the picture and any remaining niggles can be adjusted out.
It will be then you realise all the your settings with the HTPC will need re-adjusting!.

I'm awaiting the second part of my fan mod at the moment, but to be honest i'm not bothered by a bit of fan noise anyway. This part 1 of the mod has changed the pitch and rattles from the fans, and slightly reduced the noise.

Believe me when i tell you that you will never stop tweaking your new CRT, even when your new tubes have bedded in!. This is due to the fact that just when you think you have got the most out of it, you read something on this and AVS forums and away you go again...

I have had a love hate relationship with all my projectors, some days they seem stunning, others i see all their faults. At the moment i'm back in love and the picture is sharp and stunning, but this "love" is mainly due to getting my ATI8500 card working without the gamma problem etc. The HTPC really does give me a sharper/detailed and more saturated picture than my Pioneer/QSE combo.

Post back with your "second visit" news...

[Jeff]

Thanks guys, I had another play with the colours and got them a bit closer to what I'm expecting. I watched the Untouchables followed by a bit of Dinosaur and The Rock CC. They all looked pretty good, Dinosaur produced one of the best pictures I have ever seen, the scene where the egg is discovered and opens looks stunning. Perfect CRT material?.

Eric, I know what you are saying about the Grayhawk, but what I'm seeing certainly isn't dull. Bare in mind that I have one of the smallest screens and brightest CRT projects you are likely to see. I'm probably getting more ftl than most people with CRTs.

The issue with Grayhawk colour shift and calibration I think is a bit of a red herring. With the DLP I found the Grayhawk to be very neutral. The issue here is that the CRT is too close to the screen in order to create a uniform white and this shows up quite well on a grey scale pattern. This makes calibration a real pig. I could go down the road of getting a larger screen (probably Studiotek) and moving the projector further back, but I've had enough messing about and making changes, I just want a working home cinema that I can start to enjoy. Certainly I see the noise and heat as greater priorities right now.

Jaws tonight.

[larsan]

What advantages does the HD10L lenses have over the 300's?

[tryingtimes]

Strangely enough Jaws was the first film I had people round to see BEFORE Roland had come back to recalibrate.
It was the first time I'd seen it on anything bigger than 29" and it was fantastic.

Spoiler warning. Just in case you're the only person on the planet not to have seen it - don't read below

The atmosphere of his house when they're just sitting down to breakfast was the bit that surprised me. The power of the big screen really brought this out. Another good scene to benefit was the confused and panic inducing crowd in the water scene. Very tense. The other surprising improvement came the scar competition in the boat. Brilliant stuff!

I hope Minority Report is half as good

Enjoy

[Roland @ B4]

Originally posted by larsan
What advantages does the HD10L lenses have over the 300's?

The Hd10 is designed for small screen projection mainly rear. the HD300 is a more general purpose lens.

For the number of lines a 9 inch CRT can produce there is not a lot of differnce in on screen resolution.

[larsan]

So the difference in PQ would not be noticeable?

If that's the case I'd be willing to make an exchange if it is interesting?

My HD10's are in great shape...

[PaulB]

Originally posted by Jeff
The issue here is that the CRT is too close to the screen in order to create a uniform white and this shows up quite well on a grey scale pattern. This makes calibration a real pig. I could go down the road of getting a larger screen (probably Studiotek) and moving the projector further back, but I've had enough messing about and making changes, I just want a working home cinema that I can start to enjoy. Certainly I see the noise and heat as greater priorities right now.

Interesting - just what are you seeing Jeff? My uniformity problem is due to me being able to see the tubes colours themselves reflected back from the screen i.e. the left hand side of the screen has more blue and the right hand side more red corresponding to the location of the tubes on the projector (does this make sense?). Its not a major issue but makes equal colour calibration difficult if not impossible on certain parts of the screen. A pain more than anything else. Is this what you are seeing? One possible solution is a lower gain screen perhaps (mines is 1.3).
Regards,
Paul

Oops, forgot to mention, turning down the contrast helps but you lose some picture impact. I know Barco have a gizmo that can turn down the contrast on each tube individually (Roland?), but not sure if its worth getting unless the problem is real bad (or you have ran out of options.

[Jeff]

Paul,

That is exactly what I'm seeing, my screen gain is 0.95. What size screen do you have?

[Roland @ B4]

Originally posted by Jeff
I just want a working home cinema that I can start to enjoy.

Perhaps we don't do enough of this.

I'm still strugling in my mind about the gray hawk. I know we had to turn the contrast down due to the pain that was caused by such a bright image.