Sim2 HT3000E and new DLP advancment

[gandley]

as thread title, borrowed form the rather nice Alan Couger

Real time lamp intensity adjusts within a millisecond. No more iris needed.

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We are all aware of Marantz recently announcing 12 bit color with their 1 chip DLP. Im sure that is only part of the story and hope we know more come cedia.
Ive recently learned Sim2 is doing some neat things. Im just touching on a few key points.
Simular to Marantz they now have a new color wheel with Brillion color and 10 bit through and through processing. The additional 2 bits along with brillion color add additional color to 1 chip DLP but whats more interesting is what they call "Unishape"

UNISHAPE™ The lamp light intensity is adapted to the image content with millisecond precision, similar to a waveform generator.
The adapted light waveform shape is repeated in synchronization with the
DMD and color wheel. Through precise dosage of the light, UNISHAPE™
increases the efficiency of the overall system while simultaneously
improving image quality.

Combined with the new color wheel:
Up to 40% brighter.
60 % less dithering.
15% more colors.
Replaces the need for a mechanical aperture.

I have seen this in action and its not just a small improvement. I was really blown away by the image. This thing is bright. Almost 3 chip DLP bright. I could see no rainbows at all and I tried.
This whole thing is beyond my technical ability to explain what I was seeing other then wow. I have a power point presentation. Anyone know how I can convert this to PDF or a format I can post or how would I can share this?

Thanks!!

Edit:I forgot to add this model is called the HT3000E!

UniShape sounds interesting, but will it effect bulb life?

Link to the thread

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=857743

[Zag]

High speed modulation of the lamp intensity in sync with the colour wheel by the sound of things.

Has some advantages over a DI but I don't think this is much/if any advancement by the DLP camp to be honest, plus I really can't see how this could reduce colour separation artifacts, my biggest issue with this technology.

Rather than addressing the minor issues (for my eyes anyway), develop a colour wheel fast enough or designed in such a way( Archimedean spiral... whatever happened to that) that solves the RBE issue for everyone, period.

Then and only then will I consider a demo of a DLP machine once again.

Apologies for sounding negative but I really can't get excited about DLP until it addresses its achilles heel and makes the technology watchable by all.

[RTFM]

I had an opportunity to see the latest version of the SIM2 Grand Cinema HT3000E when Alan brought one over a few weeks ago and I have to say it was definitely a lot brighter than the original HT3000. Skin tones were spot on and shadow detail and black level much improved. Grey scale tracking was exemplary.

[gandley]

Originally Posted by RTFM

I had an opportunity to see the latest version of the SIM2 Grand Cinema HT3000E when Alan brought one over a few weeks ago and I have to say it was definitely a lot brighter than the original HT3000. Skin tones were spot on and shadow detail and black level much improved. Grey scale tracking was exemplary.

did you notice any bulb pumping? It does sound very interesting.

[Nick Peacock]

I've been following that thread for a while, and I'm still trying to figure out how it works. It sounds like source modulation, but done quickly enough to synchronise with individual mirror switching, so pretty quickly indeed.

Can you actually do that with these bulbs? I thought they could only switch on and off very slowly. If not, it's such an obvious thing to do then why hasn't anyone done it before?

Very puzzled,

Nick

[Gary Lightfoot]

I think that because the lamp relies on an arc rather than a filament to generate light, the arc can be controlled quite quickly, whereas with a filament it has to heat up and cool down so wouldn't work for this kind of application.

Gary

[RTFM]

Originally Posted by gandley

did you notice any bulb pumping? It does sound very interesting.

Did not notice anything untoward. The technology seems to work rather well.

[Chris Frost]

Barco developed and used a modulated lamp technology on their CineVersum range of single chip DLPs for the last 5+ years. It works well.

Barco's use of this technology helps address some other issues such as correcting the red deficiency in UHP lamps. It also means that post calibration brightness is as much as 50% higher than similar rated projectors that use a conventional UHP lamp driver. There are some other benefits too with greyscale and colour performance, so this sort of technology is useful and the benefits are proven.

[Gary Lightfoot]

Hi Chris,

Interesting stuff - any idea how lamp modulation by itself helps address the red deficiency in the lamp?

Cheers

Gary

[Chris Frost]

There's a good image of the spectral plot of UHP vs Xenon on the Cine4home web site. The red deficiency of UHP is easy to see. Here's a link

What Barco do is drive the lamp brightness in sync with the phases of the colour wheel. During the green and blue phases the lamp is driven at a slightly lower level. During the red phase it is driven at a higher level.

The result on screen is equal proportions of red green and blue despite the inherent nature of the UHP lamp to be lacking red. This is what helps make the Barco single chip DLPs far brighter after calibration than other projectors using a similar wattage lamp.

[Gary Lightfoot]

Hi Chris,

Yes I've seen those spectral graphs (I've even posted them here in the past) - I'm still after a CRT one though. There must be one out there somewhere (I only have a colorimiter and they don't have spectral capability, otherwise I'd use it on my Seleco 310)...

Thanks for the explanation on the lamp modulation - that has to be pretty fast as the colour wheels rotate pretty darn quick!

Gary

The Sim2 C3X now has a C3Xe three chip which also has the added 10 bit processing which has improved the image and made it even more stellar. The image according to those who have seen it is cleaner, sharper than ever before. Has anyone had a chance to see the C3Xe and care to comment on it. Thanks Greg