Got my NEC HT1000 today

meva

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It arrived this p.m :D , unfortunately I have to go to a meeting in a few minutes :( . I will post my impressions later on ( with a Pioneer 737 ( interlaced component, progressive component and rgb scart, maybe s-video ) and HTPC .
 
Top Banana Matt!!!

I've been waiting for someone like yourself to get one and give it a true test, and now my wait is over. :)

I was half expecting it to be over at avs, but glad it's a fellow Brit.

Did you buy it sight unseen (Ivojo or Projected.co.uk?) or manage to get a demo? I was certainly tempted myself until I heard the htpc route may not produce the results you'd expect.

Price? ;)

Hurry up - I can't wait all night ya know! - especialy interested in the htpc vga/dvi test....

Impatient Gary...
 
Hi
My first impressions of this projector were not good, interlaced component from my Pioneer 737 was awful, poor contrast and soft. After tweaking ,mostly the 737's menus, things started to look much, much better.
It's now been running for about 1 1/2 hours and I'm impressed. I'm going to be brief tonight because I am knackered. Contrast and colour are superb. Black levels are pretty good, blacks are dark grey but still blacker than my old Philips 4100 which is about a quarter as bright. Artefacts ( although I'm no expert in this field )are practically non-existant. I did see a little stair-stepping and noise initially but this was due to poor set up of my dvd player. I'm about 10 feet away from a 5'10" wide screen and can see no difference between interlaced and progressive component in.The picture from my HTPC ( athlon 650 , Powerdvd ) is slightly smoother but presently I'm sticking with the dvd player I think. The picture is sharp but diplays the more smooth film-like properties of DLP projectors ( I you are used to LCD, you may think it soft at 1st ). S-video was close to component, slightly less saturated colours as you might expect. I do see rainbows but not often and they don't bother me ( as yet, hopefully never )
The projector isn't user friendly and intuative at all to my mind. I still haven't worked out how to access half of the menus ( Sherlock Holmes would be pressed to find sweetvision ) It also runs very hot ( which is a worry with the fire service on strike in this country !?!
I'll hopefully post some more thoughts tomorrow.
 
Whoops,
When I went back to switch off my HTPC I realised the desktop was still set to 800x600 not XGA ( doh!! ) At native resolution the picture was noticably better ( unsurprisingly ). I think once again HTPC is the way to go for ultimate picture quality ( Although the difference is much,much more slight than with my old Philips )
 
Hi Matt,

I had heard that the HT1000 converted all pc signals regardless of refresh rate to 60hz, so I was wondering how pans looked for PAL DVDs. When you next fire it up, could you possibly give it a good test with the htpc on both PAL and NTSC disks? :)

I'm currently using an htpc, so don't really want to hook up a dvd player, although it might be more convenient, it hasn't got the flexibility or the trailers my htpc has (although it's very flexible in 16:9 image placement). :)

TIA

Gary
 
I Just found the first serious flaw:( ( for us Europeans anyway ). Pal 50hz region 2 Star Trek 1st Contact via interlaced component. Tearing, occasional but bad !! Hopefully this is a problem that can be solved with a firmware upgrade?? Mmmm anyone know who to contact at NEC to tell them about this.
Gary, hopefully I will get time to have a good play around with the HTPC tomorrow and answer your questions. I am greatly interested to see if a get this tearing problem with pal dvd via HTPC. Conversion to 60hz may be an advantage with this projector.
 
I've been playing around with the settings and i can't get rid of the tearing on pal dvds. This projector doesn't like 50 hz:( If I can't get a decent response from NEC on monday I think it is going back. Shame as the picture from region1 dvds is gorgeous.
 
Hi Matt,

that's a real shame. :(

I use htpc for my pj, and the majority of my dvds are region 1, but I still watch R2, so I need to know that this pj will allow playback of both PAL and NTSC without tearing, judder or processing artefacts.

Hope you have better luck with htpc....

Gary.
 
Hi Matt,

I've been following both threads just so I don't miss anything!

Glad that issue is resolved at least, so now onto the htpc!

Have you got a software dvd player like WinDVD or PowerDVD?

I'd like to know how htpc via the standard vga connection looks, especialy as the HT1000 is suposed to convert all input frequencies (such as 72 or 75hz) to 60hz internaly.

Cheers.

Gary.
 
Hi, just a few snippets.
I prefer the iris shut, but I have been using a 300 lumen projector for the last 3 years.The pj on eco mode is really quiet.
One thing for European users to be careful of is rainbows. All the dlp demos I have seen before have been with region 1 dvds , rainbows are much more noticable with region2 50hz.
Tomorrow I will get a good chance to have a play for 5-6 hours and hopefully will be able to pick up a DVI cable in the morning so I can compare to vga ( i have a radeon with DVI-D but my old pj didn't have an input ).
Gary I have powerdvd and windvd , I will post tomorrow evening with my findings.
 
Gary,
I've been having a good look at HTPC tonight. I have used the lobby sequence from the Matrix as my demo material as I have a region1 ntsc copy and a region4 pal copy.
My first reference was a straight interlaced component feed from my Pioneer 737. Very nice picture, no obvious artefacts. Next I watched the pal copy via htpc outputting at 75hz. The picture was smoother, less granular, pans were fine, no stuttering BUT there was occasional tearing when lots was going on in the picture. I then watched the same sequence via htpc outputting at 60hz. The picture had the same smooth quality as at 75hz but the tearing was gone.
My htpc is an athlon 650 with a radeon ve (7000) 320meg ram.I was using the standard vga connector as i wasn't able to find a dvi cable today.
I'm off now to look at region 1 via htpc at 60 and 72 hz. If you want me to try anything specific for you let me know on here.
 
Thanks for you time Matt.

So, PAL looks better when delivered at 60hz - seems a bit odd, but I guess it must be the Faroujda doing its thing...

What about 48 or 50hz for PAL? Any different? I guess NTSC should look good at 60hz then, and I believe the Faroujda is very good at 3:2 pull down conversion..

What mode is the pj in? Is the pj doing the squeeze, or is the htpc?

Would you say that DVD via htpc looks good at 60hz regardless of PAL or NTSC, and is definately better than a standalone player?

Cheers.

Gary.
 
At the moment via htpc the computer is doing the squeeze.My graphics card menu doesnt offer 50 hz or 48hz output. I downloaded powerstrip so if that will allow this and you can let me know how to configure it I will give it a try.
With region1 and 60hz vs 72 hz htpc the story is the same, minor and occasional tearing at 72 hz.
Both region1 and region2 dvds look very good via htpc @ 60hz though.
I should say for those not interested in battling through windows to watch a movie, the picture via component and even s-video is excellent too. I probably wont bother using the htpc that much.
I would say that the htpc picture is maybe fractionally better.
With my old Philips 4100 the difference between s-video and htpc was night and day, s-video looked awful in comparison.
 
:( the tearing is back on Pal again. All that happened before was the 16:9 mode pushes the line further down so it was in the black bar on 2:35 aspect ratio movies. When I watched some of the Terminator tonight ( 1:85 ratio ) I spotted it again.
 
This is really depressing...

I guess worse for you.....reading AVS you'd think this projector was the best thing since sliced bread, but from your experience it sounds as if once again we're getting the short end of the stick for PAL.

I'm waiting to hear back from another owner in europe to see if he has similar problems..I'll let you know.

Regards,
Ian Guinan
 
I am a bit depressed. I've been waiting for a year to buy a new projector and now I wish I had waited a little longer.
You can watch pal dvds without tearing but only if you leave your dvd player set to 4:3. If you want a 16.9 screen and a permanent installation forget it.
I'm now wondering if projected will give me a hassle free refund.
 
I'd hang on a couple of days before you send it back. It may just be that you have a duff machine...I'd try and get experience from other users if you are happy with the projector in all other respects.

Looking around I've yet to see anyone else report the same problems you are seeing, so there may be some hope yet.

If this problem can be fixed then this could be a killer projector for the price.

Regards,
Ian Guinan
 
Hi Matt,

are you saying that the only way for PAL to be seen without tearing is to send the NEC a raw 4:3 image from the dvd player, and let the pj do the squeeze?

What are the limitations of this? Can you still move the squeezed image within the 4:3 are or is it fixed in the center?

Is a htpc a way round this at 60hz for all sources? What if the htpc does the squish and you send it to the pj in the position you want within the projected 4:3?

Hope there's a fix or you pj is faulty - this is the first one to make me want to upgrade and I'll be very dissapointed if it's no good for any PAL material. :(

Cheers.

Gary.
 
Originally posted by Gary Lightfoot
Hi Matt,

are you saying that the only way for PAL to be seen without tearing is to send the NEC a raw 4:3 image from the dvd player, and let the pj do the squeeze?

What are the limitations of this? Can you still move the squeezed image within the 4:3 are or is it fixed in the center?

Is a htpc a way round this at 60hz for all sources? What if the htpc does the squish and you send it to the pj in the position you want within the projected 4:3?

Hope there's a fix or you pj is faulty - this is the first one to make me want to upgrade and I'll be very dissapointed if it's no good for any PAL material. :(

Cheers.

Gary.

no, the opposite. If you let the dvd player do the squish you don't get the tearing. If you set your dvd player to 16.9 ( i.e tall and thin ) and let the projector do the squish ( or the stretch in 16.9 mode ) you get the tearing. The pj will quite happily squish a 60hz signal from a htpc or dvd player. I think maybe nec tested the pj with 60hz stuff and just assumed everything would work with 50hz. Its a problem that maybe could be sorted with a firmware update.
 
Maybe it's something you could mention to NECs technical department?

I think you can flash the HT1000s firmware can't you? If an upgrade is in the works, then maybe (if we're lucky) there will be a fix for this.

So it seems an htpc at 60hz for both PAL and NTSC is the only way for a tear-free image.

That kinda suits me as I like the flexibility of the computer, but it seems that we're paying for a scaler that isn't much good unless you live in the USA.

Can your dvd player output a PAL dvd as ntsc? The cheapo Alba can do this, so maybe that's a workaround?

Gary.
 
I guess the simplest workaround is to leave the dvd player set to 4:3 and forget about the various image squishes. At £3K+ it would be nice to have a product that works flawlessly though:confused:
 
That would be nice. :(

I wonder if we'll be able to get a pj with up to 3000:1 cr, 1024 x 768 resolution and no internal scaler so we're free to use an external one that works....

Here's hoping you get a positive resolution to this though Matt I really liked this pj too...

Gary.
 
Matt, if you set the DVD player to 4:3 you're throwing away a third of the DVD's vertical resolution on anamorphic material. That's a no-no.
 

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