H57 arrived!

kasumi

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Just arrived at work (after traffic) to find my Themescene H57 is here before me. At last! Playtime tonight then... should be a slight improvement over our Panny PTLC75's 400:1 CR :laugh:

Thanks to James @ Audiovision too.
 
kasumi said:
should be a slight improvement over our Panny PTLC75's 400:1 CR :laugh:

Just a bit... :thumbsup:
 
Dealer just rang to say H57 arrived for demo this morning-will be off first thing tomorrow with anti - rainbow specs on!! Just hope delivery doesnt dry up .
 
Errrr- a yet to be invented personally worn optical device neutralising the equation DLP projector + blue eyes = rainbows. I wish.............

Or perhaps adding 'H57' has the desired effect. Let you know later....
 
I received my Optoma h57 today and it's a great projector. Out of the box, the preset 'cinema' mode seems to deliver the best picture. I watched "Attack of the Clones" and was completely blown away, especially during the Coruscent speeder chase. Wow!

Gladiator was also very impressive, however, the dreaded rainbow effect is present - in fact it was quite bad to begin with, but slowly over the course of 2+ hours viewing I'm seeing less and less. AOTC was the last and I saw almost no rainbows.

Other than that, the contrast, black level, colours, are exceptional. I'm only projecting onto a white wall at present (the other walls and ceiling are painted black) and it's hard to imagine it being much better than this. As for noise, the PJ is almost silent. I'm sat about 18" away and could barely hear it. Over 2 feet will be silent. No distractions there. Screendoor is also a non-issue. From 10 feet at maximum zoom I see no SDE.

All in all, a damn fine projector. However, if you're prone to rainbows a demo might be in order. I see them but they don't concern me too much - other people may not be so lucky.
 
Yes,

I had the pleasure of checking our first 2 units, very nice machine indeed. Echoing LW32's comments about the cinema mode, and black levels.

Should be good!
 
Oh dear! lw32 sorry to hear about the rainbows on the H57. I just know I'm going to be affected by them at the demo tomorrow, and I was hoping that somehow this machine would be an improvement. But of course it all depends on the number of segments and rotational speed of the colur wheel and in this respect the H57 is exactly the same as ,say, the 4805 so I guess I shouldnt be surprised.
 
Out of the 100 or so films I've watched on my little old H30, Gladiator is the worst film for rainbows for me, alongside the Mummy. I guess it is the dark scenes with torches burning that are the problem. All the others have been fine, so you should be OK.

Cheers
 
I agree about Gladiator. I've watched a few rainbow-inducing scenes from over a dozen movies and none were anywhere near as bad as Gladiator.

Spiderman 2 from start to finish was almost rainbow free. Sure, I still see the odd colour flash but nothing too severe. The H57 produces a remarkable picture with incredible blacks and a few rainbows aren't going to spoil that.

Of course, some people are affected more than others. And yes, I do have blue eyes :suicide: - supposedly the most susceptible to the effect.
 
I've had my H57 for three days now and logged about 7 hours. Rainbows seemed pretty noticable at first but I notice them much less now -- is that me, the projector or both? In any case, the picture is absolutely stunning and clearly superior to any LCD I've seen (HS20, Z2, Z3, AE700). It also is demonstrably better than the Sim 20H I looked at as well -- a clear leap up from the already good H56a.

Set-up is straight forward but there is a definite difference in how NTSC and PAL are handled so you do need to calibrate both if you have a mix of sources like I do. Contrast is excellent though I am still tweaking to get the very best range (I find it somewhat tough to eyeball using DVE Essentials).

All in all I am very satisfied, particularly since it was less than £1,700 all in. :thumbsup:

- J
 
jwm15 said:
Rainbows seemed pretty noticable at first but I notice them much less now -- is that me, the projector or both?
A common experience it would seem, I found the same thing with my Z200E, though it took a little longer for the effect to kick in.

I reckon the decline in noticing rainbows is down to the brain learning how to filter them out, I doubt they've 'gone away' as it were. Whatever, I'm glad of the effect however it happens. :)
 
Just got back from a demo of the H57-brand new machine zero hours on the lamp.Stunning picture, contast excellent, probably the best in its class and so quiet-you would think the fan was stopped from less than one metre. But, (and its a big BUT)
it was rainbows 'r us on almost all the test discs. Yes,Gladiator was bad but LOTR ,X-men, and others made viewing just a little bit uncomfortable for me so much so that I stopped viewing after about an hour. So I am both disapointed and yet amazed at this machine. However it was gratifying to read the other comments here about the effect diminishing after several hours of use. Can this be true?. Can the brain eventually learn to ignore this anomaly such that it eventually becomes unoticeable? I suffer from mild tinnitus (noises in the ears) which I have certainly 'learnt ' to live with over the years so perhaps it might be true. It would be an lot of money to shell out though just to find out it doesnt work for rogue visual stimulii.
Any doctors in the house?
 
I don't think tinnitus is similar to rainbows, to the extent that rainbows aren't 'noise' in the same sense.

I can definitely say that the lessening in noticing rainbows is real, however even when I first got my DLP I didn't have the physical reaction you're describing, I never found it uncomfortable, to begin with it was distracting but not disturbing.

I'd therefore be very hesitant to suggest that you more severe reaction will diminish to the point it'll be a rare event for you to say "hey, there's a rainbow".
 
Kragorn-yes thanks for that-I could also say that animated films and low to medium contrast films didnt have as severe an effect,eg any 'Pixar' style films and also Lawrence of Arabia so even with someone as sensitive as myself certain material didnt have as great an effect,if at all. I take your point regarding the difference between tinnitus and a visually induced effect but I wondered whether the brain eventually learns to ignore what clearly is a distortion from the source . Perhaps not .
 
Has anyone tried watching any black and white films on dlp projectors ?

Theoretically at least, I would have thought this would have highlighted the rainbows to maximum possible effect ?
 
I've watched many B&W films on DLPs. Extreme cases of white on black (like intertitles in silent movies) can provoke serious rainbow. However, in my experience B&W films typically suffer from much less rainbow effects than colour films due to the gradations of contrast across the frame. This is likely due to the fact that greys are always contain equal amounts of R, G and B. I haven't looked at any Film Noir with my H57 but hope to soon. I expect it will be no different.

-- J
 
I've had the same experience with my Z200E, the B&W sequence at the start of Van Helsing for example caused barely a glimmer of rainbows, I also recently watched The Longest Day and again almost a complete lack .. except ans jwm noted, when ther subtitles were on-screen during the German language dialog.
 
That's very interesting and totally contradicts my theory anyway !

Very glad to hear though.

I now have an H57 on order so am looking forward to watching my large library of old Universal horror/Ealing comedies/Laurel & Hardy films ! Just hoping it's going to arrive before Christmas :lease:
 
All in all I am very satisfied, particularly since it was less than £1,700 all in.

Where can you get it this cheap?
Gill
 
The Vorlon said:
That's very interesting and totally contradicts my theory anyway !
The theory is still fine :), but it's like jwm said, even in B&W movies the contrast changes are usually gradual. Of course, this may have something to do with the fact that as I've mentioned in another thread, I've become relatively inured to rainbows for the most part.
 
Gillmonster said:
All in all I am very satisfied, particularly since it was less than £1,700 all in.

Where can you get it this cheap?
Gill

Send me a private message and I will give details. As I understand it, it is against forum policy to post prices at specific dealers.

-- J
 
I took a B & W movie to the demo but cant say rainbows were particularly bad on it. However it is my understanding that it is fast moving highcontrast edges that trigger the effect eg sword edges in Gladiator, flickering candle flames etc. It is surely the inability of the colour wheel to keep up with the action ,in other words the optics of the system just lose synchronisation with the electronics.
 
Bogeyed said:
It is surely the inability of the colour wheel to keep up with the action ,in other words the optics of the system just lose synchronisation with the electronics.
You're right about it being connected with the speed of the wheel and the speed of movement on-screen, but it's nothing to do with the pj's optics .. it's simply the eye sees a fast moving spot of light as the colour wheel changes from one colour to another and thus the spot changes colour.

The faster the colour wheel the faster the movement can be before the eye detects this colour change .. bear in mind that rainbows are easily forced by rapid eye movements with a stationary on-screen image, clearly in this case there's no optical or electronic involvement in the process, it's purely eyesight.
 

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