CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

**Curt Palme**

This could almost be thrown into the M8000/RS2 thread, but I figured I'd start a new one.

I was in Seattle yesterday, and saw three digitals.

One was a Panasonic AE900U, bought last year for $2000. WHile it was bright, the panel alignment was HORRIBLE, massive misalignment from 12' away. Yech!

Then I went to two stores in the Bellevue area, both catering to higher end clientele than the big box stores. I had to marvel at both stores. Much larger than the higher end stores here, very nicely laid out, and very nice no BS staff at both stores. I did some business at one, so they knew who I was, but not at the other, I was a complete stranger. I fired a couple of questions to see what answer I'd get, and as I said, no BS and very straightforward answers from the sales people.

At the one store I saw the home equivelent of the JVC RS2. It was the first RS2 I'd seen, and while I didn't view it critically, I did notice that the panel alignment was a lot better than the RS1 I saw last year at Cliff's place. AS I said, I spent less than 5 minutes with it, but it looked pretty decent even though it was projecting on a gray screen. (soon to be changed apparently).

THen I went to the really high end store, and saw some massive Runco 108p 3 chip DLP beast. As big as a typical CRt, with the motorized lens assembly on it.

Now, to be fair, they were running a 480p component DVD player into the Runco scaler, then out to the projector, but the mosquito noise was HORRIBLE. Good from far, far from good. Also, the posterization, that oily color that I see in many digitals in the bright areas of any face shot was very present on this unit.

I'm not sure what model it was, the sale guy told me that is was a 1080p unit, but I can't pinoint it on the Runco website. Anyways, I'm sure it was well over $25K if not a heck of a lot more. Nahhhhhhh, not for me!

Very Happy

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10273

I do not understand the following of JVC in projection. I do not see the following in Panasonic. Both, in my opinion, are far from be home theater centered in product development. Their respective cores are business projection and anything applied to home theater seems far from the mark in honest intentions.

For instance, why would someone consider the RS1/2 over the Sony VW40/50/60/100/200? I get the brightness aspect, but that, to me, is meaningless if its a) going to raise the black level, and b) if its going to get wasted post-calibration in order to get them color corrected and maximized contrast.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 1:41 pm Post subject:

I have not seen the 200, but the Ruby and Pearl (to me) are far under the RS1. I can deal with a lot of flaws in an image, but panel misalignment drives me nuts. I'd rather have colors way off than any visible panel misalignment.

ecrabb · Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject:

I don't get your point, Wan. Sony develops for, and sells its SXRD technology to the high-end commercial install and dCinema markets, too. So?

SC

Person99 · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 4901 Location: Flower Mound, TX

Person99 · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 4901 Location: Flower Mound, TX

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 3:15 pm Post subject:

I mean that sheen/oily look in bright parts of people's faces. It looks like their skin is about to break out in a bad case of acne. Someone called that look as being 'posterization' over at avs a while back.

Both of these stores were high end places, ones where I'd expect the showroom projectors to be set up in the best way possible. This wasn't a BB or CC...

I've never bashed the RS1. I've only seen the one at Cliff's place last summer, and watched it for about an hour. I did really like it. But there's still the lack of serviceability and cost of bulbs... Sad

Person99 · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 4901 Location: Flower Mound, TX

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10273

Person99 · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 4901 Location: Flower Mound, TX

Glen · Joined: 11 Sep 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Whittier, CA

I replaced my modded 9500LC with a RS1 last year......... picture brightness and resolution were great, black level left a bit to be desired..... (worked well when some ambient light was present) When the RS2 came out, I replaced my RS1, much better in black level and lower brightness, using the 600-hour bulb from the RS1. I have always used a Lumagen, correcting the grayscale and gamma with them and have been very pleased with performance. I am currently at 1300-hours on the bulb and still enjoy the picture. True, the black level could be a bit better (I have a matte white screen), the colors didn't really offend me, however, they are now corrected with the Radiance........ I don't miss the occasional re-convergence adjustments, the fan noise and the "BIG" projector sitting next to me.

emdawgz1 · Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 7949

The runco was probably the Signature Cinema SC1

I saw it @ my old shop w/ the Electric anamorphic lens. The HD sources looked .....good. non hd... not good. But it was BRIGHT. A 140 inch widescreen w/ auto masking. The simpsons movie in HD was Really good.

If a shop is showing that thing w/ anything less than an HD signal they should lose their runco dealership.

BlackSabbath · Joined: 16 Mar 2006 Posts: 219

To be honest here, about one year ago I crossed over from CRT to digital, and I have also seen a lot of really expensive digital projectors in high end stores. I have to say, I really like sony's LCOS (well they insist on calling it sxrd but its lcos) offerings. In fact, as some of you may know the digital I ended up with is a VPL-VW50 (pearl) and I have been very happy with the picture thus far.

I think that if you are coming from CRT, and are shopping for digitals, the best place to start is LCOS, not DLP because to me DLP is far too harsh and LCOS is far smoother, I consider my pearl's picture exceptionally smooth for a digital.

Of course, you still cant beat a G90 for pure picture, being a CRT guy for 3 years made me learn that, but I do like a good LCOS.

WTS · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 1276 Location: Calgary

Dave, it sounds like you're getting ready to crossover to the digital world. Maybe another year of talking yourself into it will do it and repeating to yourself while looking into the mirror "hmmm digitals are pretty damn good now - hmmm digital are pretty damn good now".

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12025 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Too late -- Dave went digital several months ago!

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 2:00 pm Post subject:

All those that switch are countered by emails like this:

After going through my 3rd LCD/DLP projector (and 4th lamp) I am really considering taking the plunge into a CRT unit, and these units are in the range of what I would pay for a decent used 720p capable DLP/LCD set ($4-600).

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

I still don't understand what people are doing to their projectors to kill them. We just had a Mitsubishi HC5000 (1080p) PJ die out in the field, but it was ON A MOTION PLATFORM!

I can count maybe 3 failures of XGA-class 3-panel LCD projectors out of 40+ shipped, in 3 years. We'll see how the HD PJs fare; I suspect they may be more delicate, but still... like I said, these things are being thrown around quite literally like they're mounted in the back of a monster truck!

WTS · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 1276 Location: Calgary

Oh I didn't know Dave went to the other side. So what digital did you go with Dave, hope you got a good price for your Cine8.

Ridebreck · Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 2:45 pm Post subject:

The CIH bug bit him just a little too hard for him to overcome it. I don't recall what he ended up with, but I know that he's been toying with different anamorphic lenses and such. I really think that he's happy with the choice.