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Review: Greg Eisemann Barco 909 modifications
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Francisco




Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 305
Location: The Netherlands


PostLink    Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 10:47 pm    Post subject: Review: Greg Eisemann Barco 909 modifications Reply with quote


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Hi all,

After all the fuss in several topics about the Greg Eisemann modifications I thought it was time to order a set myself to see what it would do to overal PQ. As you may know I own a SEOS 919 split pack with HFQ900 lenses and colored C-elements. Basically it's a 909 split pack with SEOS software. All added boards like COG and contrast modulation edge blending etc. has been taken off. So it's a plain 909 without any useless additives.
The tubes that are in it are like new and original Panasonic LUG. previous HDMI solution Moome V2 ext.
Although the original picture is very good, sharp deep blacks etc. there were some minor issues that could be improved like:
1. little ghosting
2. picture noise (only to be seen with your nose on screen)
3. light output
4. horizontal vs vertical light output aka bandwidth limitations

First of all I would like to say that these experiences are MY experiences and results will differ from person to person and will NOT be published as a fact. I try to be honest and down-to-earth here, like a Dutchman can be.

When I received the boards they all looked well manufactured especially the internal HDMI solution.

The things that I note and are improved in my eyes are:
1. Sharpness. The 909 already is very sharp with HFQ900 but with Eisemann mods the sharpness improved significantly. This is the sharpest CRT I ever have seen.
2. Ghosting. I had a little ghosting with the moome ext V2, this is gone with the internal HDMI solution.
3. Improved blacklevel / contrast ratio I have measured this and I even get 2ftl more without blooming aan good on/off contrast ratio, resulting in more depth in picture.
4. Bandwidth improved as well, see SMPTE pictures, still not quite as good as Marquee 9500 but I doubt that I will notice in overal movie picture.

Things that didn’t change or are the same with the mods are:
1. Still looks like there is a small picture noise in the image especially if you look close up the screen. The best way to explain is it looks like fosfor grain that clutters but it isn’t fosfor grain. Maybe it’s the tube itself I have to check within 2-3 weeks as I will install a set of new High grade simulation tubes.
2. It still doesn’t resolve light output equally horizontal vs vertical 1:1 pixel SMPTE pattern. The vertical bars are still a little darker at 1080p 60hz. Maybe in near future Greg will improve this too.

Overal I see improvements with these mods, Greg did improve the old video chain of Barco which was ready for improvement. I also will try higher resolutions in the near future to see what it is capable of.

Oh and please guys I don't compare with digital as I like CRT analog technique and to get the best out of it.

Pictures:
Port3 board


RGB driver


SMPTE before

SMPTE after

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CIR Engineering




Joined: 25 Aug 2008
Posts: 4264
Location: Chicago USA & Berlin Germany


PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 3:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice review. Short and sweet.

I think the 1:1 pattern looks a lot better in your photos after the mods. Or is it just the camera exposure?

The 1:1 is no where near as good as on the G90. On the Marquee machines some are excellent and others are terrible. With Marquee there are many different hardware combinations and some are good and others are not.

craigr

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digitalayon




Joined: 02 Mar 2009
Posts: 921



PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 3:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

check out greg trying to hide his work....sh*t....we tried that with our products and took a company in china to strip all of it withing a day of it arriving. We found certain chemicals to do it without damaging anything. You hear that eisermann....I can hack your sh*t!!! Mr. Green
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kal
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Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 17850
Location: Ottawa, Canada

TV/Projector: JVC DLA-NZ7


PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 4:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for posting!

Looks like he uses an Hdfury3 now as the HDMI board instead of the old DVI solution currently shown on his website: http://www.eisemann-theater.com/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=73&op=page

Kal

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CasetheCorvetteman




Joined: 09 Nov 2008
Posts: 6319
Location: Australia


PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 5:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Did you get the neckboards done as well?


digitalayon wrote:
check out greg trying to hide his work....sh*t....we tried that with our products and took a company in china to strip all of it withing a day of it arriving. We found certain chemicals to do it without damaging anything. You hear that eisermann....I can hack your sh*t!!! Mr. Green

Considering your apparent level of expertise i very much doubt he will be concerned Laughing

The glues are there to hold things in place.

KAL, isnt that a Fury 3D? Greg has assured me in the past that the internal HDMI he was using could do Full HD 3D

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ElTopo




Joined: 07 Nov 2006
Posts: 1607



PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 6:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi,

you just added the modded Port3 HDMI card to get it sharper ?

What about the other boards ?


thanks

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CasetheCorvetteman




Joined: 09 Nov 2008
Posts: 6319
Location: Australia


PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 8:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can see the other boards modded in the pics there, apart from the neck boards.
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redfox001




Joined: 16 Mar 2009
Posts: 2251
Location: The Netherlands


PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 10:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh man I am so yealous! Very Happy Just kidding but good to hear that this improved the picture so much. While reading through the documentation I read that the peaking (in the sync ?) could make more sharpness. Would this board have better sync pulses? Did you experiment with the peaking options in the 919? Perhaps just a stupid question because I think that peaking is automatic selected for high bandwidth.

And wow 3dfury inside Very Happy

I still have some board modded by Mike Parker lying around. I don't know if they will do anything but I'll post here once I'm ready. Bought these from Fragzero who used them in a cine 8.

Is it realy possible to improve on these video out board as well? I mean they are very high bandwith already? When I compare them with the cine 8 (1209) board there are much more pins and a lean design. Anyway what am I talking I don't know what picture they will produce they just look awsome already Laughing

Good work!


Last edited by redfox001 on Sat Apr 05, 2014 10:03 am; edited 1 time in total
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Francisco




Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 305
Location: The Netherlands


PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 10:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi,

Boards that have been modified are:
- RGB Driver
- RGB Switcher
- 2nd RGB Switcher module (Port3)
- 3x RGB amp's (Neck cards)

SMPTE pictures are taken with same camera/lens/settings etc.

I also have a port3 board with internal moome attached directly on it, I will test this one also to see if there is any difference between Greg HDMI solution and the one with moome chip. This is also moome's latest version V3

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redfox001




Joined: 16 Mar 2009
Posts: 2251
Location: The Netherlands


PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 10:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

And that is a lean and mean board as well for the hdmi. It has everything stripped Wink
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ElTopo




Joined: 07 Nov 2006
Posts: 1607



PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 11:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

How much $$$ for the mods if i may ask ?
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stridsvognen
Guest








PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 12:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice review.

Is it possible you can try connect the Ext. Moome V2 and see how that looks now, and do some closeup pictures of the 1:1 patterns.

The HDMI board is 100% sure a HD Fury 3
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barclay66




Joined: 27 Jun 2011
Posts: 1291
Location: Germany

TV/Projector: Marquee 9500 Ultra


PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

stridsvognen wrote:
The HDMI board is 100% sure a HD Fury 3

Hi,

I agree. The PCB of the 3D Fury has a different layout with the analog output at one side as opposed to the centered output at the HDFury 3.

A solution using a Moome board instead will most likely have a bandwith advantage as severeal tests between Moome boxes and cards vs the HDFury have shown this. Nash was able to show oscilloscope measurements on this in another thread.
Of course the integration of a 3rd party board to a Barco input board requires a great amount of care in order to preserve the 3rd party's board quality. What I want to say with this: You could have the best possible HDMI converter circuit in the world but still woudn't get great results if the adaption to the Barco's input circuitry was sloppy...

Regards,
barclay66



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CIR Engineering




Joined: 25 Aug 2008
Posts: 4264
Location: Chicago USA & Berlin Germany


PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 2:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

barclay66 wrote:
I agree. The PCB of the 3D Fury has a different layout with the analog output at one side as opposed to the centered output at the HDFury 3.

A solution using a Moome board instead will most likely have a bandwith advantage as severeal tests between Moome boxes and cards vs the HDFury have shown this. Nash was able to show oscilloscope measurements on this in another thread.

Regards,
barclay66

Ahem, and let me clear my through.

Those photos Nash (Tom) posted were my photos using my Tektronics 465B analog scope. Nash didn't cite my work or that I took the photos. I pointed that out in the last thread I saw him using my photos without citation. I should have put my logo on the photos. I have scope photos of almost every (maybe every) DVI and HDMI transcoder running 1080i 60, 1080p 60, and 1080p 72; both internal and external versions.

craigr

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CIR Engineering




Joined: 25 Aug 2008
Posts: 4264
Location: Chicago USA & Berlin Germany


PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 2:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

stridsvognen wrote:
Nice review.

Is it possible you can try connect the Ext. Moome V2 and see how that looks now, and do some closeup pictures of the 1:1 patterns.

The HDMI board is 100% sure a HD Fury 3

That would be a good idea.

However, the thing about the Moome boxes is that on the v2 there are two sub-versions. One can resolve 1080p 60Hz with only about 5% attenuation and the other has about 70% attenuation. Obviously depending on which one you happen to have will result in a tremendous difference in the 1:1 pattern.

If you have a scope you can run 1080p 60Hz from the Moome EXT to the scope and look at a 1:1 pattern. If it is nearly fully resolved than it's the good one. If you have the bad one, you can change the filter caps and then it is fixed to full resolution.

craigr

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CIR Engineering




Joined: 25 Aug 2008
Posts: 4264
Location: Chicago USA & Berlin Germany


PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 2:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Francisco wrote:
Hi,

Boards that have been modified are:
- RGB Driver
- RGB Switcher
- 2nd RGB Switcher module (Port3)
- 3x RGB amp's (Neck cards)

SMPTE pictures are taken with same camera/lens/settings etc.

I also have a port3 board with internal moome attached directly on it, I will test this one also to see if there is any difference between Greg HDMI solution and the one with moome chip. This is also moome's latest version V3

The Moome v3 has excellent bandwidth with less than 5% attenuation at 1080p 60Hz. That would be a good test.

The HDFury 3 has many issues. One of them is that the analog output circuit is kind of crummy. They had some issues with it and so they added peaking in the software that controls the DAC. In the end, what they did was make it so that the SMTPE 1:1 would look perfect at 1080p, but at lower or higher resolutions it's not so good.

The problem with this is that in real world performance test patterns with 1080p 60Hz look nearly perfect, but in the real world there are going to be frequencies required that don't fall in line with the full bandwidth of the signal. I don't know what this means for real world images in reality, but there is quite a bit of artificial "enhancements" used on the HDMI chip.

craigr

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gasser




Joined: 31 May 2012
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PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 2:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have a 809 split pack with the Greg's mods from a year ago. He says he has new mods which are an improvement over last years product. Still have a vertical banding issue on the extreme left. It has 9" tubes with 808s control boards. Very happy with the picture and I've seen the Sony 1000es. I like both, but I like mine better. Never liked any digitals until the new Sony 1000es. I have not seen the 1100es or any true 4K movies on the 1100es. The downside is you need to learn how to adjust the CRT, and it takes time to learn, but once you are there, you are pleased.
I'm going to try out the OPPO 103 or 105 next as my source (currently using a Sony PS3 directly to the projector.
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PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 2:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CIR Engineering wrote:
Those photos Nash (Tom) posted were my photos using my Tektronics 465B analog scope.


Totally irrelevant here but was that scope up to task? Since it is only a 100MHz scope.

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CIR Engineering




Joined: 25 Aug 2008
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PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 2:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

redfox001 wrote:
Oh man I am so yealous! Very Happy Just kidding but good to hear that this improved the picture so much. While reading through the documentation I read that the peaking (in the sync ?) could make more sharpness. Would this board have better sync pulses? Did you experiment with the peaking options in the 919? Perhaps just a stupid question because I think that peaking is automatic selected for high bandwidth.

Is it realy possible to improve on these video out board as well? I mean they are very high bandwith already? When I compare them with the cine 8 (1209) board there are much more pins and a lean design. Anyway what am I talking I don't know what picture they will produce they just look awsome already Laughing

Good work!

Peaking is an interesting topic. The idea behind peaking is to artificially increase the high frequency potions of a signal. This is done in theory because you know that the next circuit in the signal chain will (by nature) decrease the frequency and thus attenuate. If just the right amount of peaking is used, you get a sharp image with nearly flat frequency response. If too much peaking is used you get ringing, or what some people call a ghost image.

The Barco 9" projectors are an interesting case. In terms of bandwidth their signal chain is among the lowest quality of the last generation 9" projectors (Sony Marquee Barco). The funny thing is that Barco 909 is capable of producing an image to a higher frequency than any other projector (they can even run 4k), but the Barco's do so while having the most attenuation of the last 9" generation. So if you compare a Barco SMTPE 1:1 at 1080p 60Hz or higher with Marquee or G90 it will usually look the worst. However, if you increase the resolution the Marquee will no longer be able to sync while the Barco has no problem. Where it gets funny is that the Barco will do it with more and more attenuation as the signal resolution increased. So the image won't actually get any sharper even though the resolution it can reproduce is much higher.

craigr

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CIR Engineering




Joined: 25 Aug 2008
Posts: 4264
Location: Chicago USA & Berlin Germany


PostLink    Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 2:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

gjaky wrote:
CIR Engineering wrote:
Those photos Nash (Tom) posted were my photos using my Tektronics 465B analog scope.


Totally irrelevant here but was that scope up to task? Since it is only a 100MHz scope.

Good thought. The scope was (is) up to task because I have tested it running directly from an Accupel 5000 plunged into the scope. With the reference test pattern generator, the scope shows no attenuation at 1080p 60Hz and the multiburst is totally flat as it should be. I might even have a photo of that test some place.

craigr

_________________
*NEW JETI 1501-HiRes 2nm Spectroradiometer
JETI 1211 Spectroradiometer
Photo Research PR-650 Spectroradiometer
Klein K10-A Colorimeter
X-Rite i1Pro2 Spectroradiometer & Spyder Colorimeters *For JVC auto-calibration when Klein & Jeti are not applicable
Murideo Fresco SIX-G HDMI 2.x Multimedia Generator
Murideo Fresco SIX-A HDMI 2.x Analyzer
*NEW Light Illusion ColourSpace XPT Version β Color Calibration Software
Light Illusion LightSpace XPT Pro Version 10.x Color Calibration Software
*NEW OMARDRIS JVC Software Patch to use K10-A and Jeti with JVC OEM AutoCal Software!
Sencore CR7000 CRT Tube Analyzer / Rejuvenater
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Phone: 865-405-6892
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