CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[ecrabb]

OK, I finally got the G70 hung on the ceiling on Sunday and got downstairs last night to start doing setup. That's when the fun started. This thing is making me feel like a total newbie and it's pissing me off. I think I need a little help with this bad boy.

Here are a few issues I'm having. I'd like some opinions on whether I'm doing something wrong or if this machine is a POS - or perhaps both.

Here's the vitals on the machine (if it matters):
- 160 hours on it now
- Serial number 2000112 on chassis outside and in service menu, 2000097 on inside chassis. Don't know what the deal is there
- ROM M: 1.00 S1: 1.02 S2: 1.03 S3: 1.00
- 120" throw from 96x54, ~10" vertical offset (PJ is 10" above screen top)

1) Save as standard data - or not
Couldn't get the @#%$ thing to save as standard registration data for the life of me. I swear I tried it 20 times last night on both IR remote and internal panel. I must have held that damn memory button down for 20+ seconds on both controls several times and never could get it. This morning, I tried it - 8 seconds on both and I got the "save all" message. %^^$@#$%^^! W T F? The manual says 5 seconds. I say bull****.

2) Disappearing act
Is the pattern/adjustment mode supposed to go away every time you press 'memory'? That's different than the 12xx. The pattern always stays up until you press 'normal' on the 12xx.

3) The mess: geometry.
I got optical, Scheimpflug, and EM all looking decent. I was pretty happy with how that turned out. But I can't get good geometry and convergence to save my life. One or two corners are always dicked up, requiring a good chunk of zone to fix. Even the GREEN has a corner (bottom-left) out of whack - shifted up and to the right at least an inch or more, and about 1/3 of the way across the screen. Physical install is DEAD-ASS on, just as my 1271 was. It's on the same mount, in fact. The as evidenced by the perfectly matching toe-ins on red/blue. WTF? I could NAIL my 1271. After I did basic geometry, not a spot on the screen required more than 10 or 20 clicks of zone. This G70 is all F'ed up. I went through and manually reset every damn zone to 128 before I started, and still... Red and blue both have a corner or two that are dicked up requiring a ton of zone, too. WTF? I've gone back and forth and back and forth with key, pin, key bal, pin bal, and I just can't get the distortion out. It's driving my NUTS. It's like I don't know what I'm doing or something. I'm starting to think this machine has issues.

4) P2?
One thing I know I did wrong (the manual was unclear), is I did the setup with int osc P5. I should have used P2, right?

5) Drift? No way!
Then, when I went down and fired it up this morning to get some details for this post, red was shifted almost a whole line up and right. Green was shifted a half a line down and left. WTF? This thing is pristine? Shouldn't it be stable as hell - right from power-on? My 1271 wasn't this bad!

6) Standard data - or not.
After adjusting above-mentioned convergence error, I saved to as standard registration. I turned on the PS3 to see if it worked, and convergence and geometry were still all F'ed up. Shouldn't it have gotten that signal into the ballpark when saved as standard data?

7) Memory blocks... Yeah, okaaaay...
I still don't think I really understand the whole factory/service/user data or whatever the hell it is, either. The menu on my machine doesn't seem to quite match the manual as far as what is displayed when a signal is input. I don't think I have the ability with this firmware to load different memory settings, right?

I know I need to do another setup or two before I'm comfortable with this thing, but so far it's a nightmare compared to my old machine. If I can get the damn geometry and convergence figured out, this machine will kick ass I think. I can already tell it's sharper than hell. Stepless Scheimpflug rocks, dynamic digitally adjustable astig rocks, and EM rocks.

Side note: Hushbox is now high-priority. This machine is WAY louder than my 1271. Way. I can't comprehend how anybody could use a G70 in an HT without some kind of noise reduction measures. It would drive me NUTS to leave it this way. It completely destroys the noise floor in the room. At least the cooling works, though. At one point, I opened the aluminum cover to check things over and the heat sinks on the neck boards were barely warm to the touch.

Sorry to blabber on. If one or two of you G70 guys could just tell me if you think it sounds like I'm going wrong anywhere, that would be great.

Thanks in advance, guys!

SC (Steve)

[draganm]

[ecrabb]

Thanks, Dragan. I'll play around with it some more to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong, but at this point I'm definitely more suspicious of the beast than I am of myself doing something wrong. The geometry thing is really annoying as I had almost perfect geometry even with my old 1271. That's frustrating.

Re: the corner focus/geometry thing - whenever I read about it - I always attributed (apparently incorrectly) to people pushing raster maximization too far. In my case, I'm not pushing it too far at all. I am about 6% closer than spec (120" vs 127") and rasters are by no means too close to the edge of the tube - so I was expecting excellent results... only to be disappointed.

I had really bad luck once with my 1271 when I tried to do a full setup with an external signal. I'll try doing a full setup again using internal P2 and see how it comes out.

Re: the drift, I can't believe this thing would have a bad board in it, but it does have unknown history and was sold with issues. It could have had issues brand new from Sony and the original owner never got it addressed properly - who knows? I'll play with it some more and if it won't settle down, I'll buy or borrow a convergence board and try swapping. If I don't get some results soon, I'll sell the damn thing as-is and buy a different machine. I want to get back to watching movies!!!

SC

[Person99]

The drift could be that. Also, Greg E has said a number of times (and my experience is similar to his, only he sees way more PJs), that the 8+ year old PJs he gets with low low hours are on average much more problematic than the ones with high hours. These things need to be run!

[ecrabb]

Kinda like leaving a car to sit in a garage and never driving it, huh? Brake linings, master cylinder, gummed up carb, fuel lines...

Funny, I never thought about a projector being like a car.

Maybe if I just leave it running for a week or two!??!?

SC

[ecrabb]

Searching archives at AVS, and found this old post by Bruce:

[scottap]

[ecrabb]

I was afraid of that, too. Might be some new boards in my immediate future.

SC

[Person99]

[Person99]

[ecrabb]

So, why does the dry cap-induced drift (instability) happen, anyway? With the old caps, does the value of the cap change with temp and current or voltage or whatever... so that when you adjust it at one point, it's different again as soon as conditions change?

SC

[Person99]

[richardc]

Steve
Firstly the contents of the NVRAM from another G70 has been installed into your G70. (wrong serial# and Hours)
I believe my G70 has the latest Firmware. M:1.10 S1:1.13 S2 1.10 S3: 1.00
As far as saving data I had problems sometimes it would work and other times it did'nt, the way around that was to use the remote control cable (Control S out Control S in) it works every time.
Richard

[richardc]

Steve
Yes even with my firmware the pattern/adjustment mode does go away every time you press 'memory'
Even though I am an Electronics Tech I will leave the other questions you have to more experienced G70 guys,
the mount of drift you are experiencing is extreme.
Richard

[ecrabb]

Thanks, Richard. Do you think it's different firmware installed? The serial number in the menu matches the outside of the chassis. The only number that doesn't match is the sticker on the internal aluminum shroud.

The hours didn't surprise me much because the entire machine is perfectly clean - not so much as a speck of dust inside. Tubes are snow white edge to edge - not even a hint of wear. I know the machine came from an AV rental company in New Jersey. Based on that, I came up with the scenario that they bought it in 1998, used it 10 times for 10-20 hours each, then a cheap digital came along that didn't require any setup, so the G70 got shelved - maybe because it had an issue or something. I'm completely guessing, of course.

If it's not a problem to find out, since it has newer firmware, what's the serial number and manufacture date on your machine?

I can sure see where the memory block copy feature would be nice - wish this machine had it. I can't complain, though - I got this machine REALLY cheap. I could probably recover my costs just selling the tubes.

SC

[ecrabb]

Interestingly, I think I may have mostly solved the drift issue. I think that was all related to setting up based on P5, and not being able to save to all memory blocks. The one time I tried a full reset and setup based on an external signal on my 1271, it was a complete disaster. I guess I should have learned my lesson...

So, yesterday afternoon, I did a full reset to factory settings (held down reset key 5 seconds), and then did a full setup with internal oscillator P2. I was able to get things much better this time, so I think part of the corner geometry issue was me, and fighting key/key bal, pin/pin bal a little harder than I should have. I was a little more methodical this time and things definitely went better. I saved to all memory locations, then set up 1080i with the PS3 and my own test pattern. There's still some geometric distortion I'm not happy with, but all in all, it was MUCH better. I shut it down, went to dinner and came back about 4 hours later. Fired it up, and it was near perfect right from power-on. Cool!

So, I watched some stuff for awhile, then started getting the itch again to push the envelope. I grabbed my new HD Fury power supply, plugged it in, and switched to 1080p. Popped right up. Interestingly, it looks like it didn't get standard registration data, because center was off, geometry was off, and stuff was all over. I reset center and size, and fixed skew quick so I could see how 1080p was working. I had the image wrap issue on the left and the shift issue because I couldn't quite center the image. I enlarged the raster way above the top and bottom of the screen, and out past the edges, and was able to get the full PS3 image to go out past the screen edges. OK. Let's do another setup. 20 minutes or so later, I had a pretty watchable image - in 1080p.

Threw in Ratatouille, adjusted brightness/contrast a little, and watched a few minutes. HO LEE sh*t. 1080p from BD is F'ing incredible. SO sharp. No, I didn't have scanlines at 1080p, but I didn't care. The detail in the images were just incredible. The separation in depth-of-focus shots was unbelievable - super-sharp foreground, nice soft background. This is image unlike I've ever seen. Art's G90 stack or the G90 I saw at CEDIA is probably the closest thing I can compare to. The colors are super-rich, the depth just goes on and on. This is with what I'd call a pretty half-assed setup. Definitely not the best I can get it. I think I might really enjoy running 1080p because it honest-to-gosh almost looks like 35mm film. I LOVE the complete lack of scan lines.

Now, back to the remaining issues. I still can't get geometry as good on this machine as I ever got with the 12xx's. The top- and bottom-center and the corners just won't get in line with each other. The end result is that the edges of a 2.35 image have a little warp to them. The center is probably 1/2"-3/4" higher than the sides. I have a feeling it's a pin issue and I just haven't found the right combination of pin, pin bal, key, key bal, and zone. I'll watch it for a few days and see how it settles in, and maybe do a full setup from scratch again and see if my new knowledge helps the battle.

The AKB on this machine is REALLY obnoxious. It drapes well down onto the top of the screen, and is really noticeable on any fade-to-black or low APL scenes. Is there a process for turning off AKB on these machines? I bought a Spyder and DVE BD and will do grayscale and WB ASAP... do I really even need AKB on? Can it be turned off?

I was pretty discouraged yesterday, an I'm pretty encouraged today. I'm still not convinced this machine doesn't have some issues, but I certainly didn't help matters with my first bad setup. Learning more every day.

As always, thanks to everybody for all the help - and for reading my ramblings!

SC

[garyfritz]

Congrats SC! Glad to hear yours worked out much better than mine. Wonder if I did the same thing wrong that you did? Ohwell, too late to worry about it now, the 8500 is back on the ceiling.

[ecrabb]

Well, it's far from what I'd accept long-term, and there's more work to do, but it'll work to fart around with long enough to get used to it and learn its quirks (and watch some damn movies in the meantime!).

There's definitely a big learning curve with the geometry controls. There's quite a big difference in terms of effort between the 12xx and the G70. The addition of the pin balance and key balance seems like it wouldn't complicate matters much, but I think it really does. I'm just hoping I can get the geometry better. Being a designer and into video and photography my whole life, I'm a real stickler for excellent geometry. I HATE seeing any bow, pin, etc. - it drives me nuts. I had the 'ol 1271 down to the gnat's ass. I'd say it was almost digital-type geometry, save for maybe in the corners.

I'll stay at it, maybe see if I can buy a DC board off somebody and see if there's any difference.

Hey, does anybody know where the S/N and hours and such are stored? Is that on the PA board? The cover over the PA board on this machine has retainer screws and they're definitely mucked up like it's been open and shut several times.

SC

[richardc]

Steve
Sorry misread your first post, I thought the serial numbers did not match.
My mistake.
Richard

[mike calcott]

Good to see your progressing in the right direction, still waiting for my G70 to arrive, tell me how did you lift to the ceiling? its a bit heavier than a 12XX series