CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Elaine Benes]

Slow down, run video through it for a while, watch it...read your manuals while you're doing this...

Search the archives on Avsforum and read the advice there too, while you're watching video on your projector...

Do you have the passcode thing figured out correctly yet ?

What is the build date on your NEC, btw ? It should be on the sticker on the back...

There is a definitive way to set up an NEC, and it is much less forgiving than with most brands. Basically you MUST do x,y,z, or it won't ever come together properly...

For instance, doing final geometry now is ok, but don't bother with anything other than rough convergence, and don't use ANY point convergence now because your focus needs to be done BEFORE you do final convergence as convergence will change as you change electronic astig and electronic focus.

Also, I've NEVER heard anyone with any experience recommend using the "auto store" feature of an NEC. Turn it off, store manually. Just make sure you REMEMBER to store after each foray into the Adjustment menu. If you leave auto store on you end up storing ALL of your experimentation on top of one another....

Did you read your manuals first ? Did you note the order of things ? I ask because I didn't notice any mention of you doing a Signal Entry, which pretty much the first step....

Also, you shouldn't need ANY point convergence on a well setup XG...

Look into what the standard HD timings are and make sure you are using them with your HTPC if you want to have a single entry for all your HD. If the signal entry you do for HD from your computer varies by a single element, or even a few percentage of scan frequency, you won't necessarily hit it automatically with all your different HD sources...

But first, slow down, get reading, there have been a couple NEC specific setup guides posted at Avsforum over the years that are very plain in their explanations...

And don't be discouraged, my first "real" projector was an NEC, and I hadn't discovered the forums yet, it took me LITERALLY two weeks to get a setup equal to the one you've posted a picture of, so you're doing really good so far...

Have you read this:
http://www.jrobbo.com/NEC/NECConvergenceGuide.htm

and this:
http://hem.wtnord.net/k00502/nec9pgsetup.pdf

more info: http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=8189fd249f563ad58570c1b919407064&threadid=368227&perpage=20&pagenumber=2 There's a lot about phase and physical positioning especially in this one...

[Satanier]

Well, I went all out. I sat down with my friend for about two and a half hours straight and followed curts definitive CRT setup guide from start to finish. To adjust the rasters I used the image size adjust in the ref adjust menu, i got them to about 1/2" on either side horizontally. I used a test pattern output by my pc to check for geometry while adjusting raster size. Once I got all the way through his guide it was looking quite good, I noticed some settings interact and I had to go back and forth. I had my friend there as a second set of eyes. Once I got it as good as I could, we did the final point convergence and made adjustments in areas that needed it, he stood next to the screen and I never went more than about 10 clicks tops. I probably could have skipped the point convergence but I wanted to get as close to perfection as I could. I'm sure theres still a lot of room for improvement.


Two remaining issues(three sort of):

1. I see an afterimage of stuff on the green tube, like switching between my desktop and various movie clips and images, I noticed that I could still see a faint image of my desktop wallpaper, this is LOOKING THROUGH LENS, I cant see this at all on screen, maybe this is normal for the green tube?

2. On the very left edge of the screen, I see faint vertical bars where for example the shade of white is incorrect if I'm running a full white pattern. I think I see this very faintly on the right as well.

3. I now understand "black crush" where all shadow detail is lost in very very dark areas, it's not the worst thing, but it would be nice to resolve it.


**************************************************************************************************

My first impressions:

The colors are so incredible on CRT, and the blacks are soooo black I've never seen anything like it, the entire room goes dark if a movie cuts to a scene thats all black, and when theres just text floating in that inky black abyss, its amazing!!! I love CRT already. The image is also so smooth! CRT CRT CRT!!!!!


***************************************************************************************************



Here are my results from my first full setup, 100" screen, these pictures don't really show what I see, it looks MUCH better in person. They really don't do it justice, but should give you a good enough idea of what I'm seeing. Let me know what you think guys!:::











edit: Someone mentioned earlier the defaults for brightness and contrast were 60 and 75, this is what I have it set to, although it defaults to 50 and 55 when I press normalize. Is it OK to have it at 60 and 75? I wouldn't want it any darker...

[mike calcott]

Congratulations on a great job, it will only get better with practise

[dropzone7]

Looks great so far! Your first images of your crosshatch patterns looked pretty good so I figured you wouldn't take long to get that red pulled in line. If you want to help the black crush problem then I would suggest adding a gamma boost. If your using a HTPC which I believe you are then you can probably do it through your graphics card. I am using an RTC2200 transcoder with built in gamma for my gamma boost and it works wonders. Once you get more comfortable with the controls and are happy with your geometry and convergence then you might want to get out a voltmeter and check your G2 voltages. There are guides on this site to help with that but I can tell you that after I adjusted mine back to spec it made a huge difference. After that you could try to tackle grayscale using Kal's guide here on the site. There is plenty of time for all of that though. You made some great progress over the weekend so enjoy a movie or two like Paul said and then tweak to your heart's content like the rest of us. It never ends really.

By the way, yes it is fine to leave the brightness and contrast at 60 and 75 as these are the default settings and will give you the best image pop. Once you introduce some gamma boost you might find that you are able to lower your brightness some however.

The vertical bands you are referring to at the screen edge can be caused by using too much point convergence. I would normalize all of your point convergence and try to fix the convergence errors with the standard controls. If you can't do this then you may need to take another look at your mechanical setup and the physical position of the projector. Also, you can also get lines in the image from using too much vertical linearity adjustment. If that control is maxed out or near it then this can cause lines.

You will find that the better you get at setup and convergence, the closer to "0" or midpoint your electronic controls will get.

[MikeEby]

[Satanier]

Box 1021 looks like exactly what I need, I'm going to look into getting one! I just wish it was a bit cheaper, maybe I can find
one used?



At what point should I turn AKB on?

Also, should I set blanking to go right up to the edges of the image just about? I read somewhere to do that...

Additionally, I think the lines were there before I did any convergence, after zeroing everything, I think they show up during
all white warmup as well.

[Elaine Benes]

Actually, one doesn't want to "Normalize" anything on an NEC, one wants to "null" settings. Someone previously may have stored a different setting than the factory for "normal"(like your oddball Picture settings...). When you want to "null" a setting on an NEC, ie. set it back to factory default, one has to push CTL and NRML at the same time, choose "Cancel", then "Yes" and hit Enter, this nulls the setting.

You need to null your point convergence, post a picture of your convergence grid after you've done that, and let us tell you how to eliminate the mis-convergence properly. The first grid you showed with mis-convergence was a classic NEC case of needing to go back and forth between Linearity and Amplitude to get it converged, with a bit of zone Keystone and Pincushion for the corners.

[Satanier]

[Elaine Benes]

So, starting with red, you need to iterate between Tilt/Skew and Bow to make sure the ends of the horizontal and vertical center lines are matched up. You null those settings FIRST, then do Tilt/Skew till the amount of overlap is EVEN on either side of the reference line(green), then use Bow to bring the line up evenly on either side(left to right/top to bottom, depending on the axis being adjusted...).

ONLY LOOK AT THE GRID WHERE THE CIRCLES ARE.

When you're doing Tilt/Skew / Bow adjustments, which are the basis of all other convergence adjustments, only look at the grid where the circles are.



At this point in the adjustment, its the only areas of the grid you are worried about...

[Elaine Benes]

The left and right circles indicate poorly adjusted Tilt/Skew, and not enough Bow in the horizontal axis. You'll see, when you adjust Tilt/Skew to get the amount of red EVENLY under the green line in the area of the circles left/right, THEN do a bit of Bow adjustment, how it comes into convergence perfectly easily and simply. Then just do the same in the vertical axis.

DO NOT LOOK AT THE CORNERS OF THE CONVERGENCE GRID.

When you're doing Tilt/Skew and Bow, you are ONLY concerned about the areas circled. Doing this in the correct order SHOWS you what will need to STILL be adjusted, but you don't do it yet.

After Tilt/Skew get done properly, THEN you'll be able to see better if your Amplitude/Linearity is done properly, it is the next iterative step...

[Satanier]

Ok I did what you said, whats with the upper left? no other setting seems to be able to get it right without breaking another zone... The right middle is wrong too, shouldnt it be wrong on both the left and the right middle, not just one side?

[MikeEby]

[Elaine Benes]

What'd I say ?
Don't look at the corners AT ALL yet...

Now you need to null your Linearity Balance to see if you can get rid of that misconvergence on the horizontal axis on the right side of your image. After you've nulled Linearity Balance, see if you can get it perfectly converged from center to edges ONLY ON THE CENTER MOST LINE, by going back and forth between Linearity and Amplitude.

You MUST do these adjustments in the correct order, or you end up trying to correct things on top of one another.

For instance, that corner you're so worried about, it will likely ONLY be corrected via Keystone/Pincushion, but you can't properly see HOW to correct it till you complete the previous steps getting the centers of the outermost lines converged, then the Linearity/Amplitude straightened around, ONLY after you've done those things can you properly address the corner.

That corner doesn't exist alone either, when you adjust it, you'll also be adjusting its mate in the vertical axis(ie. top right is adjusted in a rectangle centered on the middle center of the outermost right edge...which is why you need to conquer that point first...)



If you look at this image, the circles are where you look when you're doing Tilt/Skew/Bow, the rectangles are where you look when you're doing Keystone/Pincushion, and pretty much ONLY when you're doing those adjustments. But, you can't properly SEE which adjustments have to be made till you finish the previous set of adjustments...

There is some returning to the previous adjustments, because sometimes when you get it closer and closer to perfect, you end up seeing how your previous adjustment was slightly less perfect than you'd initially thought, but basically, you always adjust ONLY certain parts of the grid with certain controls...

Tighten up that Tilt/Skew/Bow a bit more too, I can still see that it is off a tiny bit in the vertical

[Elaine Benes]

Couple more points...

You need to adjust your raster centering properly. To do so, turn the projector on. Push the Adjust button. It should ask for a passcode if you have one established, does it ?
If it doesn't, then you don't have a passcode established and saved.
To establish a passcode, push Adjust, choose 7.Passcode, 1.Entry, enter a passcode, 1234 will work. Confirm it and exit, be sure to enter Yes when it asks to return to "User Mode".
Now hit Adjust again. It should call up a "Passcode?" message. It is at this point that you enter 3151.
Now you will see that you have a menu entry at the bottom of Adjust page called 9. Ref Adjust. Choose it. You should now be able to move each individual raster using the cursor controls. You choose which color by holding CTRL and then pushing the Color button of your choice.

Let me know if you do NOT have this control after following these steps. There is another passcode you *can* try...

[Satanier]

Do my rasters need centering? How should I position them if the method you described works? I have pictures of my tube faces on page one of this thread.

I'll try those steps when I get home, although I already have a ref adjust menu with no passcode set, so I'm not holding out a lot of hope.

[Elaine Benes]

[Satanier]

Well I made the adjustments to the centering, and now things are so out of whack ill never get them back, i cant converge for sh*t, oh well, lesson learned,

"if it aint broke, dont fix it.

i had a working picture, my mistake

[Elaine Benes]

No no no, don't be discouraged. Centering the rasters on the tubeface is the first step only, only the first step.

You can't expect to go from the first step to a completely converged picture, there are all the other steps in between.

One question, did you null your static convergence settings first ?

The goal is to NOT have various corrections working against themselves. Similar controls should be complementary, not divergent. You null your static convergence, center your rasters, set your phase, toe in your red and blue tubes(ie. physically aim them so they line up on top of the green in the center), and now you have a starting point that takes NO electronic correction. This is the formula for an image that is not only PROPERLY setup, but virtually immune to drift.

The phrase "if it ain't broke" doesn't really apply to crt projectors when you are trying to set them up. You don't really KNOW if its broke till you've been running it for a few hundred hours, and by then it might be too late. You could burn out the STK's on your C Drive if you're running an image where you're using convergence controls to do the work of raster centering and toe in....

Really.

This is a well defined process, it just takes time to complete. You'll get quicker the more you do it...

So, is your static convergence nulled(zero) ? Are your rasters centered ? Is your phase set ? Have you done the toe in for red and blue ?
If so, then your center should be perfectly converged and you should have an easy go of it from there...

[Satanier]

everything is completely f*ck*** up and i have no idea what to do now, im 100% lost, i wish i had never changed it


i dont know how to center my rasters, i dont know what that means


the right arm of my crosshair is now longer than the left, and when i look at geomoetry the circles on the top are ovals and the ones on bottom are circles, its more messed up now than its ever been before

[Elaine Benes]

So, stop, run some video for a while. Relax.

BTW, its SUPPOSED to look all f*ck*** up when you start a setup.

Just do one step at a time. Start with letting some video run for a few minutes.

Then null your STATIC convergence for all three colors. Do this by pushing the "STATIC" button on your remote, then push CTL and NRML at the same time, choose "CANCEL" and "YES". This zero's the STATIC convergence. Do it for all three colors, changing between colors with CTL and whatever color button you're trying to change to ie. CTL and B for blue and so forth....

When you've got your STATIC convergence nulled, run some video for a few more minutes....

Setup starts at the middle and works out, always. Setup is a combination of physical changes and electronic ones. You must do them in a defined order or you can't see what NEEDS to be doing...

So, start at the beginning, relax, take it one step at a time, we can finish this tonight, I guarantee you that.

Let me know when you've got your STATIC convergence nulled, and your rasters centered on the tubefaces...