CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

armstrr · Joined: 26 Mar 2006 Posts: 160

Hi guys. I just found the Lumagen forum, but it seems most of the users there are in Europe. You guys have been a great help choosing/setting up my system, so i'm hoping the resident Lumagen experts can help me solve this.

following is a repost from the lumagen forum. please feel free to post here or there.

Hello. i have an hdp. i have recently set up a front crt projector (marquee 9500lc). it has a moome hdmi card.

i have a tivoHD, sonicview 8000HD sat receiver currently hooked up. i originally had the sources run into my denon 2809 (vid proc disabled), then out to a powered monoprice splitter. one of the splitter outputs went to the hdp then to the pj, the other is for a 1080i 65" crt tv.

i originally set up the tivo and sat receiver on the 65" so i knew roughly what to expect.

when i set the system up to the pj, the pic looked great, but i noticed the letters on credits and menus from the sources (hd sat receiver especially) did not look nearly as sharp as on the 65" tv and i originally chocked it up to the much larger screen (9' wide). well today my curiosity got the better of me and i decided to investigate.

i switched out cables to no effect. i took the splitter out (i was kind of hoping this was the problem, but it wasn't). i took the receiver out of the chain and finally went direct from the sat box to the projector.

i'll throw up a picture of the on screen display with the hdp out of the video chain, and in.

i am new to the hdp, but have upgraded to the latest (july 08, i think) software, and have read the newest version of the manual.

as for settings, i was trying 1080p (i can clearly see scan lines at 1080i from my seated position).

please let me know if there are any settings that might cause what i am seeing. these were taken with night mode and timer, with the camera set on a box approx 3' from the screen.

without hdp
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=28a6a7n&s=4

with hdp
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=30vhlw4&s=4

thanks for any help you can give!!

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

First off , what do you have the HDP accepting as the input when you try 1080p? Do not have it set for 1080p24s or is it 1080p24fs , I had issues with it, make it just 1080p24 with no other option. so when you are int he menu and you selct input, then resolution, then you caneneter the input res only choose 1080p24 or 1080p depending on blue ray or sat box the input should match the source.

Athanasios

Gary M. · Guest

there is something bad wrong there dude, your HDP should not look like that at all, I am not familiar enough with them to help you out, but this is not normal, Lumagen cares alot about ringing in there products so no worry there

there is a newer firmware BTW Wink

-Gary

armstrr · Joined: 26 Mar 2006 Posts: 160

problem solved. crisis averted:

the sarpness control has a range of -7 to plus 7.

i bought it used and it must have been at +7. when i updated the firmware, it appeared everything went back to default...but this did not. a lumagen tech on their forum diagnosed it correctly...razor sharp again.

thanks guys!

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

VideoGrabber · Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 933 Location: Michigan

armstrr commented:
> when i updated the firmware, it appeared everything went back to default...but this did not <

Just an FYI... On the Lumagens, your parameter settings are preserved across firmware updates. Nothing should be reset to defaults, unless you do it yourself.

I knew immediately upon looking at your pix that you had the Sharpness cranked way up. Even modest amounts of Sharpness boost (I'm talking just +1,+2) will have a detrimental effect on good HD source material. Sharpness boost should rarely be used. It depends completely on your source material and display quality, but I found that even most SD upconverts suffered from extra Sharpness, in most cases, unless you had a display with low bandwidth.

armstrr · Joined: 26 Mar 2006 Posts: 160

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

armstrr · Joined: 26 Mar 2006 Posts: 160

VideoGrabber · Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 933 Location: Michigan

armstrr commented:
> i'm surprised lumagen only included so few steps on this adjustment <

The reason is because the scaling algorithm that Lumagen uses essentially has "sharpening" built in to its design. It's not just a simple upconvert that could tend to look a bit soft from scaling. In this context, any additional sharpening will always make a high quality image look worse, unless there was either a problem with the input signal, or the output device bandwidth.

It's mainly there for soft SD or really soft HD material, where it may be able to improve apparent sharpness a tad, without introducing other artifacts. Even there, bumping it more than 1 or possibly 2 notches is going to start degrading things fairly quickly. So it needs to be used cautiously, due to the potential for making things look bad or REALLY bad (as you experienced).

Luckily, in your case it was grossly obvious, and thus immediately corrected. In other cases it may not be as severe, but still detrimental, and therefore some may suffer with it without understanding why it doesn't look "quite right".