CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

scir16v · Joined: 02 Jan 2009 Posts: 113 Location: St. Louis

This one is a monster

http://cgi.ebay.com/Hughes-JVC-Video-Projector-Model-320S-Lift-Case-NICE_W0QQitemZ110321307328QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item110321307328&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A3%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

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

That also has CRT's and Lamps. Not sure how they work together but its a neat unit, there was a thread on AVS about a guy who set this up in his theater.

Athanasios

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 6:33 pm Post subject:

I read that thread. THis thing needs its own power sub station. It's a ILA projector, if you think CRT's are hard to keep running read the guys thread on AVS. Ho boy.

scir16v · Joined: 02 Jan 2009 Posts: 113 Location: St. Louis

got a link, I'd love to read about it.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 8:54 pm Post subject:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=695091

........Yes, and they are not any more, but 15 years ago the military needed to build flight simulator video projectors that where able to project high-res, extreemly bright, color images onto a dome. This tooks some amazing technology to pull off, and thats why HUGHES was involved. These are turelly military grade projectors.

Why would anyone want a 15 year projector is isint based on today's digital technology?

#1 - Extreemly high res, up to and beyond 1080p, no problem.
#2 - Extreemly bright, up to 12,000 lumens on the very high-end model.
#3 - Because they are now obsoleet, they are dirt cheep. ($500 - $2000 used)

WHAT? A 1080p full res projector at 6000 lumens for under $100,000???? Why dont I have one of these now, why did it go out of production, whats the catch?

Sadly, there are indeed a lot of catch's on doing something like this for home use.
First and formost is the size of the unit. Its about the same size as your average snow-mobile. It weights in at just under 400 pound.

Next is the venting - My unit at full power prodcues about 16,000 BTUS of heat, and that heat if not properly vented will cause issues with the reliablity.

Next is the power requirements - 240 vots, signal phase (comptable with home power) but draws in at beween 25 amps on the low site, and up to 35 amps on the high side. This is an extreem amount of power draw for anything in a residential envirement.

Next is finding parts, including the very exotic and rather dangers xenon arc lamp.

Finialy, and this cant be understated enough, is the VERY VERY VERY difficult calibration procedure that takes 100's of hours to tweeking to get it just right.

rabies_70 · Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 8:58 pm Post subject:

I almost had jkruger convinced to buy that one that was for sale near us here. Damn I wish he had bought it Twisted Evil

It was like 100.00 or something ridiculous. I think they were made here in Carlsbad. Didn't the guy on AVS say the amount of heat this thing put off kept his basement warm?

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 9:00 pm Post subject:

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320

That alone would heat about 500SF in the dead of winter.

MikeEby · Joined: 24 Jun 2007 Posts: 5237 Location: Osceola, Indiana

If memory serves me correct the guy that had it was in South Bend, IN not far from me.

Edit: Oh I see AR found the thread.

Mike

Mark_A_W · Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:21 pm Post subject:

The amount of energy it uses is completely insane, even for the US military.

Not at all suitable for domestic use...or any use..

incova · Joined: 27 Nov 2006 Posts: 789 Location: london

I almost got one of these originally instead of my Barco 808, then I checked the shipping from Italy........

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

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

Ah, the rare but always interesting JVC "Blue Whale", the only LCOS projector in history with three full optical paths and three lenses!

I had quite a bit of fun with AmPro light valve projectors, which, according to JVC, did in fact infringe on JVC's light valve patents.

When AmPro went bankrupt, I bought what I could at the bankruptcy auction. I ended up with six total chassis for the LV projectors
and some of them worked. The 7200 was very nice, with its outboard power supply for the lamp. Plenty of brightness. But when I
got the 7400 working, after reversing the mods that had been done to it (addition of heat sensing thermocouples in several places,
including taped to the faces of the light valves), I thought I was on the outskirts of heaven! SICK brightness capacity. I had to put in
a 240 volt outlet in the garage to run it. 1500 watt lamp, 5000 lumens! Colors were spectacular, that is, after I replaced the bleached
blue dichroic filter element with one that hadn't yet been bleached by many hours of intense, UV-rich arc lamp light.

Granted, the contrast ratio wasn't impressive to anyone in the CRT world, but the picture did have some very favorable attributes.

The LV panel itself is a modified LCD panel, with no pixel structure. It has a clear glass window bonded to a glass substrate that is made
of fused fiber optic glass. The space between these two pieces of glass is the liquid crystal chamber. The inner surface on the fiber
optic side is coated with hydrogenated amorphous silicon, and with the dichroic coating from which the image color is derived.

The purpose of the hydrogenated amorphous silicon layer is that it is the active electrode of the LCD window. The system is biased
(at about 400 Hz, IIRC) and when the HAS layer is illuminated, through the fiber optic panel, which is in turn bonded to the fiber optic
faceplate of a high resolution 3" diagonal CRT, the illuminated pattern sensed by the HAS layer becomes the same pattern on the LCD
panel. This is all done at IR wavelengths. When the CRT is run without the light valve attached, you see a visible but fairly dim
red trace. The majority of the light output is in the near infrared and that's where the HAS is active. When illuminated with IR light,
the charge on the illuminated spot changes proportionally

What you have, then, is an LCD panel that has no intrinsic pixel structure. The resolution limit of the panel is defined by the resolution
limit of the CRT that drives it, and by the pitch of the optical fibers that comprise the fiber optic faceplate of the CRT, and of the fiber
optic plate that comprises the back of the LCD panel.

The CRTs used were made by Thomas Electronics and by IST, Imaging and Sensor Technologies. Ironically, at least one of these two
companies is now owned by VDC.

Needless to say, and as you can tell by my explanation, I was, and continue to be, fascinated by light valve technology. I can only
wonder how much farther it might have advanced if AmPro had not encountered their well-known manufacturing process problems
with the light valves after they acquired GreyHawk, the LV manufacturer, and the ensuing problems that happened after some GreyHawk
employees chose to leave the company, and took their expertise with them. Things that needed to be done to make good light valves
were not always well documented. Those employees who left had that information only in their heads.

As a result, a lot of light valves were made (two year's worth, roughly) that were born to fail. This got very hairy and very expensive to
deal with. Though the "secrets" were rediscovered, eventually, and the product was even improved to levels never previously attained,
it was literally a matter of "too little, too late" and that's why AmPro is no longer in business.

I keep a couple of souvenirs from the LV machines here in my collection of interesting things. I've got a broken light valve LCD right
here at my desk, and a complete, functional light valve assembly (red) as well. They're useless but they're also pretty cool.

CJ