CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

alback · Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 9 Location: Midhurst

I replaced my 1272 with a G70 this past week. Ebay (1600 hr) from the original owner. It arrived in very good order via freight, packed in its original carton/skid.

Aside from calibration from a 120 to my 100 screen, I have done nothing else to the unit. I began by resetting everything back to factory reset values and started from there. The G70 is connected with exactly the same HTPC as my 1272. Regular RBG input - no hdmi.

The first DVD I ran was my video setup to check settings for colour, brightness, contrast etc. I saw nothing unusual.

I played my first movie (Gladiator), it was brilliant and a genuine improvement over my 1272. (5100 hrs). Brighter, clearer colours and less fan noise.

Since my second DVD, I noticed 1 glitch and I am looking for a solution. Then I noticed a second and very subtle issue. I am hoping some one can offer a solution for either.

1. There is a twinkling (almost like a screen saver) effect that happens when a movie is playing. You see it primarily as the Black areas become larger but not constantly. It will sometime grow into the 16 x 9 black bands then disappear when the screen is bright again. At its worst point the stars are almost linear (vertically). The sparkles become more intense as the information on the screen increases. They appear white, not coloured.

If I look into the lenses and I see the green is projecting the vertical sparkles, and the blue only sporadic sparkles (no pattern and not as intense). The red lens shows no sparkles at all.

I run at 1024 x 768 - 85 hz at first, then I tried 75 hz. - there is no difference.

2. The second issue is I noticed the screen is warmer on the right than it is on the left. Ever so slightly but more evident last night while viewing StarTrek the movie - when the title spanned most of the screens width.

Has anyone got any suggestions for these glitches. I have tried to locate similar occurences in this forum and on the net, but little luck. I also wrote the previous owner to see if this happened before, no response as yet.

Alan

alback · Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 9 Location: Midhurst

I am surprised some one doesn't have a comment or suggestion on this?

Alan

Zebu Fellenz · Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 2567

Not sure on the sparkling. Possibly it has something to do with ABG settings? The other problem may be as simple as the color uniformity settings being off, this adjustment is in the service menu.

Why are you running such a high refresh? Most people run between 48-72hz, I use 1080p 60 on my G70.

alback · Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 9 Location: Midhurst

Zebu:
Thank you for your suggestions.

I did look at ABG as the word luminance caught my attention as I was scouring for an adjustment to sort this out. I was set to ON, and a reset to Off didn't affect the 'sparkling' so I set it back to default.

As to the refresh rate, I ran my 1272 at 75 but at 800 x 600 resolution for several years. I thought I could detect more lines in the screen when I ran it lower. I will try a lower refresh on the G70, perhaps it is a greater load for my video card (a Matrox G450) than the 1272 was.

I do not see any adjustment for colour in the manual where I can adjust between left and right sides of the screen?

I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

Alan

Zebu Fellenz · Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 2567

Possibly it could also be source, do you see any artifacts or color shift on the internal patterns or with another source?

Color adjustment is in the uniformity menu, this is near the bottom of the menu selections, you have to be in service mode.

Erik

alback · Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 9 Location: Midhurst

Thanks again,
I will check out both your suggestions.

Alan

Zebu Fellenz · Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 2567

If you can get a picture of what it looks like to post some of the more techy guys here may have better suggestions.

Worth a shot if my suggestions don't help, oh and welcome to the forum Wink

Erik

alback · Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 9 Location: Midhurst

1. The Uniformity setting was set to Standard, I turned it off and it seemed to help the colour balance across the screen.
2. I attached the G70 to my laptop which has a newer video card with the same resolution settings. The sparkles seemed to be visibly gone. As soon as I tried to change the refresh rate to 60 hz. my convergence setup was gone, so i re-attached to my HTPC and went to the setup.

In the service setup I came across the frequency sensitivity setting and changed it from High to Low. This also changed my convergence so I did a rough (quick adjustment and played a DVD. The vertical sparkles had disappeared from the green tube, but the random sparkles remained in the blue. As the unit warmed up, and the sparkles seemed to increase again.

I am going to purchase a new video card, my choices is AGP or PCI. Any suggestions on the best one for the G70?

Also, is there an .inf file for the G70 as I see XP places the monitor as default only and doesn't allow any refresh below 75 for me at 32K unless I reduce the resolution to 800 x 600.

thank you again,
Alan

CIR Engineering · Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 2:01 pm Post subject: Re: G70 - A couple of glitches

1031 · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 657 Location: Finland

Groundloop between projector and htpc is my guess.. with laptop you dindt had sparkless (it has no connection to ground)
Check that you have htpc and projector connectet to groundet outlets.

CIR Engineering · Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 3:45 pm Post subject:

alback · Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 9 Location: Midhurst

Thanks for the replies and ideas.

I am not running an HDMi cable, my connection is using a 50' VGA cable out from my PC, which connects to the RGBHV connection. The same as I used on the first Sony 1272. Also, there are no changes to any connections where my Sony 1272 operated for about 7 years, with no issues or 'sparkles'. All plugs are properly grounded.

I am suspecting the video card in my PC. The video card is the same one as the 1272, a Matrox 450 dual. Perhaps the load from the G70 is causing some stress. Another possibility is perhaps a board needs to be seated properly from the movement during shipping?

I appreciate the help.

Alan

alback · Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 9 Location: Midhurst

Well I exchanged the Matrox card with an ATI 9550 Radeon (Sapphire) - I am limited to 4 AGP on my motherboard.

It was fantastic, the colours improved and there was no sparkles as yet. I only watched a small portion of a DVD, but so far this seems to be the solution.

I also gain many resolution modes so I was able to run at 720 x 576 at 60 hz. (my screen is 80 x 60). Any comments on other ideal settings I should try on this G70.

thank you to those who took the time to read this post and help out.

Alan

CIR Engineering · Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:38 pm Post subject:

Sparkles, as they are often described, are a digital distortion so I think the graphics card was probably it... unless what you and I call sparkles is something different Wink

The resolution you are running is pretty low for a G70. What is the max res of the card?

craigr

alback · Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 9 Location: Midhurst

This is the first time I have run down at this level. I read in this forum that the 720 resolution was the G70 sweet spot so I wanted to try it? The card had an array of resolutions up to and including 1080i.

What do you recommend?

Alan

CIR Engineering · Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:23 pm Post subject:

alback · Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 9 Location: Midhurst

Thank you for the information Craig.
I always thought the first number in a resolution to be higher ie 800 x 600, 1024 x 768 etc. which is similar to the ratio of my screen 80 x 60. Which is why I assumed the 720 x 576.

I believe my card states a 30 Hz for 1080i but I will do some trial and error. Already I find the G70 takes a lot more to setup than the 1272. The most complicated settings are the magnetic focus.

cheers,
Alan