CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

scotha · Joined: 27 Mar 2006 Posts: 167 Location: Lilburn, Ga.

I have an 808s with color glycol in the red and green tubes and scheimpflug blocks to be installed, 1000 hrs on a brand new green tube no visible wear on the blue and red 12000 chassis hours. Would it be worth the cost (500.00) to replace my barco with a G70? I dont know how much wear is on the tubes and the seller could not tell me the hours, but if it is a low hour machine with little wear would it be worth the trouble and expence? thanks for any input.

RaWsHaRk · Joined: 01 May 2009 Posts: 131 Location: Finland

if the machine is in great condition You will surely see an improvement in picture quality. now, would that be worth 500 is up to You, G70 is a much better machine but its really hard to repair unlike barcos, if something goes wrong..

ecrabb · Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 6:53 pm Post subject:

I don't know if I'd say the Sony is "really hard to repair", as Curt can easily support both. More difficult, yes.

But, yes - I'd say that would be a significant upgrade. You'd be going from AC MEC's to LC P16's. Just the AC to LC upgrade would be worth it in my opinion.

SC

bbfarmht · Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:33 pm Post subject:

Aw, come on guys. My Barco stands up to or exceeds a G-70.

But I agree a untouched Data 808 will not compare to a G-70.

the_maniac · Joined: 10 Jul 2009 Posts: 111 Location: Austria - Europe

i would say it depends on the wear of the G70.

there's a good thread from vermin about that, he changed from a Marquee 8500 to a G70.

Elaine Benes · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 1416

Barco's can be pretty "specialized" if they came from the right environment. *IF* the Barco has the high resolution tubes and electronics, then the only upgrade part would be AC to LC. Some people prefer the slightly sharper image available from an AC unit, so the OP should likely see the G70 running with material like he'd be using to judge if it would be an *upgrade* for HIM...

My own BG808s is a high resolution model, noticeably sharper than many, I would be surprised to find a G70 noticeably sharper, or brighter or anything really that would make me want to put $500. into changing it out. But I'm NOT an LC fan...

And the Barco is so quiet, you'd be giving up that by switching...

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

Rawshark commented:

> G70 is a much better machine <

Wow, I had no clue. You learn something new every day. It's lucky I read this forum, or I would never have known that such a blanket statement was true.

[end tongue-in-cheek mode]

SC wrote:
> Just the AC to LC upgrade would be worth it in my opinion. <

Your opinion is fine, but the statement should be contingent. First, like EB commented, not everyone feels that the loss of sharpness (though small) is justified. But much more importantly, unless the OP has a very dark room, the extra contrast from the LC tubes may not be visible at all! If he has light walls, ceiling, carpet, he may wind up asking "where's the beef?". And wish he'd saved his time and money, and had his quiet Barco back again. So opinions should always be balanced out with the caveats.

scotha · Joined: 27 Mar 2006 Posts: 167 Location: Lilburn, Ga.

Thanks for the input guys. My room is dark except for the carpet, which i'm looking for a dark rug to cover. I did not know the g70 is louder than an 808, so that is a big factor since I do not have a hush box. I notice on my barco some movie scenes look fantastic while others are a little washed out could this be the ac reflections? And would it help putting black tape on the unused portion of the tube face to cut down on reflections? Thanks again.

benareeno · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 1614 Location: ottawa, canada

masking the tubeface makes a small difference....seems better to mask the lenses though as masked tube faces will still show a lot of excess light throught the lense. LC is huge upgrade for pic quality...but projector noise is a huge drawback...

Note, if you don't mask your screen or have a black front wall...LC is probably not that big of a deal. A loud projector is a big deal...

ecrabb · Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 10:45 pm Post subject:

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

First before I make a comment, I would like the whole situation. The last time someone asked a question like this I lit into Nash for his response. Of course, the OP didn't fully disclose the info. So, is the pj $500 by itself? If not, then please don't believe that you can sell your current pj for some predetermined amount unless you already have a buyer.

I haven't actually set my G70 up, so I can't be model specific. Like Crabb, I hate the halos. For me, LC was a big difference. In my opinion, the jump from AC to LC is much bigger than going from 8" to 9".

betel · Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 11:39 pm Post subject:

I went from a BG808s to a G70 (both with clean tubes) and agree with SC, the image quality was significantly better with the G70.

Mark_A_W · Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 12:12 am Post subject:

I have a Barco 808 and an XG LC (1:1 equivalent to G70).

The Barco is a beautifully laid out and engineered piece of gear.

Pity the image is crap.

The colours are wrong, the image is washed out, it's no competition. It needs filtering and LC.

Noise is fixable. I have trouble telling when my XG is on (with no image obviously). It's called a hushbox.

RaWsHaRk · Joined: 01 May 2009 Posts: 131 Location: Finland

[quote="VideoGrabber"]Rawshark commented:

> G70 is a much better machine <

Wow, I had no clue. You learn something new every day. It's lucky I read this forum, or I would never have known that such a blanket statement was true.

sorry I forgot to add "in my opinion". for future reference I will put on my sig that everything I write is my opinion, not necessarily the word of God.

in my experience G70 suits me better. only problem compared to Barcos is when You open it and look inside..the barco is so nice with those quick release cards that I instantly want to hoard a dozen spare cards for "just in case" I ever have some problem with it, looking at the sony I really dont want to start to do anything with it if it starts to misbehave. I am just a hobbyis with experince in building computers, not an engineer so thats why I said (in my opinion) the sony would be harder for a man with my limitations to repair. of course it can be repaired, its probably just not quite as easy. just read the recent threads here or on avs on G70 problems.

but for image quality I would go for sony, and to me its a better looking machine, and I like sonys setup style more than barco, even though everybody says barcos are easy to setup.

only reason why I dont have a G70 right now, its that in my previous experince Sonys "use" the tubes lot faster than barcos, I have two barcos with 6000-7000 hours and I cant see wear on the tubes, with sonys I have seen terrible wear under 3000 hours, more often than not.

ecrabb · Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 5:14 pm Post subject:

betel · Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 6:49 pm Post subject:

SC
Wouldn't you agree that a filtered optical path, like the G70, versus a non-filtered, like an 808, tend to be driven harder due the lower lumen output?

ecrabb · Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 8:33 pm Post subject:

Maybe... But, then you're assuming somebody's backing off on the contrast because they can... i.e. Because this machine is unfiltered and is a little brighter than an LC machine, I'll lower the contrast a little. Do you think anybody actually does that?

If you take out people with high-gain screens or really small (or large) screens, I think we all end up driving our machines about the same, which is to say as hard as we can without seeing the negative effects of overdriving the beam current. In that case, there would be no wear difference - only that the unfiltered machine would be a bit brighter, albeit with sub-par reds and greens.

So, yeah... Guys with LC machines could be driving their tubes a bit harder, but I'd say the screen materials and screen sizes we're all using has far more impact on how hard we drive our tubes than AC vs LC.

SC

scotha · Joined: 27 Mar 2006 Posts: 167 Location: Lilburn, Ga.

I just installed my scheimpflug blocks today. I did it with the pj on the ceiling and it took 4 hrs from start to finish. Now I have to do a complete setup hopefully tomorrow or friday.