CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Niloc · Joined: 13 Jan 2011 Posts: 9

Well, it looks like the party that was once at AVS is over here, so I am reposting a question that got no responses over there.

I am revamping my PJ setup now and am considering getting an Moome card or a HDfury adapter. So my questions are:

1. Do I want a Moome or HDfury3 with GammaX? (please state if you have tried both)
2. What can people who have a 12XX PJ tell me about the image their setup produces. If you would, tell me about softness of running high resolutions, overall picture quality, effects of the gamma adjustment, quirks and anything else I need to be thinking of.

If I remember, someone was talking about things getting too soft over 660 lines of resolution. What are your experiences with this, and what does the pic look like at 1080i

For what it is worth, I have a 1272 and a Samsung BD-C6500

Thanks,
Colin

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

I like the moome card just for the simplicity and having the transcoding done right in the PJ. I have a marquee not a Sony but I did try the 1st gen fury and had the 1st gen moome at the same time and preferred the moome. I know there a few who run 1080p on the 1272, but to be honest if you can find a Video processor like an older Lumagen HDP or HDQ to couple with the moome it be to your advantage to run
1920x800p to the PJ. this is active area scanning, it keeps the same resolution of 2.4 movies since only 800 lines of the 1080p image is scanned.

Athanasios

prover · Joined: 07 Nov 2008 Posts: 166 Location: Stuttgart, Germany

I have both solutions running (1271 with HDFury+GammaX and 1292 with Moome EXT V3 box). I am running the 1271 setup with 1080i. 1080p doesn't really work for me it is getting too smeary. I am running the 1292 with 1080p (150" screen), this set due to the higher resolution and LC optics produces a far better image quality, no doubt. Gamma adjustment works both with Moome and GammaX very reliable, I would almost say adjustment with Moome is almost a bit finer compared to GammaX.
The picture quality of HDFury and Moome I would say is comparable, with the newest Moome box EXT V3 you also get 3D-playback capability up to 720p (HDMI1.4/3D support will be extended so far a s I know also to the Moome IFB-FullHD V2 card). I think your 1272 could roughly display 3D at 720p (120Hz), for that you need 90kHz for horizontal scanning.

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

prover · Joined: 07 Nov 2008 Posts: 166 Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Hi Athanasios,
unfortunately I don't own a VP but I will give it a try with my new HTPC.

Xenofon

Niloc · Joined: 13 Jan 2011 Posts: 9

This is a very interesting idea. I was just looking at the cost of upgrading my antiquated HTPC and it looks like it would cost about $50 more than buying the moome... probably the route I should go. So, what software would I want to use to use to isolate the active area to send to my PJ? Would this or other software allow me the same kind of gamma adjustment one gets with either of these cards? Can you send me in any directions for further reading on these subjects? In the past I have used a monitor calibrator pointed at the PJ for color balance, and while this worked surprisingly well, it had minimal gamma correction.

Thanks,
CB

ecrabb · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 3:53 am Post subject:

Guys,

Not to be a buzz kill, but there is really no reason to mess around with active area scanning to run the equivalent of 1080p on a 12xx... The lenses won't resolve anything even remotely close to that. In fact, the lenses are such a shortcoming on that machine, you really can't even see 1080i scan lines no matter how hard you try.

So, running a widescreen resolution, a 12xx runs out of resolution around 600p... Remember that's for the full height of the 16:9 raster, so on scope movies, that would come out around 480 lines or so for scope... So, you can see there's no reason to run anything like 800p active area scanning.

I ran a low-hour nice 1271 for a long time and did a lot of testing, and for that machine with HTPC, 720p or thereabouts makes a lot of sense. If you run a set-top box, 1080i is nice. If you have both HTPC and set-top, you can set up both resolutions and run both.

SC

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

I'm not a HTPC guy. But I do love the Lumagen Scalers, and the older HDP series can be found for a few hundred, these were between 1200 and 1500 new. They do all timings and greyscale at 11 points as well as Gamma at those same points along with Primary CMS.

here is Craig Rounds excellent explanation of AAS.

http://archive2.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=737385

Athanasios

Niloc · Joined: 13 Jan 2011 Posts: 9

ecrabb... that was kinda what I was thinking... I definitely do remember people talking about 660 lines being a limit. I get your point about 720, but why is there a difference between a set-top box feeding it 1080i and an HTPC running 720? Second, even when running 720, is there not a benefit in using less bandwidth... or do the lenses not resolve the fuzziness difference that that difference in bandwidth makes...

Athanasios... thanks for that link. Makes things crystal clear. Now, I'll need to find some folks who have done it with a HTPC.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 4:33 am Post subject:

I ran my 1252 from a HTPC for about 6000 hours or so. Did allot of 1024x768 for full screen stuff and 1080i for HD.

Niloc · Joined: 13 Jan 2011 Posts: 9

So, is there a benefit in using less bandwidth or are the lenses a limiting factor?

ecrabb · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 3:43 pm Post subject:

Exactly. In my experience, 720p was far beyond what the lenses would resolve. Remember, these machines wer made when 480i video was it and computer went to 640x480 or may 800x600. Anyway, any sharpness gained by decreasing bandwidth was lost through the lenses. This was evidenced by the fact that on three different 12xx machines, I was never even able to see 1080i scan lines on the screen which were completely visible on the tube face. In short, the lense suck.

Anyway, not being able to see a hint of 1080i scan lines had to mean real vertical widescreen resolution was sub-540p. So, I never saw any reason to try to decrease bandwidth to make a sharper image on the tube face when the lenses would completely obscure that increases sharpness. I always wanted to try adapting the sharper hd144 lenses, but jousts adapters didn't make sense given the with of the projector, then I scored a deal on a g70, got about all the sharpness I wanted, and realized just how soft the lenses on the 12xx were.

The 12xx are actually damn good machines, but the junk lenses really ruin their potential.

SC

Niloc · Joined: 13 Jan 2011 Posts: 9

ecrabb... I heard there were two different eras of lenses on the 12xx PJs. I heard that the earlier ones were much better than the later ones. Which ones did you have?

CB

ecrabb · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:24 pm Post subject:

I had a 1271 with the PT-65 lenses that were supposedly so much better, and I had a 1272 and 1252 with the all-plastic HD-8's that were supposedly so much worse... I couldn't tell a lick of difference between them. Nada. Zip.

There was really only one person that claimed he saw a substantial difference between them and he hasn't posted here in ages.

I keep coming back to the fact that there was just no reason for super high-quality lenses on video-data projector at the time they were made. It wasnt until the graphics-grade machines started rolling out a few years later that optical performance really shot up.

SC

Niloc · Joined: 13 Jan 2011 Posts: 9

Hmmm. Makes sense. So, will a 720p images downconverted in a HTPC from a blu ray disc look too soft on the 1272? I'd assume it will still look worlds better than a dvd projected in its native format...

ecrabb · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:35 pm Post subject:

Oh, lord yes. BD will still look worlds better than SD and is definitely worth pursuing. I became the HD snob I am today partially due to watching hd-DVD and BD on my 1271. Wink

I'd just set your htpc up at 720p and your set top BD player at 1080i and enjoy.

I can't articulate why typing on my phone, but I still like the image at 1080i on a 12xx better than a 720p digital.

SC

Niloc · Joined: 13 Jan 2011 Posts: 9

Why the set top box at 1080i?

CB

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

I know crab doesn't think it looks good at 1080p But just try both and decide for yourself. I have seen a 1272 at 1080p@48 Hz and then helped him do a 800P@60 HZ, 1080p@48 looked ok but the 800p looked better.

Athanasios

ecrabb · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 10:42 pm Post subject:

It isn't that it won't look good, Athanasios... The issue is the lenses... If they're so bad you can't even see 1080i scan lines, and the projector is only resolving something around 500 pixels vertically at 16:9, then why go to the trouble of active area scanning to try to decrease bandwidth...

In fact, 1920x800p is already using more bandwidth than is 1080i... Heck, the pixel clock alone for 1920x800p/48 is nearly 74Mhz, while 1080i/60 is about 62MHz. I'm not telling anybody it's dumb or won't look good, or even that they shouldn't try - hell, it's just my opinion - I just think it's a waste of time when the lenses suck as badly as they do.

CB, the reason I say 1080i for set top box is because it's high enough that it really makes for a nice film-like image on the 12xx... It's significantly higher than what the lenses will reveal, but the resulting image is nice and smooth like film. But, if you run the HTPC at 1080i, small things like file names mouse pointer, control panel settings... They're just too soft and hard to see/read.

Basically, 1080i gives you a little more spatial resolution - but a lot of it is obscured by the lenses and so not even close to fully resolved. 720p gives a little less spatial resolution, but is better resolved, so it makes desktop graphics easier to read. It's a little hard to explain - you'll have to just play around with it for yourself and see what you like. The 720p/1080i setup was just what I found convenient, and no amount of tinkering I did would make it any better look, and just make things more complicated.

Cheers,
SC

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

I understand Steve. But on my Marquee 8000 i had HD8's and ran 1080p@48 and it was pretty good, sure 1920 was not resolved at all but 1080 was pretty close. And 800p was a lot sharper. All i am saying is his HD 8s might be better than what you had.
When doing my set up I used the green tube and had about 9 HD 8 len's handy before I went to HD 144's all were not the same. I hand picked three HD 8's that resolved the best. Incidentally the three I choose all came from three different PJ's. And to go from there i put the worse of the three on the blue tube.

So not all HD 8s are or any lens are the same.

Oh And i had one or two lens that where so bad 1080i was bad like you noticed on yours.

Athanasios