CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Tinman]

Well guys, it's been a long, great run.

I sold the Runco990 after going through it and replacing a bunch of caps, etc. It went to a forum member right here.

I'll be assisting him in the proper setup once it gets put into it's new place. The image is still breathtaking, but....

A digital ended up working properly with my networked computer system and the Runco just didn't. It wasn't it's fault.
Windows 7 just refuses to play nice with CRT. But I HAVE to use it for Media center and Digital Cable tuner access.

I bought an Epson 8700UB, which does everything I ask of it without multiple setups, convergence, tweaks, etc.
In the end, this mattered more. And I just could not get any computer to reliably cough up 1080i to save my life.
I just got tired of fighting with it. In the end I really just want to sit down in my HT room and use the system.

So this is my goodbye to the great 3 eyed monsters.

The Epson is good. Really good. Can you see the difference? Yes. But it's no longer worth fussing over.

Thanks for all the great years at AVS and then here with all you guys. Well, except Keysersauce...

You can ban me now..... LOL!

Marc

[dvh99]

mmmh, a friend of mine bought a new nvidia card and everything works flawless with win7 on the marquee.
tmt mpc no problems at all and no need for powerstrip, the image on his vutec is amazing, blows away any digital for sure.

[jeffslife]

All the best Tinman !

[ecrabb]

Not to thread-jack, but this seems as appropriate of a place as any...

As of a couple of weeks ago, no more CRT for me, either.

I've had a CRT projector since I picked up my first one from university surplus back in the fall of 2001. I just lurked on AVS for several years before that, then finally registered and started asking questions once I got my baby - a university 1271. Always wanted one, and finally had one. Bought and sold a series of used Sony 12xx's, built a dedicated theater around my minty 1271, and finally graduated to a G70 and watched that machine for the last four years.

Alas, times change... We're considering a move to another state, and the negative reaction to the CRT was pretty obvious when we had a few people in to look at the house (on a whim mostly). That, combined with the fact while I absolutely loved the PQ and film-like image the G70 made, I always hated the size and noise. The size really dominated the room, and I couldn't even remotely walk under the machine on my riser without hitting my head on it. Worse, it wasn't CRT that I loved as much is it was home theater... I got into CRT because it offered a bang-for-buck unequaled by anything else. Well, let's be honest: Digital PQ sucked ass until about 4 years ago.

Still, I love the combination of picture and sound in my theater. My room is a very quiet, acoustically treated, mid-range performance, fully light-controlled, and dedicated theater. The CRT just ruined the noise floor in the room. Even with a light hush box, the G70 was always noisy.

So, between the possible move, showing the house, my desire for smaller and quieter, and my satisfaction with the LCoS image pro ducted by the JVC machines I'd seen many times in friends' rooms and at CEDIA, I sadly, reluctantly, sold the G70 and bought a JVC RS45, the same machine Kal is probably going to end up with.

I don't have the new JVC mounted yet, but so far I'm thrilled. There are only two areas this machine isn't as good as as the G70 was: Absolutely black, and smooth pixel-free image.

Regarding the black, it's not CRT, but it's very, very good. Excellent, in fact. Not only can I live with it, I like it. I don't even have it calibrated yet, but on low-APL mixed scenes like the IMAX aerial cityscape night shots in Dark Knight... Wow, the detail really pops out... In those scenes, the blacks would have been significantly compromised on the CRT.

As for the pixel-free image... One important point: My viewing angle is very large compared to most. I sit about ten feet from my 8-foot wide screen, so 1.2x screen width. I can just see pixels in certain scenes with bright white blobs in them. Otherwise, it's not noticeable at all.

If anybody is interested, I can do a more detailed review in a few weeks after I've calibrated it, and after I've got it mounted on the ceiling. Overall, I'm very happy, but I do miss the old beast.

The G70 went to a nice guy up the road from me. He likes to tinker, and was like me once: Dreamed of owning a big CRT, but could never afford the high prices. Mine finally came up in his price range, and it went to a happy home.

Cheers,
SC

[jeffslife]

The negative reaction to CRT, wow ! Was it playing at the time ? Your HT is a work of art. I cant imagine a negative reaction to that labor of love. Anyway I am glad you are happy thats all that ever matters,lifes too short.

[ecrabb]

I know, Jeff... It's crazy... The looks on their faces were something along the lines of "WTF is THAT?!?!?" and "WTF am I going to do with it?!?!?"

I got the sense it was like a swimming pool... Some would like it while others would avoid the house because of it. That sounds crazy to us, but don't forget... There are people who walk through a house and pass it over because of the paint or carpet, as completely insane as that sounds.

Yes, life is too short. I can't believe we've been in this house for going on eight years, and had a dedicated theater for over five of that. Thanks for the praise, too... Labor of love is right. I dreamt for years of having a dedicated theater, and the wife and kids and all love it, so we've never regretted on bit the money we spent or the boat-load of time it took to plan, design, and build the room.

SC

[Tinman]

ecrabb, I know what you mean.

I also got into CRT about the same time due to college surplus sales. That's also how I met Doug Baisey.
It was a LOT of fun to get an NEC for $250 back then, (PG6) and tinker around with it. My first projector was a Sony 1031Q, though. At the time, Digitals sucked ass, for sure. NOTHING beat CRT, but we also didn't have 1080p and HDMI then either.
And computers as HTPC's.... well that was a pretty novel idea at the time.

I AM sad to see the big Runco go.... but I am glad to see it go to someone that really wants it!

The Epson, btw, is basically silent. I kind of have to get used to the absence of fan noise in the room, even though I DID quiet the
Runco down a lot, it was always in the background. Now... NOTHING! Silence.

BTW, I did try a few NVIDIA boards. They ONLY spit out 1080i to an HDMI connection with the right EDID.
Every time I ran VGA out, no go. ONLY 1080P, no 1080i. I finally got fed up with it. I spent hours with Powerstrip,
no go either. I never got the timings right.

For whatever reason, my Moome card in the ISS switcher would not tell the computer that 1080i was available.
720P ran fine. The Moome card ran fine with 1080i from my Blu ray player, though.

Oh well. The slight sacrifice in PQ was worth the totally hassle free operation for my particular setup.

Time marches on.

Speaking of "WTF is THAT??" I get that with my Reel to Reel decks as well.

Marc

[ecrabb]

[CasetheCorvetteman]

[opv]

Wow, this thread makes me kind of sad.
I always felt, the the great fun with CRT, besides for the image quality, is the tweaking part.
With CRT you can always find more tweaks to make something different.
If I buy a digital, I'll set the focus and zoom. calibrate the gray scale and CMS, and then what? start watching movies?!
Anyway, enjoy your new digitals.

[stefuel]

The only thing keeping me from switchin now is thad DAMN AmPRO. It won't quit. Most complain that AmPro's are unreliable. I can't get mine to break

When it sneezes, it's gone. I won't even replace it with another projector. A giant LED flatscreen will go up on the wall.
Then I can let some light into the room and start picking mushrooms.

[km987654]

[bachiano]

[Spanky Ham]

I can't believe Crabb has went digital. This comes as such a shock. I had no idea he was even thinking of switching over to the greyside.

Steve asked me what he should do a couple of weeks ago and I told him he should grab the JVC b-stock off of AVS. The price of used digitals isn't even in line with the new and b-stock prices. Knowing his preferences, I thought he would always be wondering what if if he didn't grab the JVC.








Bach,
You just bought that Sony five months ago. Now you are thinking of bailing?

[hansilili]

You know what? I'm gonna stick with my 10PG. I am even afraid to sell the spare machine, fully working with minty tubes. Dead working capital, just sitting there consuming foor space.

Cheers
hansilili

[kal]

[kal]

[Curt Palme]

Kal, do you remember what the hour count is on the 1200?

[Curt Palme]

Kal, do you remember what the hour count is on the 1200?

[kal]

Around 6000 hours. Almost half of that was in picture mute mode however. Kids would often watch something for an hour before dinner and then I'd put the projector into picture mute (tubes essentially off) until they were in bed later and I'd watch something.

If you look closely with a bright flashlight you can just start to see a bit of wear on the green tube. When I set it up temporarily floor mounted in the new house for the last ~8 months I moved the picture around a bit onto virgin phosphor and you do notice a difference in brightness (unused phosphor was brighter).

I really pushed the throw to be as close as possible so the raster was really maxed out in width on the tubes. I definitely did NOT do one of these:



(picture taken from one of your 'how not to install a CRT projector' instructions)



So the good news is that on my projector it's basically impossible for my wear to cause issues if I was to install it elsewhere (no plans on doing this however). That assumes a 16x9 screen or 2.35:1 screen. It would be an issue on a 4x3 screen however. You'd notice the brighter top and bottom.

Kal

[kal]

Around 6000 hours. Almost half of that was in picture mute mode however. Kids would often watch something for an hour before dinner and then I'd put the projector into picture mute (tubes essentially off) until they were in bed later and I'd watch something.

If you look closely with a bright flashlight you can just start to see a bit of wear on the green tube. When I set it up temporarily floor mounted in the new house for the last ~8 months I moved the picture around a bit onto virgin phosphor and you do notice a difference in brightness (unused phosphor was brighter).

I really pushed the throw to be as close as possible so the raster was really maxed out in width on the tubes. I definitely did NOT do one of these:



(picture taken from one of your 'how not to install a CRT projector' instructions)



So the good news is that on my projector it's basically impossible for my wear to cause issues if I was to install it elsewhere (no plans on doing this however). That assumes a 16x9 screen or 2.35:1 screen. It would be an issue on a 4x3 screen however. You'd notice the brighter top and bottom.

Kal

[jbmeyer13]

I think a big part of the reason the industry moved to digital (well before the image quality was even close to CRT) is because of what Kal and Crabb are experiencing. Digitals are smaller, quieter and offer more flexibility to set up thus making them an installer’s dream. Personally, I’d have a hard time recommending CRT to the average Joe. It only makes sense for those who like to tinker or require the most film like image and are willing to trade convenience to attain it.

Regarding the visual impact of the unit itself; we had guests who asked me if my PJ was an antique. The amusement quickly subsided once they saw the image:-)

[ecrabb]

Kal,

I saw the RS55 at CEDIA, and I think it's definitely a worthwhile upgrade over the RS45. If I had the cash to throw at it, I'd definitely have gone that route, as it would be especially beneficial with my large viewing angle. I can occasionally see pixels and with the e-shift, it really does make it hard to see pixels from any normal viewing position. The convergence ability is nice, too. My machine is one pixel out on the red channel on the left third of the screen. It's perfect in the center and on the right (I have no idea how that happens). Fortunately, It's really not even visible on anything but small white details like stars, and not really from my seating position.

I could see myself selling the RS45 and picking up an RS55 either if they fire-sale them around CEDIA or next spring or something (as a year-old model), or used if somebody got reasonable on a used price. If you're leaning that way, and you can cost-justify it, go for it.

So busy with work right now, and have to travel next week, but I can't wait to get this thing on the ceiling... It's so small and quiet... And black... Once it's up there, and I get my light-weight "hush box" up there (just for appearance/protection/heat removal), you'll barely notice the projector!

SC