CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[stefuel]

[CasetheCorvetteman]

[Curt Palme]

I didn't check closely, but I don't think there's any board changes between the Cine 9 and CineMax. Perhaps the French specs are slightly better than the Belgian ones?

[Curt Palme]

I didn't check closely, but I don't think there's any board changes between the Cine 9 and CineMax. Perhaps the French specs are slightly better than the Belgian ones?

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Nah there is no board differences, according to one source there is a couple more features in relation to the source storage and LIMO PRO was fitted standard in the CineMAX, in another source they state the CineMAX name was used on the first models and was later changed to Cine 9. Its anyones choice what they want to believe really, there would be no difference on screen. Mine is a 2001 model and its a CineMAX, the french didnt have a hand in it then apparently.

The french company never sold any CRTs that i could find, Barco sold the home theatre side of the business to them and continued catering only for the commercial market by all accounts, at that time they were still selling the 909.

[ElTopo]

Mine is a CineMax with a Cine9 logo on the screen

[Francisco]

[ecrabb]

[CasetheCorvetteman]

The CineMAX came PRIOR to the Cine 9... Not later, EARLIER.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Crabb, im not at any point stating the image quality on the Cine 9 isnt awesome, cause it is. But what i AM saying is its not all they make it out to be. There are many ways that it couldve been alot better.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

My machine, as ive stated a couple times in the past, has EASILY better sharpness than the XG, EASILY better astig which can very easily be made perfect right to the corners, EASILY better focus electronicly speaking, and there is no doubt its brighter and has better contrast compared to the AC XG.

More later, im abit snowed under right now.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Sorry for that delay Crabb, ill finish now

So further more to what ive said about the sharpness and i dont dissagree with you that it may very well be the sharpest CRT known to man, and yes ive certainly been able to drag pretty close to the most out of my XG, but i think youre misunderstanding my opinions on the two machine here.

The CineMAX is obviously better than the XG, in many ways, as i noted above. Having said that, the XG cant compete in every way due to the tubes it has, but there is little question the convergence system is significantly more capable of flawless accuracy corner to corner. The Barco has only 81 points of adjustment compared to the NEC ( not just the XG ) having close to 200 points. The Barco convergence system is good, but the fine adjust mode is still too coarse and the zones are too large. If you have a very small misalignment, one press will generally mean its then out on the other side. On the NEC in fine point mode, the adjustments are so small it takes two or three presses to move the line about one pixel width, id guess about five presses to one of the Barco. Then there is the sheer number on adjustment types on the NEC, once you know what they all do, you can dial it in near perfect in every way in around 10 minutes ( provided youre not doing anything mechanical ). The Barco has a few adjustments, but not even half the ones that make a big difference for me on the NEC. And its not like as if NEC only built up to this towards they end, sure they added more as time went on, but my PG Plain has more convergence ability through options than my CineMAX has, and although ive never seen one, ive read that even the GP3000 and GP5000 had around 200 independent points of convergence adjustment. The CineMAX convergence is very stable once the machine is warmed up, but again, so is every NEC PG and XG ive ever set up.

Then there is the bandwidth claims... Its abit of a toss at best, although i did post up a while back visibly better results via RGB HV compared to the MOOME EXT V3 box, its not 180MHz. Ive read at some point recently that while the 909 and 912 are claimed and listed as 180MHz, the CineMAX/9 are 130MHz. That is certainly more believable and im sure youll agree. I have seen the test patterns Mike posted from his Marquee, and that pretty much proved beyond doubt that what he had was considerably more capable in terms of bandwidth.

So i hope that will clarify my opinions abit for you as far as that goes. Im not saying the CineMAX or 909 isnt the great machine everyone says it is, cause it sure is great, you know it yourself, but as far as being the "best", i have difficulty coming to terms with that. Best sharpness? Very likely. But does that make it the absolute best machine? Not in my opinion, i think there is a fair bit more to it.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

A it more ill add for anyone else interested, a few days ago i updated my video card drivers and when i went to set resolutions again, i noticed the ability to send 2560x1440 via RGB HV, even at that insanely high resolution the text was readable across the whole screen. Thats sharpness for you for sure. But it also failed the bandwidth test with the vertical lines being very dark.

[Francisco]

[stridsvognen]

Here we go again..

If anyone doubt, my CRT projector is the best.

[Francisco]

[stridsvognen]

What is a stock Marquee.. Im not sure, can anyone here tell me the performance of a Marquee 9553LC Ultra, VS 9500LC Ultra. And what vim is in what and so on. I gues the 9500 is made in all possible combinations of tubes lenses and boards possible.

Who have seen a 9500 with LUG tubes and HD10E lenses, 03VIM red and green C element.

I dont know if there is that many standard options with the Barco 909 and sony G90.

From my experience with Marquee and my reading in here ill think the Sony G90 is the projector that will please most plug and play users.

And the Marquee for those who like to fine tune, and if done right, push the limits of whats possible with CRT.

So it looks like the Barco Sony and Marquee dont apeal to the same kind of end users.

[digitalayon]

Man this thread might get ugly....FYI....I pass on every Ampro unless I strip it for parts to a much better Marquee or Barco.

However....whichever unit produces a real live naked chick and a beer tap, I call that unit the winner.

[Spanky Ham]

Case,
I will start with bandwidth claims. This has been gone over millions of times, but some companies fudged their numbers in a game of one upmanship. What really matters is putting up a test pattern and seeing what they can do? There was a thread a couple of years ago (five maybe) where several people were posting pics of their pjs with a test pattern. I think tse provided the pattern.

On the NEC, I will take your word for it since I never set up the 909s I had. I did really love the NECs I had and despite the reputation I could set them up pretty quickly. Tinman's guide helped a lot in this regard.
I know it has been said before but Doug Baisey said there were some experimental 9" NECs that were supposed to be the successor to the XG. He said they looked great. What might have been!!!

[Curt Palme]

Keeping in mind of course that even the best projector will look like crap if not properly set up. I'd rather have a lesser projector with a great tech behind it vs the top of the line set with a mediocre setup.

And for the record, I'm not an ace setter-upper like Craig or Ken, but I have been complimented enough times by newbie CRT owners for making their set sing. Focus, astig, geometry and convergence, repeat after me!

[Curt Palme]

Keeping in mind of course that even the best projector will look like crap if not properly set up. I'd rather have a lesser projector with a great tech behind it vs the top of the line set with a mediocre setup.

And for the record, I'm not an ace setter-upper like Craig or Ken, but I have been complimented enough times by newbie CRT owners for making their set sing. Focus, astig, geometry and convergence, repeat after me!

[CasetheCorvetteman]