I'm gonna be building a 1080p projector eventually, and I was wondering, does anyone know if there are any LCDs that are no bigger then 21" that support 1920x1200 (1080p)? Oh also, the biggest panel the pro lenses support is a 4:3 21" panel right?

Thanks in advance.

Well....I think 21" is the biggest....but if you go with such a large lcd you will loose out on brightness.....a lot....What are your reasons for finding an alternative?

Because the specs on minotens aren't that great (no offense of course), 400:1 contrast, 25 ms (way too high for gaming imo), and 16.2 million colors (standard is 16.7).

hrmmm...You have seen where people with the panel have said that they see no ghosting at all right?

But see....there's the problem...You're not going to find a desktop panel under 21" that does what you want. If it's able to do the high res, you're probably going to get stuck with a high response and low contrast.

That's actually not true, most LCDs regardless of size these days have good contrast and good response times, epecially the bigger ones. And yes I've seen people that say they get no ghosting, but that is them, some people see it, some people don't, I am one that notices it. Hell I even notice slight ghosting on my 15" panel with a 16ms response time.

Response times under 25ms and "true color" palettes are mutually exclusive. Faster response times are achieved in part by refreshing 6-bit pixels vs. 8-bit. 6 bit panels render only 256,000 true colors and achieve the 16.2mm palette through dithering.

The resolution spec on the WUXGA panel cannot be surpassed. At 1920x1200 native resolution, it has 2.8 times the number of pixels as a conventional XGA panel. I haven't seen a DIY WUXGA PJ in person, but I did see Sony's 1920 x 1200 projector running at Fry's and it was fantastic.

A drawback to the WUXGA route is cost: $375 for the panel, $350 for the controller making the total PJ around $1,200. But if the DIY WUXGA performs like the $10,000 Sony unit, it may be worth the cost. (I'll let the LL community know when I finish my 2nd PJ)

What I ment was: The only place you will find 1920X1080p in a reasonable size (15"-17") is from a laptop....And they generaly have lower specs when it comes to contrast and response time...at least last time I checked...
And I think the reason behind this is that the average joe is being fooled. They think they are getting hd monitors that can do 1080i but it just downscales to 720p. And there's not enough demand to make a 15 inch desktop panel that can do 1080p...
And I agree with you on the ghosting...I've never seen an lcd that I couldn't see the ghosting on....My psp drives me nuts...60ms....I could swear to god it's more like 80...I just assumed that minotens panel might have been lowballed on those specs....
Who knows...Maybe you could ask minoten if he can find a higher spec panel for people who wish to drop more coin....

Also the minoten is a 6-bit panel which means fewer colors. If given the choice between my samsung and the minoten, I would still take the minoten for the ridiculously high resolution

Not sure how much the 6-bit color vs 8-bit color makes a difference in practice.

Nick

I have minoten's panel. I don't notice dithering or ghosting.

Can you tell us wich panels you have noticed ghosting on?

I believe the pro lens was made to support either a 19in widescreen or a 21in 4:3 panel (its actually been cut down some from the original pro lenses). I've never seen anything better in resolution than the minoten because there is almost no demand for that kind of thing. Trying to fit that many pixels even on a 19in is very expensive...

Most, if not all, 19in WS monitors are 1440x900, so that'll get you 720p (TV HD standard whenever it gets going, probably most "HD" movies also, at least for a while) or a downsampled 1080p that should look pretty good. And the 19's I've seen are reasonably fast so maybe that's something that will work for you. If not, you can either buy the minoten or wait...

Actually, a 1280x1024 would be better for 720p since that would leave no scaling... 720p is 1280x720.
It would leave som letterboxing though, but no scaling.

I actually think that the minoten is the best bet for a 1080p capable build.

Regarding the pro lens..

The important part is the diagonal size. Aspect ratio doesn't matter per se.

I tested the lens with a 17" panel offset enough that the "far" corner would be the same distance from the principal axis of the projector as a 19" panel would be. At this it worked just fine.

When I rebuilt my projector, I initially placed the panel for what would be a 20.5" diagonal size. I see some "crowning" in the picture when it's like that. As a result, I would NOT recommend the use of a panel larger than 19" diagonal in ANY format, and with a 19" panel, it is highly recommended that care be taken to ensure that the panel is centered in relation to the principal axis of th projector.

If you do that, you'll get an excellent image regardless.

Oh, and re ghosting... Response time is measured at room temperature. LCDs act faster when warm. This can be demonstrated with a digital watch and your freezer. Put your LCD watch in the freezer, and let it get nice and cold. You'll see that if it gets cold enough, the seconds never finish updating before it's time to go to the next second. I do realise that the LCD in a digital watch is passive as opposed to the active matrix of an LCD monitor, but the same basic principles apply. The crystal can change state faster when warm.

The LCD in your projector will be running hot. I'd noticed on my 15" projector that I could see ghosting before it fully warmed up, but once warm, it went away, or at least reduced signifigantly. This I believe explains the lack of ghosting that many people report, even on 25ms panels. Or at least it's the best theory that I have at the moment.

No scaling, but you will block off ~30% of your screen (and 30% of your light) with black bars running 720p on a 1280x1024 monitor. And that's IF you get anamorphic content, its even worse with "true" theatre aspect ratio (2.35:1 in most cases, as opposed to the 1.77:1 for 16:9 stuff). At least with a 16:10 monitor you can scale it a little bit, it will still look good and you'll have little to no letterboxing. My 16:9 WS tv looks pretty good even with 480p content from current DVDs scaled to 1360x768 (32in tv). It letterboxes 2.35:1 stuff but they are about half the size (or less) of 16:9 letterboxes on a 4:3 screen. I've never liked the 5:4 monitors because of the letterboxing/scaling in all the content you get, but that's personal preference.

But you're right, the minoten is the best thing available right now.

Thats interesting, supra. I noticed no visible ghosting on 25ms but I played F-Zero GX and kept crashing into walls unless I set it to 16 ms. But I was setting the response time on my N6. (my monitor supports 16 ms) so even if the lcd was capable of more when warm, it probably didn't use it since it was being fed a 25 ms signal.

The N6 can set refresh rates, but not the speed of the monitor. For example, with my digital watch case, the "refresh" of the LCD can becomre greater than 1 second, though the signal only comes in once per second.

Normally, though, even with the signal coming in at 1Hz, the response time of the LCD is much quicker. I believe this could still be the case with the N6.

I'd say that's an excellent theory! Certainly makes sense to me...

The Dell 20 inch 4:3 monitor is supposed to do 1600x1200.

I cant believe supra is the first one to point out the refresh rate / temperature relation.

I had never thought of, nor seen it posted before.

Good job supra!

Great resolution, but I'm look to do 1080p, not quite high enough.

yup...Believe me blake...I am in the same boat as you here...I have to decide if I want to settle for 720p or go 1080p....Nothing inbetween will do...there's no point....
Maybe if we look at some high end gaming laptops and see who makes the screens for them...

I'll probably end up just building a 17" pj with one of those LCDs Mikau found at Best Buy that have 4ms response time and 1600:1 contrast, would much rather have the higher contrast and lower response time then more resolution personally.