That's a very interesting idea. You're very right that you could remove the inner polarizers to increase brightness, that's a pretty neat idea. I don't know if it would increase brightness though, since theoretically the light would already be polarized once it comes out of the first panel. I do think brightness would be your biggest issue though. If you can find out how transmissive the raw panel is without any polarizers then I think that's how much dimmer the projection would be. I bet it's going to be a lot dimmer. Also you'd need to line up the two LCDs absolutely perfectly.

It sounds like a big undertaking, but it's a cool idea so if you've got the time to invest then go for it!

These LCDs are 147dpi fine grain. I hardly imagine that you could exact pixel align of your two panels

I was thinking on it, too because in that case we may go 12 bits/channel, what is HDR.. but i don't know any cheap mechanism to solve the pixel alignment. regarding polar stripping. you will need at least 3 polars, one front, one betwen and one at the back of the lcd "sandwich"

this is an official quotation from your representative? Colud they give not man hour price, but exact cost calculation to perform the task? anyhow if you have the lcd data sheet, the panel-to-RS232C cable, a pc and the kcwb software - then you can do the setup yourself. I mean that's a max 10 minutes task.

Sounds like you just plug the data into the program and it spits out a file to flash to the controller.

I't just about read out EEDID from the panel a propagate it back to the controller. so it could be done as plug-n-play that's why can i hardly understand why none of the contorlller wendors have done it. okay tehre are certain panles, i.e. the one that Haphazard posted here what are not supporting DDC/EEDID

I also look forward to sfij's review. I wonder how the quality of the scaling on the RTD chipset compares to that of the painfully expensive genesis chipset we already have.

Wait.. so we don't need the panel's specs? I must be misunderstanding you because it looks like you said "plug panel to controller, plug controller to computer, run software, software reads panel, software automatically configures controller."

But there must be some reason we can't else everyone would be doing that.. (we don't have the software?)

Yepp, this is how it should be played. however it could be better if you plug the panel to the controller and the controller auto-configures itself

I feel the most important thing was the connector pinout - so we needed at least one laptop wuxga data sheet to figure it out - and the fact that wether the panel has EEDID support or not. not all of them have. If no EEDID in your panel, then you are tied to the data sheet. anyhow what panel do you have? thanks to lg.philips lcd i have my panel's data sheet now.


Yepp, this issue is similar to PC bios flashing, what can go wrong. note that if i'm not wong we have the software, that is kcwb. intelligent software costs more to develop in one hand, and on the other nat all LCD panels are supporting EEDID. Thirdly, the customer can be highly charged even with piece-of-cake issues


Note taht there is a possibility that i'm wrong. my understanding is coming from studying kontron brochures and this thingy may not straight forward as I think. So we have data sheets - some - which means we are far closer to the success. Maybe we should group-buyed kontron, dunno. I'll start with MSC Budapest, which is my local dealer of kontron...

I'll suggest you PM maxer, and compare-notes re: cable/controller-programming...
http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?a...4&MID=12014
He's very familiar, and similarly-interested/experienced...

I sent the datasheet off to my guy at Kontron, he is going to see what he can do with that.

I told him if we can get one working that we will be interested in buying more.

Ooops i've figured out that the toshiba is clocked at 75.878Mhz and my philips is at 81MHz So it seems damn good to have the exact data sheet of your panel.

81MHz is HtotalxVtotal@60Hz : 2160x1250@60Hz but possibly toshiba can run with these figures as well

Yeah this was straight from my representative, I was under the impression that it wasnt such a hard thing to do - just program the chip for the right frequencies and make a cable with the right pins and away we go.
But they say its not that simple...?

I'm interested to hear what your representative says computercowboy.

Well, I think we should have all the data sheet of the panels we would like to have a common timing setup or different setups needed on panel type. so it might not be a good idea to having sent toshiba specs if one has sharp. I'll contact MSC once again.

Shouldn't all the specs be the same - as they are made for the exact same laptop and controller?

The spec sheet is for the LTD154EZ0S and my panel is the LTD154EZ0D, I assume there aren't any differences with these 2 panels - maybe just a newer revision or something.

The last digit usually refers to the model of the laptop the screen went in. Otherwise the panel is the same.

yepp. but lotsa people have sharp, coz' minoten colud have made it work with winmate. i have philips, coz' according to the available public sepcs seemed to be the best one.

Yeah but wouldn't they have to be pretty much exactly the same - as they are going into the same laptop. And the laptop controller would output the exact same thing to each panel. So having the spec sheet to one panel would mean having the spec sheet to all the panels.


Also, The Digital View controller - they said itd be easy to make it work - but the kontron one they said it would take 2 days to get working - whats the deal there?

That is what I figured



My guy at kontron has said no such thing about 2 days or a charge. He said get me the data sheet.

Great, well hopefully they can do it with no problems!

As far as I know all of the Wuxga 15.4" laptop screens will work in any laptop with wuxga support.

So theoretically the panels are interchangeable.

By the way - Just for everybody's information.

the guy from Kontron said the following to me when I asked about HDCP on the controller.

"It is an option in the programming which comes with the board."

I've seen now phipis, what recommends 81MHz dot clock, and accepts 80-82MHz, dot clock. Also seen toshiba's paper what stetes Tc=13.179ns that is, 75.878MHz. toshiba recommneds 1024 Tc periods as HTotal, philips requires at leas 1030 Tc periods as HTotal and recommends 1080 Tc periods as HTotal. I think philip's setup is the most common, because it gives exact 60fps while toshiba's setup gives you 59.999914fps - possible framedrop within 100,000 frames (28 minutes) - not a serious problem.
yepp digital wiev can be set up via jumpers - but no HDCP some have said that it took 2 days to program the kontron - but I feel that I can do it myself

I was the one who said the 2 days thing - well.. I was quoting the Kontron rep.

So basically we just need somebody to take the plunge and get the controller and the OSD interface. I have been quoted $320 AUD for both of them.

I will buy it, if they can make something of that datasheet and or I can send my panel to them to verify it works ok.

otherwise I really don't care I can just use the winmate + a stripper.

Price is not an object here I need something that works and if I we can't get something from Kontron pretty soon I will just buy the winmate. I have the x2gen panel now but it is not all that. I know the sharp panel that has been sitting in my closet for the past 2 or 3 months is "ALL THAT" so now that I have a working PJ I want to make it better. WUXGA is over 2x the pixel count of WXGA.

I have found somebody, who have DIY LCDTVed this kontron. >>CLICK<< I've regged, PM-ed the guy a waiting from *any* experience regarding tweaking CRT2LCD7...

That is cool - Did he actually program it for that panel or was that panel already supported? I cant make that out cause the Google translator kinda sucks haha

It's a torsian panel, 720p, 8bit, but he stated that he can do fine tuning, firmware updates - ie can configure the controller.

Ps. don't blame google translator. w/o that i cannot read chinese/korean/japanese sites

I'm certain that's true, but so are the Kontron-concerns, and all of sfij's-input.
From experience with 10.6"-controllers to-date, it's very-possible to flash a multi-input board for one-panel quite-different from another employed-with, and find it works fine...within vga-and/or-dvi (particularly when HT-PC-'fired'/sourced). But, often quite-another matter when it comes to parms/centering/off-sets for Component-scaling (especially when using standardized player/receiver-sourcing). Both vga/dvi seem much more 'forgiving' of board-flash than Component...with HD-Component being the-more 'iffy' (and more panel-specific with 'rigid-and-nonadjustable sourcing', whereas we have degrees of control from a PC-videocard).
If a Kontron, with it's fine feature-set/picture-quality could be coded for use with one/any of these wuxga-panels, it would be a big step-up, of itself (whether or not Component was 'ideal').
Same for the 10.6's...
As for HDCP -- wouldn't that come down to 'who foots the bill for high-licensing-fee'? If it ends up being 'our little market', then that will bump such a board well-out of my price-range and interest -- if, however, Kontrol can spring for it on many of its controllers across-the-line, then it would be an 'value-added bonus' for us.

HapHazard.
Component differs nothing else from VGA than its color space is YUV, not RGB. So the 720p componrnt issue is not because of panel differences, it's due to the misconfigured A/D unit on the board.

Regarding different panels. It is possible of course to find a common denominator parameter set for differenet panles, but you should have the data sheets and i start understand why the vendors are asking for LCD sample for configuration. And yes 15.4" wuxgas are interchangeable - sortof. Yes dell uses philips and sharp, both, but don't uses toshiba... however winmate succeded driving all of them as it seems... but look at winmate solution app. it lists only sharp anf philips - they don't guarantee that G2A works for toshiba.

HDCP thingy. It have 2 parts - charging a yearly fixed fee with the vendor, and charging the end user's device. Since Kontron sells HDCP enabled scalers, the vendor fee is paid. so you encounter with the device fee. But there are $700 LCD TVs - supporting HDCP I feel this should be some reaasonable $10-$50 or less for the device you should pay. I think winmate produces mainly industrial LCD kits, not TVs, so since they are not selling TV-like devices the don't want to pay the yearly fee.

My Kontron rep said that the boards have HDCP on them and that was included in the price he gave me.

And if they do have HDCP - then using a component input wouldnt be needed because we would just use a HDMI to DVI converter and it would work. Those who need to use a component input cause they dont have HDMI - have no need for this board because they don't need the HDCP.

But what if we would like both? If the kontron controller ends up working out for us it would be so close to perfect that it would just be a shame for it to fall short without component input.

Yeah, I would love for it to have everything - but what I am saying is - IF component doesn't work on certain panels, its still an awesome controller that will satisfy the needs for all the HDMI-HDCP freaks.

life is difficult. Stefan from VDR-Portal have said, that we possibly won't get HDCP-enabled 7'ers because they only sold to entrusted OEMs. Stefan also told that he has the KCWB because he did some development for a firm under NDA, so we possibly won't get this sw for our 7'er. So we tied to your Kontron guy with extreme man hour price. Stefan also confirmed, that programming the kontrons is pain in the ass skunkwork, and even the app is so much buggy.
So if you can have access to true HDCP enabled 7'ers (I think it should be confirmed, i.e. let your kontron guy demo the board with DVD player using HDMI out) and you have an agreed budget to have the 7'ers configured (I calculated 2000AUD), probably you are the best nominee for organizing the group buy. Seeing a group of hundred customers, having the controller customized for costs 20AUD - and I can live with that. Question is, can you take on this group coordination, collecting the money and post the boards inertanitonally?


Anyway I'm still witing fro MSC GMBH's answers for my inquiry.

anyway the board is sold here for private persons and clearly stated 'No HDCP'

I can live with that - but the guy also said there's no guarantee that its actually going to work (although I figure he is just covering himself just in case)
I will email him now and see what he says

I have emailed him and will post his response when he emails back.

I suppose once we know this is going to happen - we need to get a list of people who are willing to pay part of the programming fee.

I just got a reply from the Kontron guy

He is asking how many purchases do we think we are going to have - cause he can offer discounts

How many people do you think will be interested in this?

It's high time to start a 15.4" FullHD HDCP/Kontron group buy topic to figure it out But in this case we may ask for a JILI30-to-TFT panel cable and have the osd panel + cable also within the kit

I hope we could collect at least 100 customers.

I told the Kontron guy that we would get at least 20 for starters - but more would come

I will figure out the details with Kontron first - then I will start a topic for it and see what interest there is.

The original quote he gave me for the controller and the OSD interface was $320 AUD (thats not including the interface cable, tax or a power supply)

The interface cable itself I wouldn't imagine would be expensive - the power supply would be cheap enough to source ourselves - and tax here is 10%, but I would be able to buy it with my business and get past paying tax - and then sell the controllers through my business as exports which also bypasses the need for you to pay Australian taxes.

regarding interface cable i've ordered two JAE FI-X30M-NPB male connectors from mouser.com, for $12, so its not so much cheap

I feel that the controller-to-lcd cable is critical, not anybody can do it (even if I can), and it's not so easy slodering SMD sized connectors and the whole thing is somewhat error prone (you accidentally soldier wrong pins, etc). But it's good news to have the OSD panel + cable in the quoted price. PSU is not critical, I'll go with an old ATX PSU even fans will be feeded from that.

If You colud organize it as export, i.e. no local taxes - that sounds great!

I will ask Kontron if, as part of that price, they will make and supply the interface cable. That will make things easier

depends on what features are available on the controller, but if all inputs work 100% then I'm 100% down for buying one

I think the problem will be, we have to pay the engineer to get it working, and its not 100% that it will work (but we are pretty sure it will)
so we need people to pay a "deposit" kinda thing that they may loose if it doesn't work..

But the more people we get, the less "deposit" you have to pay

Forgive me for not taking the time to go back through the thread and find out for myself, but can this controller work for the 10.6" panel also? (Or can it be made to work?) If so, I'm sure there's a bunch of people who have or will have those who would be interested.

Im sure it will work for the 10.6" panels - but you would have to get it programmed for them as well. Which would cost money and you would need the data sheet etc

Yep. We have some sortof data sheet, Haphazard have linked. But that means another 2000AUD to have it programmed I feel

Ouch. Well, maybe the next build will be a 15.4 if this works out. Good luck.

if you can collect some hundred people for a grup buy then it will cost 20AUD/person only

How much less transmissive is the LG.Phillips? I guess you don't have any measuring equipment, but maybe a subjective measurement? I wonder if part of the reason the LG.Phillips appears brighter is because of its higher contrast and less washed out colors?

cabe. LG.Philips is the best from this scene. If you look at ebay you will find that sharp is chepaer about some $100 than the LG.Philips panel. Anyhow I cannot understand that if LG.P is "les transmissive" how could it have higher contrast ratio?