Hi guys. I have my projector up and running finally. I love it so far except for one thing...Whenever im watching a movie......during the dark scenes its hard to see what is going on. I have my bulb perfect on center, i turned the contast and the brightness up on my lcd, and still it is hard to see. luckily i have an ATI dirver that lets me set the contrast and brightness even higher but that only works with games. not with movies. Is there anyway I can fix this problem. Also...woudl you guys happen to know how I can turn up the contrast and brightness in WMP or DIVX player? I tried using the catalyst ATI driver to do that but it has no effect on movies.....only games.

something isnt right ....

you shouldnt have to turn brightness and contrast all the way up ..... I suggest turning the contrast back to its normal settings ...... If you want to brighten the image look into using zoom player and FFDSHOW ... also look into adobe gamma settings so that you can raise the gamma, without effecting contrast

use WINDVD v 6.0 and you will have no problems with brightness, there are filters you can adjust while the movie is playing to get each flick dialed in quick and easy, plus youll get amazing resolution and it is easy on the processor compared to other players with filters.

Are you certain it's centered?


If you can, move your triplet up or down and side to side (not in and out)) until you find the spot where it becomes the brightest. Then adjust your lamp arc accordingly. I found that my lamp arc was off center by about 1/4" and was costing me about 50% brightness.

Crap I just put made another post asking the same question about dark scenes being dark. I think that I will try windvd, I had that in my pc when I first tried it but my htpc doesn't have that installed so I will give that a shot.

its nice ... im actually using it now over Zoom/FFDShow because of its ease of operation .... it has a gamma control as well, which can prove invaluable to us.

WinDVD Rewls

Question! Wouldn't it be a better idea to put the lcd brightness all the way DOWN so the color isn't washed out? Let the halide take care of the brightness.

Ever notice how dark the picture on a slide for a slide projector is?

It may require more light (like the use of a reflector) but the contrast will probably be dramaticly increased. Dark scenes usually look bad because the light of the bulb brightens the blacks into a dark grey, too much light is passed through. You can't project black, black is just the absense of light, so you need something that blocks out the light better. I think this is why commercial projectors have such a high contrast ratio. But still I think darkening the lcds colors, so they aren't so easily washed out by the brightness of the bulb will help a lot.

no ... because if you do that ... then your going to overcompensate on the brightness level of the signal coming in ... and your going to be washed out really bad. you should set everything at default/center and make adjustments from there.

Is that true? Obviously you don't want to make it too dark. Did you try it?

No I havnt tried it.....

but Years ago I worked for a A/V high end retailer, and I have some experience calibrating video sets. In addition Ive worked for dell repairing monitors and I have to calibrate them after a repair. So with my experience and theory combined I am bold enough to make the above statement.

if you lower the brightness on the display itself, that would mean that you would have to increase the brightness of the signal coming in to bring yourself back to a nuetral point. This will result in a dim picture in which that the blacks are really more gray than black.

the guide says to turn the brightness and contrast on the lcd all the way up though???

I find that the guide is just that, a guide. LCDs differ, and I say just play with the settings until they look best to you. Never settle for someone else's word (no offense to someone else).

Even if that was a good Idea ........ Mikau is talking about turning it all the way down, not up .....

In any event, it depends on the LCD. On my Samsung the brightness does nothing, because it in fact just brightened/dimmed the backlight. So you can turn it up or down, with no effect.

the contrast on another issue, worked out to be only about 60% up .... and further up and my blacks started to turn grey. In any event turning them all the way down is a bad idea.... but to each his own...

I would say make sure that your light arc is 100% on center with your fresnels and your LCD and triplet.

Blast, I knew the backlight would control the brightness.

I think it may be possible that the lumenlab bulb is simply so bright it washes out the colors on the lcd. Using a slightly dimmer light or simply not using a reflector may improve it, though it will result in a dimmer projection requiring a darker room, but the contrast would probably be greater. Not sure.

Mikau

I dont think your catching my drift.

regardless of how bright the projected image is, or its source of light. we can discuss the LCD when its brand new and with a backlight. If you turn the contrast all the way down, then the image will be too dark. Try it on your PC monitor, doesnt matter if its LCD or CRT.

When that happens, your going to turn up the contrast in the playback software, this will yeild to all blacks being sort of gray.

it doesnt matter what the output brightness is, if you turn the contrast up on the source (i.e. WinDVD), then the blacks will be greyed out, and the brights will be full of hot spots.

its best to leave everything at default and make tweaks from there.

thanks for all the tips and responses guys....im going to try to fix it this weekend when i have time.