I just purchased the plans and stayed up way after midnight reading. Way to much information to digest at this point. Below are intended uses.

DVD movies

X-Box games

Digital Cable TV

I have the 1005 S15 Lens Kit on order. I would like HD or as close as possible to it. Questions are below.

1. High Definition - Movie and Games - LCD recommended?
2. Can I just use the X-Box as the DVD player for a cleaner install?
3. Surround sound - what is needed if I use the X-Box as player? Not a primary concern.
4. Length of room needed for good picture? It's a small house.

My wife built 11 of the 12 cameras on the space station, so optical alignments are not a problem.

Thanks in advance.

Smitty

1005 kit is for the most part only big enough for 15" monitors, and you cannot get above 720p but now I'm reading you can't get that but I'll have to keep reading (EDIT found this http://www.cnet.com/4520-7874_1-5137915-1.html ), you definitely cannot get above it, no 15" monitor has those capabilities. You can use an Viewsonic N6 or an AverMedia TvBox9 for a video input box and throw HD signal but you will only be limited by your monitor.

For Xbox you want low reponse time 16ms and lower. You can use the X2VGA which I plan on using as I'm using my Xbox for a DVD player as well. http://www.x2vga.com/

Now the pro lens with zoom is recalled and has be removed until they can get a better quality one and with the regular triplet it's a 1 to 1 ratio, I'm in testing right now as mine is built and I put is 6' away from wall and I got a 6' diagonal.

You'll want atleast 5.1 with 7.1 being current standard but it's rare to find a movie with it so as a bare minimum 5.1 is needed. You will need a stereo receiver for this and 5 speakers plus a sub. So your Xbox will be connected to your stereo for sound.

I like the BenQ 557V2, it strips really easy and has a response time of 16ms and a contrast ration of 450 or so. It will play xbox just fine for me.

Yes small room size is not an issue. The projector winds up quite close to the screen / wall. Definitely check out the Lumenlab Focal Length Calculator.

You might be interested in minoten's LCD panel, which is very high resolution yet small enough (15.4") for the standard LL lenses. However that panel at 1920x1200 might be more resolution than you actually need, given the sources you listed. If interested, check out his PLOG, his WUXGA thread, and his recent site: http://members.cox.net/minoten/

Something tells me you aren't joking about your wife working on the space station cameras. How awesome! Can you tell us more about that?

Thanks for the feedback.

At this point I found this monitor for a little over $200.00 BenQ 15IN LCD 16MS 500NITS 450:1 ( FP591 ) High contrast 450, fast response 16ms.

It also has some additonal inputs. Has someone tried this one?

I can hook up a computer with a N6 a good sound card for the DVD's and also link the X-box into it, I guess. I was just thinking about building a Box without tons of cables going everywhere.

As for my wife, She is an optical technician and worked on alot of cool stuff (I could tell you, but than I'd have to kill you. )

When she was building the cameras for the space station, the lens where custom ground and had to be potted using an interferometer for alignments. I seem to recall it was a 4 lens assemblys. Took about a month to do the alignments and potting of each assembly. Of course she had air bearings, interferometer, correct tools, etc. For the PJ all she'll have is me. We used to work for OCA, which was sold to Cornign Inc. I stayed with Corning and was the lead fiberoptic Micro Optics R&D Technician. Her portion was sold to Newport Corp. After finishing the camera she was laid off. She now is working for Alcon Industries building the optics for a Yag Eye Surgury Laser System. If you can design it we could probably build it.

I understand at this point TRUE HDTV is a bit of a reach. Thanks for the link Ferris. Can you tell the between the 720 and 1080?

Thanks

Smitty

I haven't seen HD in person sad to say even though I do like audio/video, just haven't run past the electronics stores in a while. I'm sure you would be able to see difference.

And if you come to central Canada anytime soon, hit me up to tweak my proj with us, gotta get around these dark corners.

Searching the forum for FP591 reveals many hits. Take a look, apparently several other members consider it a great choice.

Thanks for the info about your and your wife's work experience! That is seriously outstanding. I'm glad that you guys have joined the forum!

I have the fp591, and the picture is excellent. Many consider this LCD the best one to use. Others also say the cmv 520d is a good choice. Remeber that the benQ fp591, 557s v2, 567s v2 all use the exact same LCD screen. It is just a difference of having speakers or a DVI input (which the fp591 has).

720p (first level of true HD) is 1280*1024 which can be had on a 17" monitor. 15" monitors will do 1024*768.

Yes, a HD signal is a much better picture, but not yet widely available. You can still compress an HD signal to be played on a 15" monitor with very good results. Look at Benchun's pj in the projector gallery titled "yellow treasure". He has pictures of a 1080i signal going to a 15" monitor using a home theater PC (HTPC) with excellent results.

Thanks Mantis for your response. You mention the DVI input on the FP591, is that a preferred output?

I will be upgrading my existing computer it looks like for the DVD's and than hooking my X-box inot the PJ for games.

Thanks for the info on the Benchuns set up those are amazing.

I didn't want to go with a 17" LCD as the Lens seem to be a small problem at this point and I wanted to get started.

Looks like the most important part of the build is making sure all of the OPTICAL alignments are tweeked to perfection and than tune with the software.

The N6 series of cards looks like the one to use and than the additional software to control it. Am I on the right track?

I guess the next step is to get the LCD. Start collecting lamps and ballest. Cut lots of wood.

Thanks for the info.

Smitty

DVI is a better choice if your computer's vido card has DVI out.

If you're upgrading your home PC, you may consider throwing in a Tv tuner. You can then use it to watch TV and also clean up video using software like descaler and ffdshow. You could also plug your XBox directly into the PC, but the quality isn't the best.

To get the most XBox quality, you'll need a transcoder, something like the N6 or a VDigi. You could probably skip the N6 if you have a HTPC to handle TV and just use something like the VDigi.

If you have a modded XBox, XBMC, I think it supports all hi-def output formats so would make a good DVD player as well as game source. If you have a cable box with comonent output, you could plug that into VDigi to watch TV with your PJ without a HTPC....if you don't have a cable box, you can get an N6 instead of the VDigi to handle all your XBox and TV needs.