I really liked this batman movie.

I saw it on the big screen, and I saw it on my little big screen as well.

Im 25 years old, and am maybe too young compared to some of you other guys to remember the batman comics to well, but was this story with the league of ninja's in the comic (I know bruce's parents being murdered were), or was it a fabrication just for this movie?

Really great pics steve, top-notch. It would be interesting to know what your setup upstream of the projector is. I know you are using the old eye bulb and have tweaked the pj to perfection mechanically, but what vid card / ffdshow / driver settings have you settled upon?

Scuba, what process and software or images do you use to calibrate your PJ? Your contrast and saturation are the best i've seen. Blows me out of the water

anakin is darth vader??????????????? nooooooooooooooooo. my hopes,my dreams, crushed. j/k great pics. any more for the rest of us?

I have an ATI 9200 Card.

I have FFDshow installed, but my PC isnt up to par to handle all the processes it needs. so ....

Im using WinDVD, one step older than the most current version (version 6 I believe).

I have made adjustments too both the overlay controls on the ATI card itself, along with some of the controls in the software. Utilizing both control panels in the overlay and in the software offer a pretty substantial flexibility without the cost of processor demand.

The better contrast I feel, Comes from the better panel. Ive looked at several panels, and I really do believe the Samsung to be one of the better ones. It also has a pretty decent gamma curve and contrast flexibility inside the monitors interal control panel. Plus individual color gamma controls that were a bonus. Ive said this many times on this forum, but quality is sometimes not always found in the spec sheet. In this projector I started off with a CMV 520D. After ONE day, I ditched it. Put it back together sold it on Ebay, and got another Samsung 512N. The samsung was rated at 450:1 Contrast Ratio, while the CMV was rated 500:1. However I found the Samsung to have much better contrast. The CMV was brighter, but it was washed out and I had to actually turn the contrast WAY up, effectively dimming the picture to get good blacks out of it. The samsung looked better out of the box, than the CMV after a quick general tweaking.

In short, I think I get good contrast and color saturation from mainly my time spent tweaking the controls in all three places (monitor, overlay, and software). Ive used video calibration DVDs, then added my personal tweaks on top of it. Ive been tweaking my PC for nearly 1 year, so I was bound to find a happy medium eventually.

I firmly believe in setting things to your taste and preference after tweaking according to guidelines. In example. I used the video calibration disc to set my contrast/brightness/gamma. everyone has seen the image of the brightness bars, where the very end bars should be visible. Well, after you adjust that out, it can make your image appear DULL on screen. So after technical calibrations were done, I made small tweaks. If I were to go back now, the end bars might not be perfectly visible, but its a rather MOOT point, because when watching a movie its unnoticed. The juice is worth the squeeze.

Another example of this, is your audio calibration. I used a DB meter to set the output levels of the fronts, center, rears and sub to be an equal audio level output. THis is just one of the things the professionals do to calibrate systems. These processes were taught to me when I worked in the A/V industry. HOWEVER, Ive discovered to Hell with all of that. Its more FUN for me to turn my rears up, so I get more action back there, and the Subwoofer I turn up as well. More rear volume, and subwoofer vibration leads to a more enjoyable experience for me.

I will do some more someday soon.

I really like the DVD codecs on this piece of software. Are you using any of the enhancement filters by chance (cinema enhancement in particular)? I found that this gives a suductively saturated picture that looks AWESOME 99% of the time - but I ditched it because every once in a while, it would "burn" the colors and I would loose detail (ex: "The Mummy" desert scenes).

Your pics are having me consider lookin into it again

Ive played around with those, but I found those to either over-saturate the image or cause other unwanted things.

I have used the sharpening feature, mainly with my first PJ, but there isnt as much need for it with this second PJ, because its in perfect focus corner to corner. The lens carriar being designed in CAD, and cut on the CNC really worked out effectively because its exact measurements really proved a difference in the quality of the focus.

Its really not a bad peice of software.

ive spend HOURS messing with FFDSHOW, and I can get a great picture with it, even without using the resize option. But for somereason I get better contrast/saturation using WinDVD.

One day, I will delve deeper into FFDshow, when I get a better PC.

OKay I have been going back and forth between the images in your plogs 1 & 2 and the images posted here. The difference is HUGE!! The images in this thread are 50 times brighter, sharper and better. I posted some pics to compare. Your sure you didnt go out and by a top of the line commercial projector?
Kudos my friend.
Click to view attachment

LOL, yeah Ive gotten the picture betters, Ive done lots of things. Ive had an LL PJ for over a year now, and thats ALOT of tweaking time

wow, that is a big jump in tweaking

well it wasnt just in tweaking.

I believe there is a different bulb, im not sure when I took the dimmer picture, but more than likely it was when I was having some bulb issues.

Even though you can see the corners are much dimmer, that is a result of not having the best reflector/bulb alignment.

The majority of the differnce you see there is proper bulb operation, along with proper reflector/bulb alignment. Software tweaking probably comes into some play as well.

The bulb make a uge differance the more to daylight you are the better the colour are here is a example here start with 400 watt at 6500k temp

here is the second picture with 400w with 4000k

Forgive my ignorance, but which picture uses a bulb closer to sunlight? The 2nd picture looks better to me as it has more color and appears to be less washed out.

Could you post more comparison pictures please, to better illustrate your point?

Fulcrum

WHOA! Good lord, I didn't realize the color temp of the bulb made that big of a difference!

Oh and yes more comparison pics would be awesome.

Sometimes I feel I'm the only one on this forum who's never seen "Nemo", so I don't know which pic is closest to the way it is supposed to look. I wonder though, what is the color temp of an lcd's original backlight?

Oh man you've gotta see Finding Nemo. And yah I wonder what the color temp of the backlight is also, would be very interesting to know that....

Scubasteve,have you worked on your projector anymore? Any new pics? I am getting ready to build one and may need some help. Are you still impressed with the Samsung 512N? Thanks in advance,Hacksaw

What would you consider to be the contrast ratio. Most commercial projects are 5000:1 these days. I suspect yours and most others on this board are around 500:1.

bob

Most commercial projectors as tested at the AVS Forums had an Ansi Contrast of between 100:1-300:1

Have you ever done a side by side comparison? Reason I'm asking is, I have a Benq 8700--original with around 2000:1 contrast and 720p. It's not worth much these days. I was thinking of upgrading to 1080p similar to your projector, but have no clue as to how the DIY projectors compare to commercial in sharpness--corner to corner and contrast. What is your take on this?

Thanks,

Bob

Sharpness on my 1080p DIY and my 1080p commercial is about equal. Corner to corner focus is the same. Corner to corner brightness is better on the commercial. On solid colored screens the dim corners of the DIY are clearly visible. Contrast on the commercial is noticeably better. Blacks are blacker/ whites are whiter. Not so much so that it's a big deal, but noticeable once you've seen a high dollar commercial.

Ah, I didn't see in your thread that you also had a commercial projector. Did that come after the DIY? What is it if I might ask. I am surprised that your DIY holds up as well as it does. I also assume that if you made the DIY screen image smaller the differences would also disappear.

Thanks, again,

Bob

The commercial is a Mitsubishi HC5000.

And yes a smaller projection would change the differences a little. But i want a movie theater experience, not a media room experience

SHAMOW!!!

mmmmazing.
thats all i have
to say about that,
HUGE improvement