LCD Projector and Motion Blurs (first question of many)

[esc]

first off, I am finally hardcore into setting up my home theater room and I am going to be doing something a little different. The bits and pieces have started to arrive, I have the cash to start building it, I am tinkering daily with putty, paint, curtains, flooring and all that fun stuff so I am going to be posting pictures of the rennovations and additions to the room as they happen. I want to keep a kind of record of what went into this project and if its up online, i can share it with everyone.

now to business... My projector arrived the other week (SONY HS60 LCD) and I finally got it set up which is a very rough and temporary setup, but it produces a picture on the wall, which is about all I was after to check out the picture quality and various settings. I got it calibrated so that is looked really good to my eyes and I was sure that everyone else would say the same thing.

I do not have the screen up yet so it is just projecting on a flat, off-white wall. I can go completely black in the room and the projector has a contrast ratio of 10000:1 when the Advanced Iris is set to On, so the black levels are phenominal for an LCD.

I had watched scenes from Narnia, LOTR, Sin City and others and was incredibly impressed with the picture quality. I wanted other's opinions on the clarity of the image and output settings, so I had a couple people over and we sat down to watch A Time To Kill. I chose that film to be the first to be watched in its entirety because no one had seen it in a long time and it was an older film and one of the oldest DVD releases out there, so if the HS60 was going to work its video magic on a DVD, this would be it.

It looked pretty good to me but my boyfriend had to get up and leave the room after no more than 10 minutes. He could see motion blurs every time the camera or a character moved left or right and the overall picture quality looked so aweful to him that he was getting a headache. I was a tiny bit aware of the way that LCD produces the image, but apperently I am no where near as susceptible to the effect as he is. I found this really odd as I can normally nearly-perectly callibrate a home theater with just my eyes and ears and no calibration equipment. I also get headaches and eye strain if a computer's monitor refresh rate is set too low.

So after he went out and got some air and natural light he came back in and I put a scene from Narnia on repeat where the camera tracks the 4 children from right to left for about a minute as they approch Aslan's encampement. I thought it was maybe the age and quality of the A Time To Kill DVD that was causing problems, but he still said the image was impossible to focus on and the characters blurred as they moved across the screen.

I eventually got the image to a tolerable level for him by moving the projector 1 foot closer to the screen and changing some settings in the DVD player's video output menus. I did something to the RGB/4:2:2/4:4:4 setting and changed it from 1080i to 720p.

Once I had fiddled with the projector and DVD player settings for a good 10 minutes the picture looked even better to me. A gold broach that Peter was wearing that was just a gold blob before was now crystal clear and we could see that it was in the shape of Aslan's head.

I put A Time To Kill back in and it the picture quality was greatly increased from what it had been before.

basically I am wondering what settings you would reccommend for getting the crispest image possible. I know this will probably be hard to diganose without being here, but any suggetions you could make would be good. What should the Brightness and Contrast be set at? What about the Sharpness? I have the contrast nearly maxed out and the brightness at about 50%. The sharpness is near the minimum setting, as I have found that it is almost always best set at that level on most TVs.

thanks! more to come ..............

[SilentBob]

Well i have a RPLCD HDTV and when i had the choice from 720p and 1080i setting i stuck with the 720p and haven't had a problem yet (though i do want to caliberate my tv to get the best image possible) From the IGN boards a lot of people ask the 1080i to 720p picture difference and it seems the more users with a LCD setup prefer the 720p. Now i guessits because of its progressive scan abilty and not the interlace image of 1080i. So from my understanding the progressive scan will give you an overall smoother and define image for us LCD users to ignore that screen door effect,


I don't know a lot of HD mumble jumble but this is what i could understand form what is being said (i think)

[plissken99]

Well, I have a CRT projector, but I've been around LCDs quite a bit. 720p is defenitly preferable, even on CRT 1080i shows all kinds of motion artifacts, plus booku scanlines on my 120in screen. Sharpness, should be turned OFF, thats the first thing you learn in calibrating a set up, it introduces unwanted artifacts. Focusing is pretty easy with digitals, so do it carefully, make sure it's just so.

I've heard of people having simular reactions to DLP that your friend did, I get headaches from that myself(plus I can see the rainbow effects readily), but never with LCD. Though it does make sense with a 1080i image, as it's interlaced, the lines of resolution constantly refresh causing a slight flickering effect if you look closely, where a progressive image shows the lines of resolution constantly, thus no motion blur. Those are lamens terms, as I forget the technical terms for it all, especially at this time of night.

I highly recommend buying the Digital Video Essensials DVD. It will walk you through calibration, including color filters to get the color just right. That and just have a good DVD player.

[esc]

I highly recommend buying the Digital Video Essensials DVD. It will walk you through calibration, including color filters to get the color just right. That and just have a good DVD player.

I'll get on that ASAP. I have been meaning to pick up that disc for a few years. I have a Panasonic S77S DVD player which has recieved phenominal reviews from both critics and customers. I could see and hear a major difference in the picture and sound as soon as I plugged it in, and that was just on my 26" RCA 4:3 TV made in the 1980's. The only complaint anyone has about this player is that the menus are very difficult to navigate.

Vertical banding is non existant on my proj and the pixels are so tightly packed into the LCD panels that the screen door effect is near impossible to detect unless you are less than 3ft away.

Another question .... what is the difference between RGB, 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 ? these options are buried deep in the video menus on my DVD player. I can see subtle differences in the image when I change from one option to another, but I cant really decide which one looks best. For now I have it set on RGB as thsat seems to cause the least ammount of grain.

[Pirate]

Originally Posted by esc

Another question .... what is the difference between RGB, 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 ? these options are buried deep in the video menus on my DVD player. I can see subtle differences in the image when I change from one option to another, but I cant really decide which one looks best. For now I have it set on RGB as thsat seems to cause the least ammount of grain.

From : http://www.videoredo.com/definitions/main.htm

4:2:2, 4:4:4 and 4:4:4:4
Put simply 4:4:4 and 4:2:2 terms are descriptions of the sample formats used in digital video. In the early 80's tests were done to determine the sample formats and rates for digital video. The eventual sample structure used for SDI video ended up being 4 times the base sample rate chosen.
The first 4 in the 4:2:2 term is for luminance or the black and white information, and this is where most of the picture detail is. Early tests in television human vision discovered a greater sensitivity to black and white information, while the color is filled in with less detailed areas of the human eye. This means you can reduce the color information and your eye cannot really tell. This is what the 2:2 part of 4:2:2 is for. It means the red and blue channels of the video signal are half the bandwidth of the luminance information. Green is not sent, as you can calculate green from red, blue and luminance information.
This color bandwidth reduction has been used for years in broadcast color television, and in fact the color bandwidth of 4:2:2 is much higher than composite video. This all adds up to 4:2:2 being compatible with black and white or composite television, as the color and luminance information is sent separately, while only 2/3 of the data rate is required for about the same visual quality video.
4:4:4 video is similar, but this time all the color information is sent. RGB computer graphics are really 4:4:4. The 4:4:4:4 format adds a key channel.

-PH