AVS Discussions
Projectors => CRT Projectors => Topic started by: stridsvognen on October 26, 2016, 04:00:42 PM
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I converted to CRT about 5 years ago, and have had a lot of fun with it.. Changed from a JVC RS50 to a Vidikron Vision One. Now im counting close to 30 CRT projectors and lots of parts.. Mostly Marquee 9500LC in different vertions, LCP, LUG tubes, different lenses, a SONY G90, and a few Marquee 8500..
The most interesting part has been the challenge adapting to HD bluray, and get the most of it with these old projectors..
Im still keping a eye open, and buy a new digital projector from time to time.. But still not found something to replace the tweaked out CRT..
The CRT community is getting smaler every day, and personal issues among people has not helped, hope this forum will be a fresh start, where the tone will be polite and threads on topic, and non personal..
I wish the best for these old machines and the owners for many years to come..
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It was a sad day when CRT manufactures closed their doors. Right when lots of new advancements were happening. Glad to see you guys hanging in there. Post some screen shots when you get a chance.
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2 weeks ago i picked up a 1998 NIB NOS Marquee 9500LC on Long Island.
The projector had leaked glycol, and the chassis and low voltage power supply were dead.
I rebuild it using the chassis and electronics from a 2007 9518LC simulator projectors.
The 1998 LC chambers were oxidated, so i had to move the tubes into the 2007 chambers, cutting out 6 tubes, gluing in the 3 new 1998 tubes in the good 2007 chambers.
Its now a 9500LC ultra special limited gold edition.. :-*
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New chassis.
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Preparing for the new tubes.
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New tubes mounted.
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New tubes mounted.
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Finished.
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Stored on top of a NIB NOS 9540 from 2009.
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My crt experience started off with crts in the followin order
Barco 800,808,808s,1209
Sony d50,g70,1292
Electrohome 8500ultra
Zenith1200x
I know have a 2011 Vdc 9518 lug machine with a modded video chain and calibrated and setup by Strides that has
sucked me into the crt world after trying 30 different digitals and alway's felt I was missing something special that
I once felt with CRT. Last year insearch of a CRT projector I was guided towards Government Liquidators and purchased
the VDC 9518LC new in the box for 1000.00 :) Kurt was kind enough to fly over from Brazil and setup my projector and
some MP mods and thought I had a excellent image and started a screenshot thread on another forum.
Just 2 weeks ago Strides was back in the states where we resurected the Electrohome and those projectors and parts reside in my house in case he ever runs out ;D While here my crt was transformed into the ultimate CRT projector.
We changed the glycol,installed newly designed neckboards, modded the vim ,modded the horizontal board, added a modded LVPS that is awesome. Strides then did a stig,flare,focus,d6500 calibration and I
now know have one of 3 Strides modified and calibrated projectors in the world.
Look forward to the new forum. Thanks Alan.............
Just got a new Camera and color is off but does show the detail in the new generation mods of old CRT projectors. The Sigma Foven sensor captures everything. Now I just need to figure out the new camera.
(http://i.imgur.com/dWB60mo.jpg)
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1000Kb...
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(http://i.imgur.com/I3nNza7.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/oUeXR2p.jpg)
Marquee 9518LC
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(http://i.imgur.com/xLPOrni.jpg)
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(http://i.imgur.com/fVyei9A.jpg)
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Some days... I really miss my old CRT projector, but then on others I like not have to deal with burned lenses. It was def great to have when I had mine, and I really liked the blacks compared to what we have currently.
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Some days... I really miss my old CRT projector, but then on others I like not have to deal with burned lenses. It was def great to have when I had mine, and I really liked the blacks compared to what we have currently.
I've owned several CRT projectors over the years (1st one in 1974 and that's not a typo) and after a few NECs and Sonys ending with a Sony G70 that I sold with my home in Virginia 10 years ago. I now have a JVC RS600 and it really is better in just about every way as compared to the CRTs. It has the highest native contrast ratio and lowest black levels of any digital projector and it's to the point that even most CRT owners shouldn't complain about black levels. However, I can see that as a hobby playing around with CRT projectors will continue for a long time now that you can pick up used units for pennys on the dollar (if not free) as compared to the thousands of dollars they would have cost a just dozen years ago.
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I've owned several CRT projectors over the years (1st one in 1974 and that's not a typo) and after a few NECs and Sonys ending with a Sony G70 that I sold with my home in Virginia 10 years ago. I now have a JVC RS600 and it really is better in just about every way as compared to the CRTs. It has the highest native contrast ratio and lowest black levels of any digital projector and it's to the point that even most CRT owners shouldn't complain about black levels. However, I can see that as a hobby playing around with CRT projectors will continue for a long time now that you can pick up used units for pennys on the dollar (if not free) as compared to the thousands of dollars they would have cost a just dozen years ago.
In general your right.. Most CRT projectors look fuzzy and washed out compared to much of the better digitals on the market today, specially true for all the 8" AC CRT projectors, and not least the SONY ones.. no matter if its a G70 or G90.
CRT was never adapted to HD signals in a decent manner, and normaly the analog videochain has been way to complex to alow for all sorts of connection formats..
When thats said.. If you willing to drop the same kind of money on a CRT today as you do on a JVC RS600 or alike, its possible to do something quite unike, some that has experienced it has trown away thair JVC and SONY high end models..
I came from a JVC RS50 back when that was the one.. And switched to CRT as i found the potential interesting.
I seen and played with many digital projectors, still have my JVC hanging, and as often as possible try to get a good feeling about the new models on the market.. like SONY 4K Epson LS 10000, and JVC models, and i still miss to see something i would trade in my CRT for.
Many have the same experience with CRT you have.. back in the days where SD resolution was the thing, and scalers were awfull noise machines.
Its not fair at all to put all CRT projectors in the same box, it would be a bit like make a general opinion about digital, putting your JVC side by side with 720P 300$ epson.
Personally i get terribly anoyed by the way digital update the panels, the odd update pattern, my eyes gets tired, and i loos the desire to watch movies.. Now if you like film.. like in the old days.. 35mm film, then you will also like a good CRT, if your more into the digital artificial enhancement, 4K wobulation and other gimics like auto iris and sharper than sharp, CRT is not for you, you will have to apreciate the natural/ organic look of CRT..
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9" VDC very natural and dynamic with true bit depth resolution
(http://i.imgur.com/IIHeBZc.jpg)
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I have been working on a few changes to my 9500LC with LCP tunes, hope ill finish tonight and get to shoot a few screenshots.. Just need to change the lenses and do the lens flapping, and a calibration.
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9" VDC very natural and dynamic with true bit depth resolution
(http://i.imgur.com/IIHeBZc.jpg)
WOW... I never would have thought that a CRT projector could look that good!
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Calibrated and made a few screenshots last night.. Marquee 9500LC 1080P 72hz 195Mhz.. 13,5fl on a 90" 16:9 gain 1,0 screen.. Maxes out around 16fl
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Baraka
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Baraka.
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Apocalypto.
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Apocalypto
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I am in AWE of how great the images look in your posts of non 4K with a CRT. I can't even imagine you moving to a 4k setup in the future with what you have now to view!
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I am in AWE of how great the images look in your posts of non 4K with a CRT. I can't even imagine you moving to a 4k setup in the future with what you have now to view!
No as is with CRT there is no advantage in 4K/ UHD.. We are limited to around 110" 16:9 screen on a single projector setup, but thats not the main reason we dont need UHD.. We dont have pixel grid/ square pixels, and when looking at how much we have progressed in image quality just this past year..
One of the main advantages i see with CRT is the orderly fashion it updates the image, and the native gamma performance, and its actualy the panel/ tube producing the light, alowing it to turn off compleetly, producing true on off contrast, not manipulated.
Normaly CRT wont come out of black well, loosing quite a lot of information if having to maintain a black blacklevel.. But thats solved, and normaly you would spec a CRT to 720P max.. Now we are running 1080P 72hz, better resolved than it did 720P in the past.
Be mindfull this is not normal, and its not something you can buy for money..
So every time i go look at the new JVC Epson or SONY models i just get home happy that i dont need to live with the gimick features and artificial look they produce, and after i got the Panasonic UB900 UHD player i got a bit sad, as i had hoped it was a format that would bring something positive to the projector world.. Still miss to see any positive evidence, sure hope they will get there with time.
New is not always better..!!!
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The great thing on what Kurt has done is that he figured out the Marquee/VDC board by board. We have found it takes 3 projectors
to make one good projector. What you are seeing is that no matter if it
LCP or Lug the results are very similar. An example of what is needed is it takes on average 6 different nneckboards to make a set of 3 that perform uniformly and have incredible focus. The Vim has been redesigned as well as the Moome HDMI input board. There are many other mods done to different boards as well.
Kurt is the only person on the planet that can create the same results on every Marquee. Mine,JBMeyer,and Kurt's LUG and LCP machine so that's 4 in total and that number is changing as we speak.
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Just updated firmware on my Panasonic UB900 plastic player, so will give it a new shot on the CRT.. There is some advantages in the UHD format, but as looks now its owerpowered by the downsides of it.. I can produce more details in the highlights, but i also get a dimmer average image, and using the dynamic range convertion adjustment is just adding white clipping.. So thats not a usable option, only way is to crank more light out of the CRT.. And ill guess i maxes out around 16-17fl.
But as it looks the UHD disc also produce different colors, white gets a tint to it.. Not sure if its a convertion error in the player or in the mastering.
The advantage of Blu Ray is that its like made for CRT.. Gamma tracking and color saturation, no need for aditional processing.. Wich might be the biggest issue in this digital age, as that there is no display tech that have a native response and saturation that fits with any format, it all needs to be manipulated/ processed/ remapped, and there is no way of douing that without some loss or hickups. And in most cases they also need to convert to analog in the end to controle the pixel activation.
1 thing is to measure perfect, another thing is how it actually loks, and whats going on in between the measurement points.. CRT dont have and spikes or create ringing or funky tracking, if its off its in a smooth orderly fashion.
After quite a few years and frustration it looks like i now have luck using my lumagen Radiance processor without creating any major degradation to the signal.. After a lot of comunication, and me insisting that there was a huge croma loss in the radiance, they finaly found 2 processes running that should not, and they addet the game mode, bypassing the deinterlacing and enhancement features, wich now alows the Radiance to pass as perfect a croma resolution as i think we can get true a processor. Then its important to feed it native 1080P 24hz component 4:2:2, and output component 4:2:2.. Or it will generate major bit dept degradations to the signal.. Dithering has to be off, or it wil add low level noise.
I use it to do the frame tripling to 72hz and adjust porch timings to push out the raster ringing every CRT have when pushed hard, and if carefully using it to correct the blue gamma error blue CRT all have, dont touch the green, just blue and a bit of red, and leav the other CMS features deactivated.
In time i hope we will find a analog gamma correction solution for the blue channel, for a perfect analog response.. But even without any correction to blue, and with the ususal CRT calibration tricks, i think it visually look better than any digital display with a perfect measuring calibration.
When setting up a CRT not using the Radiance, i usually recommend a HDfury4 to do the frame tripling and porch timings.. But its a tricky device, so just getting the porch timings right/ programed is a problem, and it should never be used as a converter for these purposes, as the DAC/ converter part of it is defective for high bandwidht purpose, So it should be used as HDMI in HDMI out device only. And Hdfury dont offer any support on it and keeps listing the false specs of features and performance.
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Just put away my Test generator for now..
Using it to test how the CRT projector behaves when pushed to extremes, we are aiming for a good 200Mhz pixel clock performance, the DACs normaly give up around 200-220Mhz.
With this generator i can test up to 360Mhz pixel clock.
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Baraka.
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Baraka.
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Lawrence of Arabia.
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Cars.
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All screnshots are untouched camera files, only thing done is cutting away the top and bottom bars to limit the file size.
Most is Pentax K10D 10MP CCD sensor camera with a cheap 35mm lens, some might be Pentax K3 with same 35mm lens.
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You truly are the CRT Guru! What a wealth of information you have...thanks for explaining all of this.
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You truly are the CRT Guru! What a wealth of information you have...thanks for explaining all of this.
Im just a passionated hobbyist, wich happens to go a bit further than most, i dont have any commitments to brand or tech, im free to like what i want, without having to consider sales and resales values.. I normaly keep the stuff i buy.. Wich explains the pile of players processors projectors speakers amps and whatever stuff i seem to develope a pasion for.
I dont see there is other ways to study this than trying it.. I still wish Digital would work for me.. The reason i still go check them out, or buy one in between.. Last i had a SONY HW40ES, wich just confirmed my general impression from different SONY demos, even the 4K ones.. Ill be polite and not go deaper..Lets just say its not for me.
Most forums will react agressive to statements that dont fit into the advertising and sales of the latest and greatest tech.. All i can say.. Go experience something different from time to time.. Dont expect anyone to tell a unbiased opinion.. Most are colored by sale, resale, or having made a huge investment they like to defend.
There is only one thing that is sure.. Money rules..
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Fuji S3 12mp and kit lens. Movie is Chronos
(http://i.imgur.com/Y1YS8Xz.jpg?1)
(http://i.imgur.com/ECe61Sw.jpg?1)
(http://i.imgur.com/TKzkJ98.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/oGfD3BX.jpg?1)
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(http://i.imgur.com/6PZhTjX.jpg)
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(http://i.imgur.com/BdDOwgt.jpg)
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(http://i.imgur.com/k1fh3EW.jpg)
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Dark scene.
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Hobbit.
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Apokalypto.
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Wolverine.
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(http://i.imgur.com/QIMnNqE.jpg)
Pete's Dragon Fuji S3 and kit lens still have not touched convergence
since Kurt set it up. Rock steady CRT for sure.
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Is it a movie that is worth buying?? I would like some more high quality movies to show off.. Kind of hard to find anything new these days that is produced in high quality.
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You guys know I don't put much stock in screen shots but the ones posted here do like quite nice. I like that they come from completed set ups with no issues and their not overly compressed or so large that you have to scroll across the screen. Definitely need new material because I'm honestly about to puke if I have to look at another shot of Baraka :P
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Ohh so thats why the image upload is not working.. :)
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never ever thought CRT could look that good. when I hear CRT I think of the FPTV of the early 80's lol
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never ever thought CRT could look that good. when I hear CRT I think of the FPTV of the early 80's lol
Think thats the general idea people have about CRT, but the HD formats have actually helped CRT, as we never had a format worthy of the best CRT projectors in the past.
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Test.
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Just started the projector, so ill snap a few shots before i go to bed.
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The Fifth Element.
Not the remastered in 4K edition that has been tinted and addet enhancement creating edge ringing. This is the older edition, its not really high resolution, but prefer it over the artificial looking remastered in 4K
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The Fifth Element.
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The Fifth Element.
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The Fifth Element.
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The Martian.
Not the most easy movie to find some high resolution scens worthy of a screen shot.
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The Martian.
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The Martian.
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what are you taking these SS with?
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what are you taking these SS with?
Mostly i have used a old Pentax K10D 10mp CCD sensor camera, with a 35mm plasic lens, the last ones was taken with my Pentax K3 with the same 35mm lens, and the image size reduced to 14mp in the camera.
All the files are direct from camera, only editing is i cut away the black around the active image to reduce file size.
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To give you all a idea about the room conditions i made a picture of my test setup where i make all my screenshots, as you see its far from ideal specially for CRT that trows a lot of light around the screene, and dont have the best ansi contrast, so sure it would look different in a pefect conditioned room. But its actually nice to have some place to work in that is not always totaly dark, and i do spend a lot of hours working on boards and experimenting with different parts, The 2 CRT projectors are a 2004 Marquee 9553 with LCP tubes, and a 2011 NOS 9518 with LUG tubes, its the one on the left. And the scren is a 90" ADEO Plano neutral gain, and as is im running 13,5fl at a 2,6 gamma wich is pretty much the lowest gamma i can run before it needs to manipulated out of black to not loos the infinite on off contrast.
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Im going to share a true story about a guy from the kingdom of Denmark, who lost his soul and heart to CRT projectors, and ventured out in the world to save as many of them as possible.
It all started a cold winter day in January 2015.
After quite a lot of failed investments buying a SONY G90 and new Marquee tubes from a well known Canadian based CRT reseller, that mostly arived in not so good condition, it was time to play the game differently, and the internet was the tool.
First i won a surplus auction lot of 6pcs of VDC Marquee 9500LC Ultra in Laredo Texas, wich had to be removed within 7 days from the auction date, not the most easy thing to pul off, so i called the University in Texas where they were located and they were nice enough to give me some extra time to plan the trip.
A few weeks later i arived in Texas, Friday night, having the weekend to buy materials to build crates for packing the projectors, i had monday from 8am to 5pm, and tuesday morning to take apart the projectors, build crates and pack it all, as i was flying back home Tuesday afternoon.
All ready for monday morning.
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The projectors had been used in a planetarium, and had been replaced by 2 JVC 4K units.. I got a privat demo showing the JVC projectors in action Sunday after i had finished all my preparations.
If i remember right the dome had a diameter of 12m, wich i guess is around 40ft.
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Monday morning at 8am i got to the basement where the projectors were located, and had a fast look.. I counted 7 projectors.. A extra brand new backup/ spare unit they had tossed in the lot, as they were cleaning up, and to my positive surprise, all the projectors had been recently retubed, with complete tube assembly, housings magnetics and so on, not a hint of use on any of the tubes whatsoever.. And then there was a pallet of new spare parts, power supplies boards and so on.
All my weekend planing was done estimating/ guessing the size of the crates, and calculating in my head the measures of all the ply wood sheats to build the crate, and there was no time to change that.. I was lucky it all addet up, i had prepared it so the crates was to tall, and could be cut down when i had it all in there, and after a busy monday with no time to leave the basement in Laredo i finished Tuesday at 10am, in time to go back to my motel get a shower pack and go to the airport.
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A month later my crates arived in Denmark, in perfect condition, as i had packed it.
And a set of those planetarium tubes are now used in the projector you see in the screenshots.
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Nice story... You must have had a great deal to want to make an international trip to pick these up!
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Nice story... You must have had a great deal to want to make an international trip to pick these up!
450$ but the ticket, car rental, and shipping all add up. Ill guess the total cost at my door is around 4000$ including import tax and vat.
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U571 1080i
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U571 1080i
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450$ but the ticket, car rental, and shipping all add up. Ill guess the total cost at my door is around 4000$ including import tax and vat.
If it would have been me... I would have saved a bunch of cash (but it wasn't me :( )...as I would have been able to rent a truck and just go get it. Not having to deal with airplane tickets, and Customs saves a lot of cash, but it was still a great deal for you!
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If it would have been me... I would have saved a bunch of cash (but it wasn't me :( )...as I would have been able to rent a truck and just go get it. Not having to deal with airplane tickets, and Customs saves a lot of cash, but it was still a great deal for you!
I later sent 6 pcs of NIB NOS VDC Marquee projectors home, i also bought on surplus auctions, they was not that cheap.. cost me around 1200$ each plus the hole trip shipping thing.. So as it looks i should be set for my time here on this planet, without having to worry about dealing with the usual middle man.
I just need a 30x40ft room and a 16-18ft wide screen, and i would be able to do a CRT blend, and keep it running for the next 200.000 hours.. ;)
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Samsara
(http://i.imgur.com/Uv6vnO2.jpg)
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Lucy.
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More Lucy.
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maybe you can post a bunch of SS in one post instead of making a million posts with one pic per post
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maybe you can post a bunch of SS in one post instead of making a million posts with one pic per post
2 pics is max, and it will depend a bit how i snap them, if i have 1 good pic i think works i post it, its a bit like you dont wait untill you can fill a hole page before you write something.
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Oblivion.
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2 pics is max, and it will depend a bit how i snap them, if i have 1 good pic i think works i post it, its a bit like you dont wait untill you can fill a hole page before you write something.
only way around this is to up load which I do as it is less compressed then the way Kurt is doing it. The attachments look low rez
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only way around this is to up load which I do as it is less compressed then the way Kurt is doing it. The attachments look low rez
I dont like the image hosting thing, it always ends up getting lost, and if you want so study the pics you can always download it and see the full size, or click on it here to open it.
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Shot a fast one while heating up the projector, 6mp and compressed in the camera, to reduce file size.. Will play a but with camera resolution tonight to see how much it really matters for the presentation here.
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6mp vs 2mp camera setting.
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Here is 2 more, a very low res frame, would not matter much if it was DVD or Blu ray.. here shot in 2 and 6mp.
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Gladiator.
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Gladiator..
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Canon point and shoot handheld
(http://i.imgur.com/M2OkDcg.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/iiifBbh.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/xwLYujs.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/ygcYpjh.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Wm1xqLP.jpg)
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(http://i.imgur.com/XfMDqJ4.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/zmQl7dm.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/NCSLQAu.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/f7ls36W.jpg)
Canon point and shoot handheld
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Ben Hur.
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Ben Hur.
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San Andreas.
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San Andreas.
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San Andreas.
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(http://i.imgur.com/7trP5R4.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/RYcPvj6.jpg)
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(http://i.imgur.com/p9BtDCK.jpg)
Terrible movie these last 2 from shark something can't believe I watched it.
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(http://i.imgur.com/OCDXKh4.jpg)(http://i.imgur.com/Wz8R2Ph.jpg)
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Waiting for the background master to show up but guess he is scared ;D
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Mad Max
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Mad Max
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It was a sad day when CRT manufactures closed their doors. Right when lots of new advancements were happening. Glad to see you guys hanging in there. Post some screen shots when you get a chance.
I spoke to TSE from VDC about this years ago. He said CRT didn't have any more secrets to uncover. It was a mature technology that had been vetted pretty good.
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I spoke to TSE from VDC about this years ago. He said CRT didn't have any more secrets to uncover. It was a mature technology that had been vetted pretty good.
Mature technology, yes. Optimized for HD BD, no.
Adapting the technology for optimal consumer use with HD BD is not what Scott was ever involved with. God only knows what he could have done had he been given the time and resources to optimize the Marquee for such a venture. A stock Marquee vs the latest modified examples is really no comparison when evaluating top tier image fidelity. Unfortunately, there's only a handful of people who have seen such performance from a CRT.
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There has been just around 0 development in CRT tech the last 20 years.
It is not impossible to make huge improvements to CRT if it was optimized to todays movie standards, like the right color filtering, 16:9 tubes, or maybe even better, a anamorph lens compressing a 4:3 to 16:9 adding a lot of light output.
Further develope tubes to add resolution, light output, and longer life span.
Optimize the videochain for todays bandwidth, and there is a loooot of noise issues in CRT projectors that would be pretty easy to deal with today... Who knows, might even be possible to replace the electron gun with a laser, and just shoot on a phosfor coated glass plate, saving a lot of space and magnetics.
Even with no development and no manufacture support, i think its quite amasing how it has been possible to push HD performance on CRT to a point where its hard to match with any of todays tech.
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It depends on how you define development. Scott modified Marquees and Ampros for customer needs.
I agree that Scott probably could have done some interesting things with a Marquee to adapt it to HD. I am not sure how much, as he said almost all IC manufacturing and development stopped like 15 years ago. As I am sure I have told both of you that he spent the last five or six years of the '00s trying to maintain the pedigree of the Marquee with what was available. Kind of like a CRT version of the Apollo 13 team. :)
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It depends on how you define development. Scott modified Marquees and Ampros for customer needs.
I agree that Scott probably could have done some interesting things with a Marquee to adapt it to HD. I am not sure how much, as he said almost all IC manufacturing and development stopped like 15 years ago. As I am sure I have told both of you that he spent the last five or six years of the '00s trying to maintain the pedigree of the Marquee with what was available. Kind of like a CRT version of the Apollo 13 team. :)
I know Scott is kind of a Marquee hero to some.. I can see what he has done to the Marquee over time.. From a image fedility standpoint the Marquee peaked in around 1996, and slowly degradet after that, with some major hits in 2004 and 2008, to the point where the last 2010-2011 produced Marquee projectors is pretty much useless for video presentation.
I know that some components went obsolete, but that dont give a good excuse for some of the extreme poor replacement designs.
I have listened to a planetarium tecnician explain how it was to run and maintaining 6 late build Marquee projectors, and what he was able to tell me was that it was extremely non linear behaving and they had to settel with a very very low light output to calibrate it to a decent gamma performance.
So no thanks to Scott from here for the way he was involved in degrading the image quality of the Marquee.. Ill expect he have been under some financial preasure to do something as cheap as possible, or he would have taken advantage of late build ICs that is performing much better than the used ones, but it would have called for a new VIM design, and a retake of the 2008 neckboards, i doubt he was given the funds to do something like that.
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Ill expect he have been under some financial preasure to do something as cheap as possible, or he would have taken advantage of late build ICs that is performing much better than the used ones, but it would have called for a new VIM design, and a retake of the 2008 neckboards, i doubt he was given the funds to do something like that.
For sure, the new VNB design was because they no longer produced the Motorola transistors and you can bet with more time/money the result could have been better. I rembering conversing with Scott and him telling me how much he'd have enjoyed working on a consumer home theater solution but as we know VDC's market is for industrial use so no dice.
To your other point; 16:9 tubes with a laser based phosphor system and modern electronics would produce an utterly amazing result. Just need to find someone with seed money ;)
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Just did some playing around with the Marquee, and guess what.. going from 1080P 72 to 817P 96hz makes for a 25% boost in light output.. So my 72hz 14fl calibration is douing 17,5fl at 96hz, and the tracking holds, and running same bandwidth on both resolutions.. 195Mhz.
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Is Mike Parker still in business modifying CRT boards?
I remember there was Mike and a few other guys modifying these things in the states.
The good ole days!
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Is Mike Parker still in business modifying CRT boards?
I remember there was Mike and a few other guys modifying these things in the states.
The good ole days!
He is.. But its troublesome to say it mildly.. I made a deal with him over a year ago where i bought and installed and calibrated a NIB NOS Marquee in his basement.. And around ½ year ago he canceled the deal.. keeping the projector, and not paying/ forfilling his part of the deal.
And then there is the thing that there is no 2 the same MP mods.. So if you see and like one, he is not able to reproduce it, and out of all the MP mods i bought true time i cant remember one of them working the first time, they all needet cleaning and repair, and its been like that as late as Oktober 2019 year where in US to install 2 projectors, had to replace the MP moddet neckboards, and do a lot of repair and improvements on the VIMs as they were all from not working to just bad performance.
Mike has come up with some interesting ideas, but there has been way to many troublesome cases, from boards not working after multiple atempts sending back, and months if not years passing without a solution.
So if someone wants to try out a MP mod ill recommend to get a set for testing, and not pay a single $ unless your pleased with the result.
And ill recommend we let that be the talk about that, ass it gets pretty ugly and tiresome if everybody that had problems with MP has to tell the story.
I have a set of prototype mods i have great hope for, from Gabor, now he is a very skilled guy, and very professional in his actions and work. So ill recommend taking a look in that direction for mods.
I have done some moome and neckboards, and repaired/ improved a few MP vims.. But i dont sell mods, only done it together with full setup and calibration, wich normaly takes 2-4 days. That way i can test and prepare from home and bring backup for everything, and have a good idea of what the end result will be in advance.
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Just did some playing around with the Marquee, and guess what.. going from 1080P 72 to 817P 96hz makes for a 25% boost in light output.. So my 72hz 14fl calibration is douing 17,5fl at 96hz, and the tracking holds, and running same bandwidth on both resolutions.. 195Mhz.
Not sure I understand the benefit of running the CRT projector with higher refresh rates than the original spec. I think it will be ok to tweak and change some old caps and give the neck boards ,VIM etc. higher "headroom" so the control of the beam is running at it best, but will a higher refresh rate solve spot size or the 24 frames/s when watching a movie?
Some of the bottle necks in a CRT projector are the processes in the necks and the tube itself, is there a benefit to run these components with higher Hz and more energy than they are designed to do?
25% more light output may also results in 25% shorter lifespan for the tube face and "gun", there will be more heat generated in the magnetic etc. ...
I am of the opinion there is a benefit to run a CRT projector with as low frequency and load as possible. So using a setup with 1920 1080p at 48Hz or skipping the need of using time to scan and draw the black bars in a 2.35:1, may be a better way of tweaking.
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Not sure I understand the benefit of running the CRT projector with higher refresh rates than the original spec. I think it will be ok to tweak and change some old caps and give the neck boards ,VIM etc. higher "headroom" so the control of the beam is running at it best, but will a higher refresh rate solve spot size or the 24 frames/s when watching a movie?
Some of the bottle necks in a CRT projector are the processes in the necks and the tube itself, is there a benefit to run these components with higher Hz and more energy than they are designed to do?
25% more light output may also results in 25% shorter lifespan for the tube face and "gun", there will be more heat generated in the magnetic etc. ...
I am of the opinion there is a benefit to run a CRT projector with as low frequency and load as possible. So using a setup with 1920 1080p at 48Hz or skipping the need of using time to scan and draw the black bars in a 2.35:1, may be a better way of tweaking.
48hz looks god awfull, it flickers a lot.. 60hz still have flicker, nothing you realy notice, but it suffers from motion judder from the odd framerate, 72hz is perfect flicker free and a frame tripling of the 24hz source..
Sure you wear the tubes faster the more light you pushes out of them.. But the interesting about the ability to push a lot of light is that you can then lower contrast and be pretty sure to get a more linear response to bandwidth and gain.
What CRT do you use, and how are you feeding it.?
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Here is a shot i made of a Marquee i put together today. Its a standard Marquee with LCP tubes, VDC neckboards and a 02vim, and a old V1 moome card.. Running 1080P 72hz 195Mhz VS the latest MP mods running 1080P 60hz 148Mhz.
Both pics shot with a old 10Mp CCD sensor camera, and i resized my file to match the MP one.
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They say screenshots don't matter but when stock Marquee that you setup and calibrated
To 10ftl and a highly modded Marquee doing around 6ftl then I would say there is alot of snake oil being sold to unknowing customers. I know if I was in the market for a Marquee properly setup and calibrated you would be the first person I would call. Kurt you are truly the guru on knowing what works and doesn't with the Marquee. The best quality you have is being able to document your work and expose the things that don't work with the Marquee. Keep up the good work and I also like your 4K thread why it will never work on a CRT projector.
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A few pics of the standard projector comming together.
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48hz looks god awfull, it flickers a lot.. 60hz still have flicker, nothing you realy notice, but it suffers from motion judder from the odd framerate, 72hz is perfect flicker free and a frame tripling of the 24hz source..
Sure you wear the tubes faster the more light you pushes out of them.. But the interesting about the ability to push a lot of light is that you can then lower contrast and be pretty sure to get a more linear response to bandwidth and gain.
What CRT do you use, and how are you feeding it.?
I am using a G90 with 1080p@60 directly from a BD player at the moment...
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I am using a G90 with 1080p@60 directly from a BD player at the moment...
Thats also pretty much the best option for the G90 as it dont have as much raster ringing and will do well with standard timings, it will also do well with 817P 72hz wich will be even lower bandwidth, ill think around 133Mhz vs 148Mhz and smoother motion for 2.35:1 movies.
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New projector up running.. Lug tubes and special boards.. 14fl 1080P 72hz 195Mhz.
Fast and sloppy setup, needs some serious work on focus and calibration.
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Today was the day where i got my first CRT projector with a tube that shows visible burn.
Picked up a old 1996 Marquee 9500 with fungus, scratched lenses and full of dust from 12500 hours with the tubes on.
Spendt a bit of time to get it to life, and thought it would be fun to man handle up on a table and shoot it on my scren, so here it is just setup, and playing a movie before i take it apart.
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pic of the green tube and top cover off.
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Good stuff collected..
LVPS after 12500 hours with no attention at all.
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Got the old green tube out today to change bellow and glycol, so it becomes usefull for testing without leaking all over the chassis.
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Cleaned and changed glycol on green and blue on the old Marquee 9500.
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Cleaned and changed glycol on green and blue on the old Marquee 9500.
That old girl has plenty of life left in her. Nice to see you have a new test bed and quite impressive with stock neckboards and 2 pole magnets.
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Just spend 20 min calibrating the old projector.
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Gamma curve and Rec 709.
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Ok Kurt show me how it is done again ;D
(http://i.imgur.com/1Ee0FsI.jpg)
different sequence
(http://i.imgur.com/4saxBPB.jpg)
hop little froggy
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(http://i.imgur.com/Q86QGdp.jpg)
9518LC Fuji camera and updated moomee
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Just installed tonight.
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sure looks good- what material is that?
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sure looks good- what material is that?
Tomorowland streamed on Netflix.
Had a small breaktrue with some help from Gjaky to get the LUG tubes to focus in the corners/ sides at high gain/ contrast, so im now running 10fl on a neutral gain 110" screen with a new 2011 build Marquee 9518LC.
Its 1080P 72hz 195Mhz netflix material.
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A fast pic of Interstellar.
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HD-DVD 1920x817P 96hz 11,3fl 110" screen 196Mhz.
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I had luck buying 4 new CRT tubes yesterday, Thanks to some very fast assistance from Justine / Jbmeyer13.
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Just snapped a few new pics.
1080P 72hz.
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That 4k dlp looks really good why post it in the crt section ;D
Really nice setup crt projector still the 35mm plastic lens?
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That 4k dlp looks really good why post it in the crt section ;D
Really nice setup crt projector still the 35mm plastic lens?
Yeah been using the old Pentax 10mp CCD sensor camera with the 35mm plastic prime lens..
Ill see if i get around to snapping a few more pics from the old Marquee tonight.
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A few fast shots of a not very screenshot worthy movie.. Wonder why it was released on anything more than SD DVD.
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Marquee 9518lc lug calibrated 9.5ftl 110" 1.0 gain screen
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Http 4.5 gig file playback thru MPV player best on the market.
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Started the old CRT today for the first time in 2 months, been watching the LG OLED C7 instead.. Most of the reason is the condition of the HT wich is pretty much filled up with projectors and HIFI stuff.
Now im motivated to start cleaning up and finish the HT, its simply a hole different experience watching the CRT paint the picture on the screen, super smooth inky black, and trouble free graduations, i simply need to get back in the game. ;)
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9518lc
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Lets see some pictures of those Cine 9 projectors, they are still impressing to look at.
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9518
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Just got the new Avengers movie, and wanted to play a bit, so here is a few shots from the Marquee one with a pure unmolested signal, and one with enhancement adjusted to make it look like most modern displays.
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Here is a comparison, the enhancement is a mix of darbee and traditional edge and detail enhancement and low adaptive contrast enhancement in the Lumagen, normaly i run the Lumagen in Game mode, bypassing all the enhancement features, and alowing the full chroma signal to pass.
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Made a retake, slightly different frame, but noticed i had messed up the HDR settings in the camera.
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Made a retake, slightly different frame, but noticed i had messed up the HDR settings in the camera.
Do the "messed up the HDR settings in the camera" mean you make your camera record more than one pictures of the same CRT projected frame with different exposure settings and merge them together to create your CRT screenshots?
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Do the "messed up the HDR settings in the camera" mean you make your camera record more than one pictures of the same CRT projected frame with different exposure settings and merge them together to create your CRT screenshots?
Not sure how it works, its a Pentax K3 and it has around 9 different HDR settings, and somehow it was set differently than i expected normaly i only use the first 2 wich dont mess up the colors to badly, the other cameras i use from time to time dont have the HDR capability, and look a bit more natural, but not capable of capturing the full content on screen, so the choice of camera is very much depending on the source material displayed on the screen, and as CRT seems much more dynamic than digital projectors to the camera, its tough not to have both white and black clipping, even when using HDR cameras.
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Last week i had Didrik from Norway visiting, who is running a JVC NX9 in his HT.
He came with his JETI 1501 and Klein K10A, and for the first time the low level performance on the Marquee was documented.
Its calibrated to a 2,45 gamma, and the 1-2-3-4-5% IRE tracks perfectly to the 2,45 gamma, and with a native on off contrast measured around 500000:1 with 12fl.
I can crank it up to 16fl and lower the brightness a few clics, and i dont think there is any meter out there that will measure the contrast anymore.
We did do a experiment lowering the gamma by turning up brightnes, and measured a 150000:1 on off contrast, and it destroyed the reference low level performance.
We tested with clips from movies like Harry Potter and Zero Dark Thirty, and its absolutely stunning unparalelled low level performance that no digital will be capable off still, so the old tech will be alowed a few years more before retirement.
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Here is some calibration data, the blue tube was unstable while Didrik was here, so had to work a bit on that one and remeasure the gamma and grayscale tracking later.
The Klein was struggeling a bit with the contrast, needet quite a long reading time, so the fast readings had quite some variation.