CRT experience..

[Ron Jones]

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.

[stridsvognen]

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..

[Greg9518LC]

9" VDC very natural and dynamic with true bit depth resolution

CRT experience..

[stridsvognen]

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.

[NBPk402]

9" VDC very natural and dynamic with true bit depth resolution

CRT experience..

WOW... I never would have thought that a CRT projector could look that good!

[stridsvognen]

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

[stridsvognen]

Baraka

[stridsvognen]

Baraka.

[stridsvognen]

Apocalypto.

[stridsvognen]

Apocalypto

[NBPk402]

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!

[stridsvognen]

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..!!!

[Greg9518LC]

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.

[stridsvognen]

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.

[stridsvognen]

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.