3-D MOVIE DIVISION DIGITAL PROJECTION WORKSHOP – 10/27/2007 by David Starkman and John Hart
“David Starkman has put together a digital projection setup of his own and suggested a workshop which would include demonstrations of the various digital projection outfits owned by club members in order to assess the pros and cons of various equipment purchases. This, of course, would be highly beneficial to members interested in assembling their own projection outfits, as well as club purchases to accommodate digital projection at SCSC meetings in general.”
After the announcement above, the Movie Division met at the Velaslavasay Panorama on Saturday, October 27, 2007. Ray Zone arranged for the group to meet in this historic building which served our needs well. It contains fixed seating for 75 and a raised stage area which nicely accommodated John Hart’s 9’ X 12’ silver screen. We had an interesting meeting where we saw a number of shows (both still and moving) on several different twinned digital projection systems.
Jumping to the bottom line, we would say that ALL of the twin projection systems looked very good. We did not really get to see much output from Jim Baternik’s single-lens Vrex projector, but we could see that for the club purposes this is an older projector with a lower resolution than the twin projector systems. That left 4 twin projector systems that were demonstrated (Tom Koester did not set up his Optoma projectors, as these were very similar, but slightly older with less lumens, than the Optoma projectors that Susan Pinsky and David Starkman brought).
David and Susan’s projectors are Optoma DX625 models that were purchased in July, 2007 at Costco for $799 each (they still are in stock). Costco gets their own model numbers, so for an online comparison, this is nearly identical to the Optoma EP749. The plus features are the brightness of 2500 ANSI lumens and nice image quality. This was the only projector setup that we also tested from the back of the room (about 25 feet) to fill up the 9’ X 12’ screen, and it looked adequately bright projected at this size. The most interesting discovery was found by testing various color “presets” that are on this model. The presets are: PC, Photo, Movie, SRGB and Custom. Looking at the same image or images at different preset settings showed what a HUGE difference these settings make for photographic digital images. The PC mode was too contrasty. The Photo mode was bright and very colorful and snappy (like Fuji Velvia versus a normal film). Movie mode kept the colorful aspect of Photo mode, but with a much lower contrast. SRGB is a bit harder to explain, but some of us liked it better for the skin tones in people pictures. David S. thought this had a pleasing neutral color look to it, with a lower contrast that gives more the look of a neutral color film. We did not play with the mode that allows for custom color settings. Several entertaining slideshows were projected with this outfit during the evening while other systems were being adjusted, as well as the west coast premiere of Tom Koester’s outstanding Ennis House video.
Eric Kurland, without whose expertise the evening would have been difficult to pull off, demonstrated his BenQ PB2220 projectors by projecting Sean Isroelit’s amazing Family Guy parody of Star Wars and Oliver Dean’s stunning Robot Monster performance installing club officers. The BenQs have XGA 1024 X 768 resolution, 1700 ANSI lumens and weigh only 3 pounds. These projectors showed some color disparity, probably due to the age difference of the lamps.
Jim Long’s InFocus IN26s also looked very good. Jim’s projectors were purchased around
03/07, and Jim said he got them refurbished directly from InFocus for $600 each. They are also 1024 X 768 VGA machines with 1700 ANSI lumens. At the smaller size one could not see a brightness difference from the 2500 lumens of the Optoma projectors. They had 3 color presets, one of which looked VERY good for photo images. Jim shared a Pro Show Gold European slide show to the delight of the crowd.
John Hart brought a pair of InFocus LP530 models. These are a little dated now, since they were purchased in 2001 for $1,999 each. Today they can be found on eBay for around $500. These are also 1024 X 768 VGA projectors with 2000 lumens brightness. These projectors have been used for several years at NSA Conventions and the screen photo quality is excellent. The focus and zoom on this model is superior to any of the others that were tested. That being said, the fact that these are no longer available new makes them a less likely or desirable choice for a club purchase. For an individual, if you can get a good second hand deal, these offer an attractive choice for getting started projecting in this manner.
Jim Baternik’s offering was a large, single lens VR2210 Vrex projector, which can take field sequential videos and convert and project them flicker-free for standard viewing on a silver screen with linear polarized 3-D glasses. We only saw a few minutes of the SCSC Movie Division’s 20 Year Retrospective projected with this machine. This model Vrex has 1024 X 768 resolution, but only 400 ANSI lumens, making it impractical for large group use. Vrex uses a very clever patented micropolarizer array to allow for polarized 3-D projection from a single projector, but it is no longer a viable option unless you can find a used unit. The replacement bulb is a costly $1,000, and single lens projectors can only be used for alternating field material.
Paul Taylor has joined two Sharp XR-10X projectors for stereo projection in his home. These DLP projectors also have 1024 X 768 resolution, 2000 ANSI lumens, and are readily available online for about $600. Unfortunately, Paul was unable to attend our meeting, so we were not able to compare them with the others. John Christopher speaks highly of them, however, and uses one Sharp XR-10X projector for field-sequential projection using active glasses.
All of the twin projector systems were mounted on twin platform Chief stands. This seems to offer the easiest and most practical way to physically configure the projectors. Alignment is a bit trickier than with slide projectors—there seem to be more variables, and the total movement control that the Chief stands offer makes the process much easier.
Some projectors were run from laptops using the Matrox DualHead2Go unit to provide twin video outputs. Desktop computers with twin video cards were another popular choice. Demultiplexers also work well and are indispensable with some formats.
Those interested in 3-D video projection should definitely visit Andrew Woods’ 3-D Compatible Projectors list 3D Compatible Projectors as well as his Illustrated 3D Movie List The Illustrated 3D Movie List (www.3dmovielist.com) online.
The meeting ran late, which is par for Movie Division Meetings/Workshops, but we hope that what we learned will be of help to those who want to assemble their own digital projection systems, and help in the purchase of appropriate equipment for SCSC competition meetings.