Look what I got in the mail

[THX]

muhahaha I'm gonna be spending the whole weekend setting this thing up, the PC will be the media player btw.

[Kurt Angle]

wow it's a............................

brown box!

[fastson]

... and out pops!

http://www.brooksinternational.com/images/richard_simmons.jpg

[THX]

damn i got pwn3d (www.pwned.nl)

sorry I guess it's confusing if you don't know who Infocus is. It's NOT a brown box, it's a silver one :p

http://www.infocushome.com/i/products/screenplay/4805/4805_4.jpg

[Paul2]

some sort of projector?

[THX]

Yea it is. Sorry for the vague thread topic, I was just excited it finally arrived.

I got it set up and it looks great via DVI from the HTPC, next step are routing the cables and mounting a screen. Options are a $500 80" from Carada or a $30 one I make myself. Hmmm... tough choice for me. ;)

[THX]

Just some more news for those possibly interested.. A PC really makes a powerful video processor for cheap. Just as an example:

Normal DVD:

http://htpcnews.com/images/ffdshowdvd/yodabefore.jpg

Processing w/ FFDShow:

http://htpcnews.com/images/ffdshowdvd/yodaafter.jpg

Notice the bottom of the sleeve. Sharpening and resizing gives the image a much better 3D effect and remedies the haze low-res DVD gives on big displays.

Another before:

http://htpcnews.com/images/ffdshowdvd/sambefore.jpg

After:

http://htpcnews.com/images/ffdshowdvd/samafter.jpg

Notice the blanket. Overall I'm glad I went projector but there are changes going from direct view CRT:

1) Brightness! I can't have all 4 of my 48" flourescent lights on in the basement, just the ceiling string lights I have on a dimmer.

2) I tend to watch my viewing time for casual TV watching. Bulbs unfortunately cost $300 and blow out after 3000 hours of use. Even still if you figure 4 hours a day of use then the lamp will last two years or 41 cents a day. I'm guessing by my 2nd bulb I'll be wanting a new display ;)

[Paul2]

just to let you know i notice that by sharpening your picture, i saw some video noises which is a drawback. Video noise are those grainy artifacts...

[NVIDIA256]

THX, how much did that puppy coast you?

[THX]

it's $1500 retail but if you can an authorized reseller you have a good chance of getting a quote for a tad bit cheaper.

Paul I see what you're saying but it's not just sharpening, the image is first slightly blurred to get rid of the noise mpeg-2 can create. Then after that the money details are sharpened using an algorithm of your choice, and it's intesnity can also be tweaked on several levels. I guarantee you if you saw DVD on a projector you'd prefer the processed image over the regular one.

[Paul2]

video noise were causes in different ways.

One can be from how it was first recorded in the camcorder.

The other is the playback source, the compression part, and display...all which can affect video noise.

playback source, say a dvd player with bad signal to noise ratio for y, pb, or pr for component or Y/C for s-video could cause video graininess and losses color dynamic...

MPEG-2 compression also causes video noise, but good compression and higher bandwidth makes it really hard to tell and i am not talking about mpeg-2 compression at the moment...

the display (tv) stuff like sharpness where if you increase the sharpness too much, you will notice the video noises. SVM or VM, VSM (same thing with different marketing names) gave fake edge enhancements and causes video noises too.l

But honestly, thx, i have no clue what method you use to make those look sharper and it doesn't seem to be edge enhancement that i described above which is a good thing...