Pioneer Kuro PDP-6020FD 60" vs Samsung HL67A750 67" LED DLP (1 Viewer)

[Brett DiMichele]

Michael,

Exactly.. The same can happen "inside" a DLP if the cabinet isn't properly masked or if there is light leakage etc.

We (DLP owners) do not get the razor sharp line between absolute black and white there will always be some bleed between the line it's unavoidable. I personally can "live" with that, to garner all the other benefits that I perceive from my TV.

 

[DaveF]

This is a secondary effect and has nothing to do with projector performance per se. A projector's minimum light output is not dependent on room lighting.

My question comes from Brett's suggestion that DLP projectors are the current best reference for consumer displays. That implies either they have the best blacks, contrast ratios, and color accuracy...or size trumps all

I'm wondering which it is?

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

I wouldn't call it reference .. nor would I call the pioneer reference either.

Both are capable of nice images when properly set up, but each has its own set of +ves and -ves ...

And neither should be viewed in a dark room. Backlighting is recommended for both.

Regards

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Dave,

I can't honestly believe you are going to argue with an ISF Cer't instructor. If anyone knows the technology I'd think Michael would.

Digital Light Projection works by projecting light. Absence of light is black. There are two different ways a DLP set makes "black" it either turns the mirrors off (away from the optics and into an internal absorber) or if the full scene is dark, will turn the light source off. (not sure if Bulb DLP does this, but LED DLP does). Black level can be adversely affected on either a Rear or Front Projection DLP setup by introducing stray light into the scene. On a FP DLP this would be from bright lighting causing washout. In a RP DLP it could be from a bright light reflecting into and inside of the screen or light leakage into the housing (shouldn't happen) or poor matting inside the cabinet.

How do you measure the "black level" performance of a DLP? it doesn't make black, it shuts down mirrors and lighting to do it. So any extraneous environmental lighting could affect performance.

Here is a snip from a great DLP article:

"Paint It Black, Please
Besides rainbows, DLP has the same problem that all current digital displays face: the inability to create a true black. This is because the lamp, even at low power settings, puts out a lot of light. That light has to go somewhere. Engineers have spent a lot of time developing a light path that absorbs or contains as much of the unwanted light as possible, but some still sneaks through onto the screen, making the whole image brighter (and not in a good way). The mirrors can only reflect light; while the area behind the mirrors (on the chip's surface) is painted black, some light is still reflected out of the lens, even when the mirror is tilted away from the screen.

The color and black-level issues I've discussed aren't insurmountable problems. In fact, if the measurements for the latest batch of HD2+ projectors is any indication, they may not be problems for long."

Source:Home Theater: HD2+DLP: The Next Wave

Of course DLP has gotten leaps and bounds better since this article was written in July 2004.

 

[DaveF]

I have nothing to argue with Michael about. I'm ignorant about TV calibration, but I know optics and can discuss related aspects. It's apparent that ambient lighting has nothing to do with a display device's fundamental performance. (That is, to first order. I'm assuming that the optical designers use tools such as ASAP so that external stray light doesn't affect their devices' performance in any meaningful way.)

While DLPs are essentially tiny mirrors tilted to reflect light into the image or away from it, previously, the light rejection ability was not perfect and they couldn't produce a pure black. I don't know how far they've come in that regard.

I don't mean to suggest the Kuro is the ultimate arbiter of video images. I was surprised during my personal research to find that plasma's have "come a long way, baby" and seem now the best consumer display tech (at least in the

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Dave,

All DLP tech has come a LONG way, all display tech in general has! I wasn't recommending a DLP FP setup, I was saying that the word "reference" means the way the image should be displayed and if we are saying something is reference, then the actual technology the movies were meant to be shown on, is the BIG screen, the commercial DLP FP is the current tech leader in Movie Theaters

If you want reference at home, you need one of those! LOL

I wasn't being serious I was just poking fun at the reference to the word reference a few posts ago!

 

[DaveF]

It's hard to have the equivalent of a 15 minute conversation via daily carrier pigeon messages