CRT DVD Compatibility (1 Viewer)

[Pat Kellett]

I have recently purchased an old Electrohome ECP 4000 CRT projector and enjoy using it tremendously even though my set up and experience level are seriously lacking. Here's the problem - the ECP 4000 works great with cable TV, VCR,and Sony Playstation but gets this annoying image shake when I attach a DVD player. The interesting thing I just discovered is that this image shake does not occur with all DVD's. My children's DVD's (maybe becuse they were originally recorded for TV?) seem to work fine. It is only when I pop in a film DVD (with Dolby Digital, DTS, etc.) that the image shake begins.

I have absolutely no experience with this type of problem so please assume total ignorance in your reply. I have read the instruction manual which was very little help as it was written before the dawn of the DVD player. Could it be a Sync rate problem (that is what someone told me but I cannot seem to adjust it?) Could it be my cables - I am using standard RCA cables with BNC adaptors. The manual refers to a "multi standard decoder" - what is that? And could it be what I need? As you can tell I am really just grasping at straws here as I have no experience with these matters. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Patrick

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Odd. Do you have a progressive scan dvd player? How are you connecting to the projector for DVD- is this different than the connection type you're using for VHS/TV?

There could be a sync problem- however all NTSC material (TV, VHS, DVD) is essentially the same signal- despite DVD taking better advantage of the possibilities of NTSC signal. The only issue I could see would be if the DVD player connection is different than VHS/TV.

-Vince

 

[David_Stein]

i really have no idea, but could it be something with a widescreen picture being sent to the projector, and thats how it deals with it?

 

[Selden Ball]

It sounds to me like it might be related either to 2:3 pulldown -- the transfer method used to match 24fps film to 30fps video (unlikely) or to Macrovision copy protection (very likely). Macrovision can cause a lot of problems.

I'll have to reiterate Vince's question: exactly how is the DVD player connected to the projector? Component video or s-video? Passing the signal through a VCR? Are you using a line-doubler? Progressive scan DVD player?

A multi-standard decoder is one that can accept several of the different national video standards, NTSC, PAL and SECAM, and convert them all to signals that the CRT actually uses. Your projector is probably NTSC only.

 

[Pat Kellett]

Wow, thanks guys or the input. I will try to answer your questions in order.

Vince,I do NOT have a progressive scan DVD player (Should I?) By the way, I have also borrowed my brothers (also non progressive) DVD with the same (image shake) results. As for the connection between the projector and DVD - yes, I am using the exact same RCA cable (yellow) from the S-video to the BNC (source 1 connection) I have eliminated everything else in the hope of diagnosing the problem.

David, I thought of the same issue but the projector does not have a problem displaying VHS movies in the letter box format. Are they recorded differently?

Sheldon, I do not really understand everything you said but I will do my best to answer. I have a yellow RCA type cable coming out of the DVD S-video out to an RCA/BNC adaptor which is plugged into the "Source 1" connection on the back of the projector. I do not "pass the signal" through the VCR or any other component (but I certainly will if you think it might help!) I do not yet have a line doubler because I figured I better solve this problem before buying other components I do not understand.

By the way, I did discover that my projector does have the optional "multi-standard decoder" installed which it says, "decodes all four commonly used video formats NTSC, NTSC 4.43, PAL, and SECAM" - whatever that means?!

Anyway, I did go buy some monster cables for component video connections from the DVD to the projector but the picture got even worse. Now not only did the image shake but the entire screen had this green hue. Mybe that is because I do not have a 75 ohm stop for each color?

This is truly driving me crazy - if it is related to either the 2:3 pulldown or the macrovision copy protection how would I know and what can I do about it?

If you could give me suggestions for how I could diagnose the exact cause of the image distortion I will gladly try them and report back the results.

Thanks again, Patrick

 

[David_Stein]

i think they would be encoded differently, if you have a widescreen VHS cassette, the blackbars are encoded right on the tape i assume, as in im guessing that if you had a 16:9 tv it would still show the bars and the picture would be 4:3

once again, i dont really know, i am just conjecturing, hoping something helps.

anyways, a couple days ago i went to watch Das Boot (its widescreen) on my old regular tv. long story short is that it was filling up the screen even though it wasnt supposed to, and i was just getting hte ends cut off (i could tell for sure during the intro because peoples names were being cut off.

so i knew it wasnt supposed to be like that, so i went to eh video display and low and behold, i had the DVD player in 16:9 mode, not letterbox mode.

so what if your dvd player was like that too, only instead of just cutting ends of hte picture off like my tv did, your projector is doing the image shaking.

it cant hurt to check, at the very least

 

[James Bergeron]

Pat I don't know what your "First" problem is but I do konw what the new one is.
The component cables:
You get a green hue because the signal you are sending to your projector is not of the proper type. The dvd-player outputs PrybPb (something like that I can never remember). They are not "RED" "Green" "Blue" even though the Jacks are that color. As a result your projector is anticipating "RGB" as an input. You need a transcoder to convert the component signal to RGB for the projector, this is available at www.keydigital.com the CTCA-2
But you must be plugging your VCR and such directly into your projector on the "sync" on green composite or something and they work? That bothers me. I will attempt this tonight.
I have an electrohome 8000 and I have tried connecting my dvd-player directly without success but I have never connected my vcr or sat tv.
If that works then I may have an answer for you tonight....... you got me really curious now I'll have to rush home from work!

 

[James Bergeron]

Ok well I get a rolling picture no matter what I do with composite or s-video sorry.

GRRR

 

[Selden Ball]

Pat,

I'm pretty sure it's the Macrovision copy protection that's causing your sync problem -- the shaky image. It's intended to prevent recording a watchable image onto a VCR tape. That's why I was asking if you were sending the signal through a VCR, since that's *guaranteed* to mess up the image.

I'd suggest getting an image stabilizer. They're explicitly designed to eliminate the Macrovision signal. They typically cost about $30-$40. Apparently Radio Shack doesn't sell them any more, but lots of other places do.

 

[Pat Kellett]

Thanks all for your input on my DVD "image shake" dilemma.

Seldon, I found a whole bunch of those video stabilizers on the web and since they are so inexpensive (about $35) I think I will just assume it is a macrovision problem and buy one. I will update when I test the stabilizer.

Thanks again - this is not one I would have been able to diagnose on my own. Macrovision did not used to be part of my vocabulary!!

Pat