Ok guys, have everything hooked up and calibrated.





(note: these images seem to be pushing red a bit. Actual reading is <+5%)

To review, my Video path is...

Denon DVD-2910 Universal Player
HDMI Cable
Sanyo PLV-Z3 Projector (1280x720 3 Chip LCD)
Carada 84" Criterion Screen w/ 0.8 Gain High Contrast Grey Material

To start off, I'm glad I bought a PJ setup over a 50" 720p Plasma. There's simply no comparison to a big 84" image from 8' away. It was also cheaper in the long run saving me well over $1k.

Dark scenes/films require the elimination of most ambient light for that plasma-type brightness. I have four huge windows in my room which are covered with thick black curtains. Light still spills over the top and around the edges, but even with the doorway open letting in light from the kitchen, I can achieve more than adequate darkness for a rich image. Of course it gets even better when watching at night with zero ambient light. Blacks are only as dark as the screen appears with the PJ shutoff. Bright whites on the screen are only as white as the screen is with the lights on. Knowing these two things, the greyscreen gives impressive blacks, but cut's down on the whitest whites a bit. The increase of black depth definetly increases the contrast ratio though. It also seems to smooth out the image. Color "snap" does seem to suffer a bit, but it's 90% acceptable.

The 2910 black setting was set to 'Enhanced" which outputs the deepest of blacks and whitest of whites. Output from the 2910 via HDMI is RGB 720p. I felt the 2910 scaler was better than the Sanyo's. The Z3 has a manual Iris which I closed as far as it would go. Other than the sharpness being cut to -4, pretty much all of the other stock settings were perfect. I boosted the Contrast a bit and decreased the brightness a bit, just a tad mind you. Lamp mode is on low.

I ended up with a +5% red, and -5% blue, with green at an even neutral using AVIA. I'm going to experiment a bit more to see if I can get this exactly neutral. It looks damn near perfect now though, so I'm in no rush.

Another trick which works excellent is slightly defocusing the image. I'm talking very slightly. I can't see the actual gaps between pixels from my seat, but with the focus completely sharp I can notice the limitations of DVD resolution during complex scenes with lots of small objects. Ever so slightly defocusing blends the edges of each pixel with the next giving a filmlike quality to the image. It also seems to help when viewing poor transfers, and makes ultrasharp digital animation even more breathtaking.

Going with an HDMI cable is an absolute improvemnet over a composite cable too! Not sure of it's gains over other methods though. I'd bet DVI looks equally impressive. Every aspect of the image is improved, and it's more than marginal. I'd even go as far as saying that it's even more important than a screen.

My A/V setup is finally complete. All I have left to get now is three chairs/ottomans to replace my fugly couch.

The PJ/Screen/Cable was only US$2600.