Category: Home Theater

After months of agonizing over the decision to buy a PS3 I finally made the leap.   This is a decision that I’ve been mulling over since I purchased the Epson 1080UB back in January.  Once Blu-ray had “won” the format battle, the PS3 was nearly certainly on my wish list.  However, early in the year I chose to go with the Oppo 980 DVD player instead of making the leap to the PS3.

There are some stand alone players that are worth considering now.  While you can purchase one in around the $200 mark now, you may end up slightly disappointed with the quality.  Yes – a cheap player will enable you to watch and build a Blu-ray collection, but you are making trade offs on quality.  Looking more at the mid-range offerings, the Sony S550 is very recently available in Canada and offers some features that the PS3 does not.  It benefits from being a stand alone, single function device with IR control.  The S550 also provides internal decoding of the HD audio streams and discreet analog outs.  The PS3 edges it out slightly for performance, but the S550 will run cooler (quieter).  It was a tough choice – but the PS3 also serves as a media center and is more flexible appealing to the geek in me.

I’ve been watching the slow progression the PS3 has made recently, hoping that there would be an additional price break or introduction of new lower power chips.  Neither has really happened over the course of the year.  While 45nm cell processors are a possibility, the PS3 still uses a 65nm cell.  The RSX (graphics chip) is still the original 90nm version.  As a result the unit still pulls around 135Watts of power when in use.

The new 80Gig low end unit is effectively the same as the 40Gig that has been available since late 2007.  It does not have backwards compatibility, and features a reduced number of USB ports and connectivity options.  For folks like myself interested in Blu-ray playback or the PS3 games then it has what it needs.  Earlier units which supported backwards compatibility had the larger cell processors and more chips to support the old games, this meant running hotter with more fan noise.  I haven’t used the PS3 extensively yet, but so far it is quieter than the fan in my projector – which is very quiet (siimlar to the low fan noise of my laptop).

There are no deals on the PS3 happening in Canada.  I was able to score a minor deal from BestBuy.ca which lately has had the best prices on a number of the things I’ve been looking for.  Normally when they have customer appreciation sales with discounts in the 10% range video game hardware is excluded.  As chance would have it a sale cropped up that offered discounts that did include video game hardware.  I was amused to find that the next day a very similar online sale started and ran for a week duration, but specifically excluded video game hardware.

Only $25 off a PS3 isn’t much to boast about.  Considering that in the US people have access to a SonyStyle visa which gives them $100 credit on their first qualifying purchase over $299.

Previously FutureShop.ca had free shipping on many items and BestBuy.ca did not.  Now that both stores off an in store pick up (ISPU) that has no shipping cost, FutureShop now charges for shipping.  Just last night I ordered a copy of Wall E from BestBuy.ca for $27.99 + $1.99 shipping + tax, beating out FutureShop.ca’s price of $28.99.  Of course, both of these prices at the two stores are not available for in store pick up so you have to pay shipping – and they are not filed under the Blu-ray category making it harder to find (they are under DVD, but are clearly Blu-ray media).  This might not seem like a deal with Amazon.com selling it at $24.95, but with the exchange rate the story is quite different.

Of course, to cable it into my system I needed to buy some cables.  The PS3 supports audio over HDMI or digital optical out.  Since I don’t have an HDMI capable audio setup, I went with a digital optical cable.  My projector only has 2 HDMI inputs, and I wanted to continue to run DVD via HDMI so the Satellite box lost out and has moved to component.  I used Tartan Cables for the component and digital cables, and its parent company Blue Jeans Cable for the HDMI as they had a sale on their old BJC-Series2.  All of the cables came in a single shipment, since Tartan and BlueJean are really the same business.

The PS3 only comes with a single controller, which can be used to control Blu-ray playback but there is an additional Sony Bluetooth remote you can purchase.  I was able to find one used in mint condition for $15 from someone who had upgraded to an integrated automation solution.  The PS3 has been criticized for not having a standard IR control story, and there is merit to this argument.  A number of 3rd party solutions exist such as IR2BT, ps3toothfairy, Schmart and IR4PS3.  I’ve chosen to go with the latter, it is built in Canada and uses the guts from the official Sony Bluetooth based remote meaning it has 100% compatibility.

There are still lots of things for me to do to get the PS3 setup to my satisfaction.  I haven’t yet ordered the rack shelf, but it will be another 2U unit from MiddleAtlantic.  There is a very long thread on AVSForum on setting up the PS3 for Blu-ray playback.  I will also want to get the AVS HD 709 calibration disc and see where things sit (this opens up the whole calibration can of worms again and I really need to find time to do more on this front).  And of course there will be actually getting the IR4PS3 and integrating that into my remote control setup.

Initial impressions can be summarized in one word: Wow.  The ability to deliver 1080p content to my projector (not upscaled) is awesome.  I haven’t yet watched a Blu-ray disc, but just the intro/menu of the Indiana Jones Crystal Skull looks great.  Another thing that impressed me was that my MythTV box was discovered on the network, recognized as a media server – and the PS3 was able to play back recorded content without any complicated setup.   This alone justifies the choice of the PS3 over a stand-alone player for my needs.

A while back I via Planet OTI I came across a home theater related post from Brooke that pointed at an article on screen size and viewing distance. To be honest, I’m not sure I agree with the actual data, or some of the conclusions that are drawn from it – but it did get me thinking.

Here is the screen size vs. viewing distance vs. resolution chart that I’ve replicated from an article on carletonbale.com.

I’d caution you to treat this chart as a set of guidelines, not scientific fact.  Your eyesight is also a big factor here, as well as personal taste.  For me the interesting point here is about the delta between 720p and 1080p.  If you’ve got a 92″ diagonal screen (as I do) with a primary seating position at about 11 feet and a second row at approximately 16 feet, then in my primary seating position I’m right on the edge of being able to see the full benefit of 1080p.

You can look at that in two ways.  1) The ‘full benefit of 1080p’ means that 100% of the possible detail delivered to the screen is visible to your eye.  2) At any point closer than that, you are able to see more detail than your system is able to deliver.  The real question is do you want to sit at least that close, or at least that far away?

Let’s consider a smaller, more common screen size.  A 50″ diagonal screen would mean to realize the full potential of a 1080p system you’d want to sit 6 feet away.  I doubt many people sit that close.  According to the chart at 15 feet away from the screen you are at the full potential of a 480p image.  Finally the 720p limit happens at about 10 feet.

Wait.  There is one more factor too.  What is your source like?  Standard DVD is effectively 720×480 (480p).  So while you might have been thinking “Gee, maybe I should sit closer to my nice shiny new 50″ screen” let’s think about this again.  At 15 feet away, which is farther than most would sit from a 50″ screen simply due to standard room sizes, you’re actually getting the full benefit of that DVD.

Now if we consider HDTV inputs, the two common formats are 720p or 1080i (which we can consider effectively 1080p for this discussion).  If you’ve got a satellite system, then for either HDTV format you’re probably receiving about 19Mbps.  Some providers are dumbing down HDTV and re-encoding to a lower bit rate still (as low as 8Mbps), people are calling this HD Lite.  Compare this to blu-ray which is offering bit rates of 25Mbps and better, combined with the fact that it is using more modern codecs (MPeg4, VC-1, H.264) which means higher quality images in fewer bits so the quality delta with blu-ray is pretty huge.  So what is all this technical mumbo jumbo saying?  The source image is going to play a big part in terms of how close you want to sit.  The majority of your content will factor in where your seating is.  Also, if you’ve gone an optimized to get the ‘full benefit’ from 1080p you’re going to really notice when that 1080i signal that is MPeg2 encoded from your satellite box is a low bit rate.

Summary – so while the original article might get you thinking that you want to get the ‘full benefit’ of the higher resolutions and you should sit closer or have a bigger screen, you will also want to strongly consider what your source will be. Screen size should be determined by a lot more than just resolution.

All 3LCD displays have the potential to have convergence issues. Since the 3 display panels are mounted independently, the manufacturing process has to install and align the 3 panels – and any of the other elements in the optical path such that the resulting image on screen shows perfect alignment of the red, green and blue pixels.

There is also chromatic aberration to consider as well. My impression here is that the Epson lens system doesn’t introduce too much chromatic aberration. The lens on my digital camera seems to have a bigger problem here, causing the blue mis-convergence my 1080UB has to seem worse than it is. I’ve also noted this in other peoples screen shots of their convergence issues.

There is plenty of debate over what is acceptable mis-convergence. The competing DLP projection technology tends to using a single DMD chip with a colour wheel. Using a single chip has both advantages and dis-advantages. There are 3 chip DLP projectors, which will have some of the same convergence issues. The recent Sony VW60 has a novel solution to this problem, allowing for adjustments via image processing to hide the effect of mis-converged panels.

Ideally a projector with perfect convergence would be best. It is a little frustrating to know that there are 1080UB units out there with better convergence than mine may have. However, in the bigger picture – convergence is not the only measure of the quality of a projector and there are certainly other variables to consider. The best advice is to worry if you can see the effect from your closest seating distance, test patterns will show it up much more obviously than video material which tends to hide this type of problem. At the 1080UB price point, there will be problems if you look at things under a microscope.

My 1080UB has relatively good convergence. The blue is off by less than a pixel, and red and green seem almost perfect.  It turns out that blue is a very difficult colour for people to see, so having blue mis-converged is much less of an issue than red or green. I can only see the mis-convergence by standing right up against the screen. Here is a picture from quite close up of the internal menus, excuse the poor quality of the picture this is the best after multiple attempts with my point and shoot digital camera:

For comparison here are a few that I’ve captured from AVSForum that demonstrate bad convergence:

In each of the above examples, there is an obvious mis-convergence. It was reported as clearly visible from the normal seating distance with test pattern material. Normal video made it more difficult (or nearly impossible) to spot.

Art Feierman of projectorreviews.com recently posted in his blog on the 1080UB convergence problems which have been a hot topic on the AVSForum of late. Seeing Art’s posting was the kick I needed to write this up, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

From everything I’ve read, Epson has provided people with great after sales service – replacing any units people feel are not good enough. Recently my $200 rebate arrived, so I’m quite happy with Epson in that I didn’t need to call the rebate center and chase my claim – another thumbs up on customer service in my opinion.

In summary – I consider myself satisfied with the convergence of the 1080UB I have, it isn’t perfect – but after spending some amount of time evaluating it, I have to honestly say that I cannot see it from any reasonable seating distance.