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Washed out movies on screen

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 11:22 am
by Peter Stedman
Our club had a competition just recently and there were 15 entries. The club is fortunate enough to have quite an upmarket Panasonic 200 (?) projector, a real all singing and dancing bit of kit. I have noticed before and especially in the comp. with 15 videos to show that, apart from one, they all seemed a bit over exposed and ‘flat’.

I check my productions at the last moment at home by showing on a good 42in TV and all seems fine. Is it possible that the projector has such a bright light that to some extent it ‘washes out’ and looses some detail? I know nothing of these things so what do others think please?
Pete.

Re: Washed out movies on screen

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 12:52 pm
by Dave Watterson
Hi Pete

You are not alone. Hardly any video club realises the need to set up its projector. Most projectors are sold to businesses where they are expected to present computer charts in rooms that are only partially darkened. For use in the cinema-like conditions of a club they need to be re-tuned.

I do not have a Panny projector but am sure there will be a system of menus on your projector and you can probably open them using the remote control. In fact you almost certainly use them to switch between 4:3 and 16:9 movies. Look closely at the menu and you will find options for brightness and contrast among other things.

Sit down in the club room one evening with an hour to spare and tweak those controls. You can almost certainly save a good combination of settings so that in future you just choose those settings on regular club nights.

You can do such tests using a movie you know well (amateur or pro) but even better is to get a special set-up disc, though these are expensive for one-off use.

I use the Avia Guide to Home Theater dvd which as the spelling suggests is made for the US market so a few of its NTSC-related tests do not apply. I have seen it on eBay for about £20. It explains each test and what it is for and offers suitable "test cards" to view while you adjust picture and sound settings.

There is a UK test DVD from BKSTS (the British organisation for cinema & tv techies) but since it costs £75 I have not tried it!

I stress that it takes time to set up a projector correctly. First you have to wait a few minutes for it to start up, warm up and settle down. Then you make changes and store them. Go away and do something else for five minutes before looking again ... if you are like me you will feel the need to tweak some more. I have to do that process several times. Experienced technicians can do it much faster and I have sat in awe watching an ex BBC engineer spend two hours fine tuning a projector. The joy is that once done you hardly ever need to change the settings.

If you cannot get time to do that in the club room, take the projector home and get it nearly right - perhaps a little brighter than is comfortable i8n your living room. Then get to the clubroom and try to find half an hour when you can make final adjustments.

Dave

Re: Washed out movies on screen

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:02 pm
by Peter Stedman
Hi Dave,
Thanks for all the valuable gen which I will pass to the committee,especially to the one chap that knows (well seems to) all about the projector. I would not dream of touching it or know how to set it up.

Actually I think it's a Pan 2000 projector (Not 200 as I previously mentioned). Needless to say they have to regularly change from 4x3 to 16x9 format but it doesn't help the projectionist if the discs aren't labeled with the correct format as was the case the other evening. All sent to try us of course.

Cheers. Pete

Re: Washed out movies on screen

Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 5:12 pm
by Peter Copestake
Our Sony (8 years old) has buttons with which you access saved settings. I set 'User 1' to widescreen and 'user 2' to 4:3. I have labelled user 3 as 'old films', I've forgotten why, but I think it's because the way I copy them they sometimes have too much contrast on the other settings. When we change to HD (if ever!) I'll be looking for something as simple because we find audiences like to see films the club made years ago.
PS so glad someone else presses 2 buttons at once!

Re: Washed out movies on screen

Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 5:06 pm
by col lamb
There are some test cards that you can get on the net, they are very good when helping you set up the colours on a projector

Re: Washed out movies on screen

Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 5:22 pm
by tom hardwick
I too notice the loss of highlight detail whenever my films are projected by clubs, and I'm pretty sure that even with careful setting up this is difficult or impossible to avoid.

At one stage I considered that buying a good projector would rival a flat panel TV, especially if sheer size was your main requirement. Now I realise that they'll never compete. Pictures made with light (the new LED screens) will always trounce pictures made by projecting and reflecting that light.

tom.

Re: Washed out movies on screen

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 3:54 pm
by Brian Saberton
Peter, I have a panasonic projector, though it is the 200 model rather than the 2000 which I believe would give a much brighter picture. However you will find in the projector menu that there are a number of controls for adjusting brightness, contrast, colour and sharpness depending on the prevailing conditions. There are also some pre-sets for various cinema modes. I used my projector for the mermaid show at the Stirling AGM and had to adjust brightness, contrast and sharpness to suit the size of screen and the room we were using. I left the basic setting at "normal" and avoided the cinema settings becasue you are then letting the projector decide what the picture will look like whereas I feel that it is preferable that the projectionist should be in control of the settings. I made the adjustments so that flesh tones appeared natural and accurate with good brightness and a contrast setting that gave the picture some "punch" but still maintained detail in the shadows. In my experience projectors need to be set up for each different location to achieve the optimum image quality on the screen. I hope this helps.

Re: Washed out movies on screen

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 7:11 pm
by Peter Stedman
Thanks for the feedback Brian. I have passed all the advice offered to the committee of the club but as to whether they will take the time & trouble to carefully set up the projector is another matter.

Thanks again. Pete.