Steve's Home Theater

Welcome to my quick and dirty home theater web page! My new theater is modest in the accomodations. Seating is pretty poor, and the acoustics need work. However, I am enjoying it immensely.

Short Update

(11/17/1999)

Been enjoying the calibrated set for a week now! One thing is for sure - Crap looks crappy, great titles look great!

In Beetlejuice you could see the poor transfer artifacts, like focus control problems, noise, etc. Then we popped in Jumanji, which I have not watched in 18 months, and the transfer is stunning! Amazing depth and noiseless image. Tron, being non-anamorphic, had a lot of grain to it. I wish studios would just drop the non-anamorphic releases and get with the program!

New Images

(11/10/1999)

I've added some new images taken with (Thanks Simeon!) a Sony TRV-900 camcorder. These images were taken after calibration by Robert Busch but in no means show off the beauty of the set.

Calibration

(11/10/1999)

I just had my set is calibrated by Busch Home Theater and must I say, it was worth every penny. Cost was $600. Robert was extremely professional, kind and it was obvious he loves his work.

He was here for 6.5 hours. He first showed me that the gray level was not even on the scale, it was so bright. He then took off the screen, front and rear panels.

He checked my screen, for we noticed some imperfections, but they are slight and I am living with them. You have to be a real stickler to be bothered by them. He went over every inch of the screen from behind with a flashlight.

He then noticed that the red gun was missing one screw! This was not good of course, so a quick run to OSH solved that problem. BTW, if you are missing one, its a 4mm 12 length 0.7 pitch screw.

He then turned all of the lenses and cleaned them. He turned them so he could access the controls from behind.

He disabled my velocity scan modulator, which everyone suggests doing. It gives much more detail to the movies without the VSM.

We noticed some noise, that was coming from the AudioQuest YIQ-1 cable I got from OneCall. The cable was laying too close to the surge supressor. Guess the cable is not too well shielded.

He then proceeded to manually focus each lens. WOW! My job was to look at the screen as he focused from behind. The lines were much tighter than they had been!

He then set the gray level, amazing the difference was. Much fuller and deeper than before. It was much too bright to start with.

He then did the geometry for three modes (theater wide 2, full and standard) Let me say, this is an art. It was awesome to see his minor adjustments, which I could see no effect, all of a sudden take shape in the form of perfect 16x9 rectangles around the screen.

He did this for each mode, for each gun. It was a very painstaking process and it was clear he had it down pat.

We then watched some movies and adjusted the color, by eye I might add. No color bars here! Simply amazing.

The only thing he noted was that the lower end of the gamma was off a tad, meaning things near black are black. Its actually fine, much better than being washed out throughout the image.

As he went through the Video Essentials patterns, it was clear how good this set is. Perfect geometry, no overdriving from the power supply, just crisp clean imagery.

We watched Nutty Professor, Fifth Element, Saving Private Ryan, Willy Wonka in Full mode, and Bugs Life in TW 2. All looked incredible.

I'm not even going to post numbers - Folks, the numbers mean nothing without the rest of the service. In Saving Private Ryan, zooms into a soldiers face shows his pores, the hairs in them, the grain on the rifle side.

I cannot convey the level of work Robert did in this review.

Simply Amazing!

Components

Ok, ok, now to the fun stuff! My home theater consists of the following components:

Images

Here are some images of the theater. Sorry for the cruddy QuickTake 150 image quality. (Click them for double size):

	This shot was taken with a flash in a near dark room. The shade blocks out 95% of the light
shade down

	This shot was taken with the shade up. You can see how well the shade works.
shade up

	My NHT Dipolar surrounds
left rear surround

	Is it live or is it Toshiba Home Theater? This was taken sitting on my couch with no flash. Even with the set dialed down, its very bright!
Sweet Spot View

	Me standing next to the TW56X81. I am 6' even for reference.
Taken from viewing distance

	A scene from "The Mummy" after calibration.
The Mummy (taken via Sony TRV 900)

	Another shot from "The Mummy".
Taken from viewing distance.

	My how your melons look lovely after calibration!
Taken from viewing distance

	Zoomed in from viewing distance.
Austin Powers

	One International Man of Mystery and one Geek of Mystery. I'm still 6'0 in this shot, for reference.
Austin meets Geek