Blu-Ray Movies on my new 1080P TV no longer feel like a Dream.

[Steven Caesare]

Lucky mofo. It's a shame Sony axed the SXRD consumer projectors from their product offerings. Hopefully, they will bring them back.

Wait, what? The Bravia/VPL projector line has a number of projectors in the consumer space, ant a number of price points. Here's one:
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10151&catalogId=10551&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665968175##

I've heard they've stopped using the SXRD imagers for rear-projection TV, but not for consumer front projection. As a matter of fact they've been pretty aggressive in intoducing new models to compete with JVC's offereings.

Unless of course they've announced something recently?

-sc

 

[michael zaletel]

Thanks for all the comments everyone.

I understand that there are a variety of settings and environmental conditions that I, as a viewer, can modify to make the movie viewing experience more immersive and theater-like. Certainly new variables posted here that I had never considered.

Nevertheless, shouldn't we concern ourselves with the settings and environmental conditions that are the most likely to exist in the typical home television viewing room? Shouldn't we adapt to the likely viewing environment instead of hoping we can change what isn't likely to change? Wouldn't it make sense to strive for a Blu-Ray that those 90% of viewers say is the most beautiful and most immersive they've ever watched in those sub-par environmental and settings conditions?

Just a thought...

Comments?

-michael zaletel

 

[Steven Caesare]

Steven your basement is too awesome!

Thanks. We lived here for about 6 years before we were able to finish it, and it took 9 months to complete, but we love it. We use it all the time...

Now just to upgrade it to an affordable 4K projector once we start getting 4K source material...

-sc

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Thanks for all the comments everyone.

I understand that there are a variety of settings and environmental conditions that I, as a viewer, can modify to make the movie viewing experience more immersive and theater-like. Certainly new variables posted here that I had never considered.

Nevertheless, shouldn't we concern ourselves with the settings and environmental conditions that are the most likely to exist in the typical home television viewing room? Shouldn't we adapt to the likely viewing environment instead of hoping we can change what isn't likely to change? Wouldn't it make sense to strive for a Blu-Ray that those 90% of viewers say is the most beautiful and most immersive they've ever watched in those sub-par environmental and settings conditions?

Just a thought...

Comments?

-michael zaletel

The difference in target environments is a factor in how the project is conceived and delivered.

For example consider grading the film. When we grade a film we do so in an environment that is a lot like the theaters audiences will see it in. You grade TV on broadcast reference monitors, you grade cinema with projectors on large screens.

Rec709 and DCI-P3 differ in part because of the different viewing environments.

Now look at two projects mastered for Rec709 but created for different environments: an Episode of a TV series compared to a film. For arguments sake, Battlestar Galactica versus Inception.

Galactica was made for TV with a target viewing size of 40" diagonal or less. Inception was created for the theater. When you look at the BluRay's in a calibrated environment you can still see the limitations imposed on the workflow by the shooting decisions made by the two crews. For example, all that jerkycam action in Galactica gives a "your are there" feel on smaller TVs, but on anything you might call a cinema screen the effect is too magnified and is often quite unwelcome.

The chaos in Inception, though intended to have a very similar emotional impact, has a wildly different feel on the small screen than on the big screen. It just looks glacial on TV, while in theaters you are immersed in a world of exploding details.

Part of that is screen size alone ... but part of it is how mesopic vision affects your mental state, and another part is being in familiar surroundings as opposed to communal surroundings.

That makes for a fascinating journey as we learn to communicate in motion imagery.

In any case, its important to understand that the state of mind of the mesopic viewer is already more dreamlike than that of the photopic or scotopic viewer. You simply can not replicate that part of the cinema experience without replicating the cinema environment.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Wait, what? The Bravia/VPL projector line has a number of projectors in the consumer space, ant a number of price points. Here's one:
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10151&catalogId=10551&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665968175##

I've heard they've stopped using the SXRD imagers for rear-projection TV, but not for consumer front projection. As a matter of fact they've been pretty aggressive in intoducing new models to compete with JVC's offereings.

Unless of course they've announced something recently?

-sc

That's good to know. As you can see from my earlier comment I was all too ready to write them off for rather cynical reasons.

 

[Paul L. Hugins]

I'd recommend a good watch of Close Encounters on the Third Kind on BD. I find that's an almost impossible film not to get a true immersed feeling with.
It's also the perfect picker-up when you have bad days (like I was having today).

 

[L. Langer]

Wait, what? The Bravia/VPL projector line has a number of projectors in the consumer space, ant a number of price points. Here's one:
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10151&catalogId=10551&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665968175##

I've heard they've stopped using the SXRD imagers for rear-projection TV, but not for consumer front projection. As a matter of fact they've been pretty aggressive in intoducing new models to compete with JVC's offereings.

Unless of course they've announced something recently?

-sc

They quietly pulled all the projector stuff from their website a while ago except for pages to sell the B-stock inventory which is mostly older stuff like that model right there. None of the local places that carried the projectors are stocking them anymore from what I have seen, including the Sony store. Best Buy, which was a flagship partner in selling the SXRD projectors hasn't had any in their inventory for months and they had prominent setups in their Magnolia rooms with SXRD projectors. Even online retailers are out of stock or have low numbers on the recent models. That particular product you put up is not accessible through normal site navigation on the Sony website so I can't really say for sure what that means. Even though they announced a 3d projector a few months ago, they have been virtually quiet about anything projector related since that time, though dealers seem have gotten the first production run of that announced projector according to reports.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

They quietly pulled all the projector stuff from their website a while ago except for pages to sell the B-stock inventory which is mostly older stuff like that model right there. None of the local places that carried the projectors are stocking them anymore from what I have seen, including the Sony store. Best Buy, which was a flagship partner in selling the SXRD projectors hasn't had any in their inventory for months and they had prominent setups in their Magnolia rooms with SXRD projectors. Even online retailers are out of stock or have low numbers on the recent models. That particular product you put up is not accessible through normal site navigation on the Sony website so I can't really say for sure what that means. Even though they announced a 3d projector a few months ago, they have been virtually quiet about anything projector related since that time, though dealers seem have gotten the first production run of that announced projector according to reports.

Back to cynicism.

It's like a see-saw. Yippee!

 

[Joseph Coleman]

Just a thought... is your new tv 120hz or higher? i remember watching a movie on one, and the movie no longer looked like a movie...it looked more like I was watching behind the scenes footage shot at 30 fps. if so, i would see if you could bring it back down to 60hz and see if that looks any different.

 

[Steven Caesare]

They quietly pulled all the projector stuff from their website a while ago except for pages to sell the B-stock inventory which is mostly older stuff like that model right there. None of the local places that carried the projectors are stocking them anymore from what I have seen, including the Sony store. Best Buy, which was a flagship partner in selling the SXRD projectors hasn't had any in their inventory for months and they had prominent setups in their Magnolia rooms with SXRD projectors. Even online retailers are out of stock or have low numbers on the recent models. That particular product you put up is not accessible through normal site navigation on the Sony website so I can't really say for sure what that means. Even though they announced a 3d projector a few months ago, they have been virtually quiet about anything projector related since that time, though dealers seem have gotten the first production run of that announced projector according to reports.

Very interesting, thanks... I hadn't heard this.

I sincerely hope they don't discontinue the SXRD PJ's... I think they are great displays.

-sc