Comments on: InFocus SP8602 Projector – Dynamic Iris upgrade with new firmware

By: Art Feierman

Art Feierman — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 03:00:46 +0000

Interesting. I missed noticing anything like that while I had the newer firmware, but that only means I didn’t notice, not that there is no issue.
Sounds like crushing near whites. That makes sense, as InFocus basically has now told the iris to partially ignore small very bright areas on generally dark scenes. Of course the easiest way to flatten out those foreheads is to avoid dynamic features, be it irises or various dynamic contrast, Brilliant Color, etc. Hopefully you’ll come up with a combination that works well for you. Let us know. -art

By: Gary J. Svehla

Gary J. Svehla — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:35:11 +0000

Art:

After using the projector for
several days, the problems stated
above appear to be gone. As I
suggested, it seemed with the new
firmware upgrade the iris needed
a little break in time. I may
still be getting a little more
“glare” (slightly more) on people’s faces and
foreheads, but the other problems
hopefully are gone for good.

The projector, for the money,
appears to be the best choice
in the 5K arena. What was very
good is now excellent.

Gary

By: Gary J. Svehla

Gary J. Svehla — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:28:17 +0000

Art:

I just upgraded to firmware A72 and
I was bothered by a whole new problem.

I was watching a black and white classic
film, and while the iris pumping before
was noticeable and slightly bothering,
the new problem is even worse.

During this black and white film, I saw
more flaring up of white glare on people’s
faces and foreheads (the solution being to
lower the brightness slightly, which
darkens the picture more than needed) and sometimes
the entire cut-to scene would noticeably darker
and grayed out. These types of things were far
more distracting than the image I got using
firmware A65 (which my replacement projector
shipped with).

I switched the iris from Auto to 80% and
then back to auto and the problem seemed
to be a little less (after the upgrade I thought
the iris might need to be “worked” a tad).

I plan to watch some modern color blu-ray
stuff today, but so far, I notice the iris
action more and not less. Hopefully, after
this one day break in period, perhaps the
problem will lessen.

Gary

By: Art Feierman

Art Feierman — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:36:04 +0000

Hi PatB,
Yes, your logic seems good. Further although LED light sources are not one led per pixel, but rather larger areas, those areas could actually be organized into a number of zones, and with sufficiently clever algorithms, you could lower the black levels in areas without a any bright, but would have to work your way back up in brightness as you get closer to a bright part of the image, The change would have to be blend in and not be noticeable. As to 300 lumen LED projector – sorry not bright enough for me, and certainly not even remotely close if 3D is going to figure in.
As to the $1000, sure, you can already buy what you want – Casio has 4 dlp projectors with what are actually hybrid – led and laser, light sources, that sell for under $1000. They are all DLP, though small biz projectors… and they claim 2000 or 2500 lumens -a

By: PatB

PatB — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 18:51:21 +0000

It seems to me that the dynamic iris is a very temporary technology that may not be available on any new model projector quite soon.

Last week at the hardware store I was stunned to see that all new flashlights used LEDs. New car tailights are LEDs too.

You only need an iris if you can’t cycle your light source. So when LEDs dominate projectors (soon I think) no more dynamic irises.

The second generation of projectors (after the Advent Videobeam) were only about as bright as many low cost LED projectors right now. The Sony GS70 was about 200 pounds and 200 ANSI lumens. It couldn’t quite do 1080 HD but it had great blacks.

I’d buy a thousand dollar 300 lumen LED projector in a heartbeat.