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Author Topic: Barco Vs Nec Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-17-2013 11:33 PM                     Yes, the Christie Solaria 1 spec that is for non-DCI color is with the yellow notch filter removed. Honestly, why are these companies even allowed to list the non-DCI brightness to a DCinema market? Note, ALL of the projector could have their yellow-notch-filters removed too. There is no magic there. If you don't need to achieve proper color space, the projector is brighter because color correction ALWAYS takes away from brightness.  |  IP: Logged Mike Moreno Expert Film Handler Posts: 200 From: culiacan sinaloa mexico Registered: Jul 2008 posted 02-18-2013 03:03 PM                        and also guys, are this 4 projectors (nec,barco crhistie and sony)ready for HFR or 4K? i wonder because all is going to that way. mike moreno mexico  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 02-18-2013 03:29 PM                     Carsten, That's exactly what I feared. "Change all lamps at the same time". This is NOT going to happen and they know it. We will end up with R515 machines with lamps o mixed ages and horrible colours on the screen. And the excuse will be "we told you to change all the lamps at the same time". What would happen if one of your six lamps failed way before its time? Say 500 hours. It can happen. It will happen - particularly with 6 lamps being used! Shall the cinema replace all 6 lamps after 500 hours? It can't work. It won't work. Sorry for being pessimistic here!  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-18-2013 07:24 PM                     quote: Mike Moreno and also guys, are this 4 projectors (nec,barco crhistie and sony)ready for HFR or 4K? Only the SONY already has 4k and HFR. The other three support HFR, but not (never) 4k. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 02-18-2013 08:05 PM                     Thus, if SONY needs six lamps, would the price of these six units be the same price as if the unit ran a USHIO 20SRX lamp in it - like the BARCO using a short gap, 2.4K xenon lamp ? the NEC unit could have used a simple Ushio DXL-10BAF for their twin lamp setup... True though: can see the worries and concerns on using these UHP lamps on color shifting and sudden bulb/module failures ...  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-19-2013 09:18 AM                     The price for a set of 6 sony UHP lamps is basically the same as for a single xenon bulb of comparable brightness/screen size. Question is how Sony will deal with premature failure - I haven't seen any warranty statement so far. The NEC twin lamp set has been quoted at 600-650€ incl. a filter set. The NEC NC900C page quotes the lampe warranty period with 3000hrs. Which is not bad. When dealt with properly, these lamps can live for a long time - I have experienced 4000-6000hrs myself. Of course, these would come out too dark for a cinema, but I have no reason to think that the quoted life can not be reached. Xenons DO fail, too. The Sony UHPs are special versions with a Tungsten additive. They are said to lose only 20% brightness over their life-span. The Sony datasheet for the 515 says '15.000 lumen (Average)'. From what I have seen on a recent demo, I have no reason to doubt this is a cinema-business type of statement, not one that we're used to hear in the consumer projector market where speced lumens are, at best, initial peak values without calibration. On small screens, the Sony can be used with e.g. only two lamps active. That way you can actually achieve something like 5000h-8000h operating time from the initial lamp set. And still have redundancy built in, that means, you don't have to have a spare set wasting money on the shelf. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 02-19-2013 03:22 PM                     Thanks for the details. Time will tell. I really want to see one of these projectors with 3000h old lamps. I want to take a colour measure and see what my Jeti says. Then replace the lamps with a brand new batch and check again.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-20-2013 02:57 AM                     The term 'UHP' is only a generic term for UltraHighPressure - it doesn't tell anything about the materials involved. So far, only Sony knows the aging specs of these lamps. From what I heard, this lamp is said to lose only 20% brightness over their life span. For now, we should assume that Sonys lamps are different from the ones we know from presentation and home video beamers. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Phil Ilczyszyn Film Handler Posts: 4 From: Arvada Co USA Registered: Nov 2012 posted 02-20-2013 08:57 AM                     Quote nec manual -------------------------------------------------------------------- Note for US Residents The lamp in this product contains mercury. Please dispose according to Local, State or Federal Laws. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Info on NC900C "UHP"lamps  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 02-20-2013 01:59 PM                     Carsten, Thanks again for the info. My scepticism comes from the fact that such lamps are available in very expensive home theatre projectors and apparently at the time being no manufacturers have ever claimed a 'new' type of lamps as Sony have done now. Hopefully this is a breakthrough in lamps technology and the 515 will work perfectly overtime with little or no degradation in light temperature and output. Time will tell, I appreciate that at the time being we do not have elements to say otherwise.  |  IP: Logged Tom Bert Expert Film Handler Posts: 134 From: Belgium Registered: Apr 2010 posted 08-13-2013 04:43 AM                     Does anyone know how NEC and Christie expext you to switch between "DCI-mode" and "non-DCI-mode"? Is the notch filter removed from the lightpatch manually or motorized?  |  IP: Logged Ian Freer Expert Film Handler Posts: 135 From: Wellington, New Zealand Registered: Oct 2003 posted 08-16-2013 06:26 AM                     On the NEC it is a manual process. As I understand it, the filter is not intended to installed/removed regularily. In a cinema installation the filter will be in (the proj is delivered with the filter installed by default). If someone has a non-cinema application but the rest of the spec's of these machines suit them, then the filter can be removed at the time of installation to gain extra brightness. If I am correct in my understanding of NEC's intention, I guess they've decided there is no direct need for it to be a motorised/automated function... Cheers, Ian  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 08-16-2013 08:23 AM                     The NEC manual mentions an external (top accessible) cover for the notch filter. So this is something that the operator can do, but certainly not on a regular basis. For the Solaria One+, I don't know. Maybe the slightly increased brightness on that machine is just achieved by disabling DCI colour correction. BTW - I learned form a recent Christie Solaria training course that these Xenon machines use a similar filter. Quite probably with different characteristics and presumably less light loss, but as it seems Xenon needs such a correction as well. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 08-16-2013 02:41 PM                     The notch filter has to be adjusted with a colour meter after it's replaced and I guess the colours have to be shot again. I don't really believe it's an operation which can be done on a regular basis.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-19-2013 12:37 PM                     This is the projector that my local competition has tried to down play by telling my customers that it doesn't have enough lumens. What a stupid statement... Any projector has plenty of lumens when used with in it's design limits. Most of them didn't buy the other dealers jive but they sure bought the NEC! I call it the "theater saver projector". It has allowed a half dozen clients so far to remain open that would have other wise shut down at the end of film. I have installed about a dozen NC-900 so far and a have a lot more that are going in. I have one on a 30 foot wide 1.8 gain curved screen and it works comfortably with enough lamp head room left over. I have had exactly zero problems with them and my customers love them. I tried the Doremi IMS and did not like it. The first demo unit we received didn't even work! The second one did but was buggy. I don't think including the three hard drives in the same IMS module was a very good idea and some of that drive space is taken up by the OS contrary to other Doremi products. External drives are the best way. I have used the SX-3000 IMB from GDC in all my recent installs. I much prefer the external PDP-3000 hard drive array. It is tiny, can be mounted with supplied bracketry for your projector, or can be tucked away inside the pedestal and velcro'd in place and forgotten about. It is hardware raid and fully automatic. Supplied in three or four drive configuration on order. It can be expanded to four drive version at any time and it will build the raid automatically upon power up with the new drive added. HAs automatic alret if a drive fails and a multi colored activity light for each drive that indicates it's status. Have had no real issues with these except for a few firmware bugs in the first release version that indicated hdd missing when it wasn't. The current build has been bug free and very stable. HDMI works great and the OS resides on an internal flash drive. I have done a few tests with and without the notch filter removed. With notch filter removed one can pull the color almost back in and quite frankly the average person isn't going to notice any difference. One can gain about 4 fl with it removed and color corrected as close as it will get. I don't put myself in the situation of needing to pull the filter so have not let an install go in with out it. I would go to the next larger projector NC-1200 at that point, and that unit is still less expensive than the 10SX! My pros and cons... NEC: Least Expensive Cinema projector to aquire, operate and maintain. Draws only 9.6 amps system full lamp level and all gear up and running @ 120 volts. Makes it the cheapest by far to operate. Run it on 220 volts and cut that current draw basically in half to only 5.3 amps. Entire systm is plug and play so does not require any electrician to install at all. Everything plugs into a 1500 kva 120 volt or 220 volt UPS. Wide range of auto-lensing is finally available. Light engine is air cooled. Biggest advangate of this projector IMHO are the lamps. There are no multi thousand dollar glass reflector, or heat filter in this projector. Each lamp assembly has it's own internal reflector. If a lamp blows... so what! Unplug it and plug in a new one... even while the show is running. You can basically let your lamps run till the light level is no longer adaquate. Lamps have a 3000 hour warranty and have been proven in other NEC projectors in the past. There are a few installation of it in Florida that are comfortably running on just one lamp! The new lamp kit includes two lamps and the hepa filters. Cost for the kit is no more than a 2kw cinema lamp was. Cost is so much lower than the BARCO 10SX that the difference would easily buy either the SX-3000 or the Doremi IMS. If you have a Barco 10SX and a 24' wide screen you are essentially wasting the capabilities of the Barco. You'd have to run a very small lamp in it. CONS: Lamp does take about 45 seconds to ramp up to full brightness. It is not instant. Projector vents into the booth. Other small projectors also do this. A bad idea IMHO! This can be a disadvantage in warm weatherand I have advised all my clients that have them to retain the ceiling mounted exhaust blowers. A few are now run from a thermostat that turns the exhaust blower on and off as needed. Some just do it manually or leave it running on a hot day. Christie makes a side mount exhaust kit for theor small unit and so should NEC! On the 10SX... I would leave it for screens larger than 30 feet wide. Operational cost is gonna be higher especially if of out of lamp warranty explosion occurs. Lamp change is much more of a hassle, same as full size projector is and opens more possibility of alignment mistake. 10SX costs considerably more than the NC-900 does. EDIT: I will add one disadvantage of the NEC is that only one slotis functioning right now. Hence you can plug in either an IMB or Legacy input board and that's it. You can't have both. Yet. Mark  |  IP: Logged

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