Back from another day of projector madness at the shop. Just to report back on un- answered questions.
I had a little over a half hour to ask a days worth of questions at lunchtime with a salesman who was over in japan 3 weeks ago. Being a hometheater nut himself really made me pay attention to what I was being told.
The tw600 will have the 'cinema filter' as the previous models did.
The contrast ratio numbers are 3000-1 without optical iris enhancement and 'up to' 7500-1 with iris enhancement. This is AMAZING for LCD. It was explained to me that the largest single reason for the higher contrast ratio increases was the panels themselves (D5) have virtually no light leakage within the substructure. This light leakage between the panels was the single main reason for the dreaded screen door effect on the older lcd models and the much lower contrast ratios. It was not that the spacing between the pixels was too large but that 'stray light' between the substrate and the pixel shielding layer made the spacing more visible on the projected image. Substantially reduced light leakage within the panel means 2 huge benefits: Dramatic contrast ratio improvements and screen door elimination. Since projected images are the result of light transmitted through the panels, the control of this light is the one major factor in the ever increasing performance of LCD. I was told that when the technology to 'TOTALLY' isolate each pixel from stray light from neighboring pixels become a reality, that panel contrast ratios will exceed anything available today, even CRT.
The 'fill factor' improvements are not from the 'mechanical' method of closing the gap between the pixels but from the control of light between them.
Will DLP advance in the design of there chips at a fast enough rate to keep there performance in step with the ever advancing LCD technological storm? Well I belive that the present DMD designs have only minor possible improvements before a complete re-design will be nessesary. After all, you can only tilt the mirrors so much before mechanical arc limitations take over. So contrast ratio improvements 'before' iris enhancement will be questionable.
D5 'response time' is greatly improved. 'After images' disappear almost instantly resulting in a sharper image. After all, the static images from a previous image would contaminate the fresh image ( kind of like a crt device with a different refresh rate) and produce substandard picture quality.
If some one wants more info on the response time benefits then let me know!
Before I ended the conversation, the subject of dust and the related projected image annoyances was talked about and this is what was mentioned:
The new D5 panel has an extra glass layer positioned out of the 'FOCAL PLANE" so that when dust lands on the panel itself, you will not see any problems because of it on the screen.
Contrast ratio enhancing features of the D5 panel:
Liquid crystal layer thickness reduction
flatter and clearer glass 'sandwich' layers
driver 'ICs' directly imbedded directly onto the panel grid
Think of it as a higher quality blind system which just blocks out more light, and more efficiently.
Martin ( co-worker) told me that it would not be fair of him to comment on the differences between the 600 and the 520 until he had a chance to compare them both in a proper hometheater environment. But judging what the specs are and what he saw briefly during the demo, it looks like it will not be a close race at all.
I will get more info about the actual features on this projector tomorrow.
