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Thread: Laser Advice for New Quickshow User

  1. #11
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    Bradfo69 is offline Pending BST Forum Purchases: $47,127,283.53
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    Please do. You are a professional as outlined in your first post. As such, I'm sure you understand the value that going with a piece of equipment slightly more than you anticipated in the long run ends up money well spent. Lasers, at this level, are not an inexpensive endeavor. It's a harsh reality and many of us have made mistakes and squandered many thousands of dollars thinking, "if only I had gotten...".

    I've got lasers four times the cost of that Pluto that sit in a closet and haven't been fired up or used for a show in 6 months. I'm not making any money on them sitting in a closet. One of the biggest things we do on this forum is try to help steer people in the right direction and hope they don't make some of the bonehead mistakes we may have made. You've already taken a big step in getting a quality software program in Quickshow and often it's the other way around where people try to chintz on cheap software - iShow for example and you bang your head on the wall knowing people are wasting their money and simply don't listen.

    I don't work for Lightspace or make any money by suggesting it. I just know from having about 20-22 RGB laser projectors that the performance/dollar (or pound in your case), that the Pluto II is pretty damn hard to beat. As mentioned, I don't know the currency conversion in your case but, the price in American dollars converted to pound sterling would make a Pluto II RGB2500 cost about 1,085-1,341 pounds which sounds like it should be in range of what you first mentioned. It might make sense, if you can wait just a little bit, to get in on what we call a "group buy" that should be taking place in a few more months and enable you to get it at a discount versus what you may be asked to pay as a "one off". Things are always cheaper in quantity and Lightspace will ship them directly to the purchaser.

    It's funny that as I'm reading threads about bashing some of the "spammers" or companies that come on here to sell things without adding and value to the forum, that I almost have sounded like one in some threads where I've shared my experience with Lightspace and their projectors.

    I don't think I linked to you a review of what we are discussing:

    Here is one and it's a rare thing that 4 pages of comments have been devoted to a single projector.

    http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...ighlight=Pluto

    Here is another with a lot of pictures and reviews, particularly post 27:

    http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...ighlight=Pluto
    Last edited by Bradfo69; 04-23-2014 at 14:16.

  2. #12
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    Well, I went ahead and pulled the trigger on a Pluto II 2.6w and it arrived yesterday.

    Overall I am impressed with the build quality, the sharpness of the beam and the brightness, but do have a couple of issues which are probably just down to my naïveté and inexperience with Quickshow than anything wrong with the laser, but wondered if anyone can offer advice.

    Firstly despite setting the laser up using the projector settings in Quickshow, the colours seem blown out, particularly red which on some of the in built Quickshow animations appear in a deep yellow rather than red unless I turn down the brightness to about 50%. Secondly, the scan rate rarely gets better than 30fps, despite the projector supposedly having 40kps scanners (and yes, I realise that Quickshow is limited to 30kps). I am therefore getting a degree of flickering on what would appear to be fairly simple animations. Even on the ILDA test pattern, I get a lot of flickering and the white and yellow colours are so bright that Ican barely see the blue circle to ensure it is inside the square.

    I am guessing that I am missing something in the setup. Can anyone help?
    James Skinner
    Silver Pines Sound & Light

  3. #13
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    Note 100% sure what you mean by "blown out". 2.6 W is quite a powerful laser and you will get glare at close viewing distances eg. 10 feet, especially where cues are displayed small in size or projected onto a white background. I can display my 2.1W (making 2.8W) onto a wall painted beige (so quite a non reflective colour), with matt emulsion and still get some low power reflections on the wall behind me through 2 rooms and approximately 25 feet from the other wall! So make no mistake, 2.6W is a powerful laser and will produce reflection / glare at close distance.

    On the colour balance side, it sounds like there may be some modulation issues (rise and fall times causing colours to bleed into each other) and possibly some colour imbalance.

    In Beyond, you'd just palette train the programme. In QS, I'm unsure of the options available.

    If its like it used to be (not seen a recent version), then your colour options can be found in Settings > Projector > Colour Settings. On the same page for an RGB:

    You want " 3 Laser RGB" selected and usually for most lasers "Analogue with Linear Response".

    You can adjust the overall colour balance in 2 ways:

    1. Via any level adjustment knob on the projector itself

    2. Via the "Colour Output Level" sliders in the QS software.

    This gives you some crude control over the amount of each colour and also the lasing point. As knobs on the projector can get knocked, the software is probably the preferable option.

    BTW train against a white or black surface if possible to ensure neutrality.

    Just note though, you need to view any adjustments over multiple cues as well as the ILDA, as adjusting for one colour, can throw others out. The trick is to find a point where most colours look perfect and the others very near perfect. I doubt you'll get total perfection without the ability to palette train / adjust for rise and fall times (modulation response).

    So far as frame rates are concerned, most graphics are demanding on scanners and thus produce frame rates well below 30 fps. The ILDA test pattern is one of the most demanding things to display and will nearly always show some flicker at 30K and 8 degrees angle.

    If you go to the "Sports" page in the standard QS Cue Grid then the cue titled "Pitcher", it's the 4th one in on the top row in mine labelled as keyboard shortcut "R", then run that, I get 64-72 FPS reported on that cue for comparison (FB3 connected, no laser - laser shouldn't affect the FPS rate as its determined by the DAC). That should display flicker free at those frame rates. If you're seeing something similar, then I don't think there's anything much wrong with regards to seeing some flicker.
    Last edited by White-Light; 05-16-2014 at 00:01.

  4. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by White-Light
    onto a wall painted beige
    I would have never had guessed
    --------------------
    My Brain urt's!

    Continuously in Awe! of (H)Al, the Photonlexicon Font of Complete Knowledge - The (H)Al'PL Database of complete puss that no one needs to know or ever trusts as he ain't really got a Scooby doo about now't!

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    Neutral's are very modern Jim.

  6. #16
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    Thanks for the feedback. It has helped a little as I now think the flickering issue is to do with the laptop from which it is running. I suspect that it is trying to run the FB3 at standard USB1 speed, as it warns me that the device can work faster if it is connected to a higher speed port and and the indicates that two higher speed ports are available. However, unplugging it and installing it into each of the other USB ports gives the same result. I have no idea how I access them if they aren't available through the normal ports. Looking at Device Manager it indicates they are present and running, as well. The laptop is running Windows 7 service Pack 1.

    I did try attaching the FB3 to my desktop (also running Windows 7 SP1) and I got a much higher FPS.

    Any ideas? Could this also be causing the colour problem?
    James Skinner
    Silver Pines Sound & Light

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