Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Meridian 810 News

Of course. If any sane company were demoing an e.g. $10,000 piece of kit, you would go the extra mile to ensure that you put your best foot forward. You Make sure someone tests the system the night before and if anything is wrong, you have enough time to sort out any issues

The fact that

a) You are actually demoing a $200,000 system and
b) Even more importantly, presenting your new Product to to the assembled Press Corps, who may never see the Projector again, at Cedia or anywhere else,

would surely make you even more conscious of the importance of getting it right.

It's one thing for the Projector / Scaler to just break down, or for some other issue totally outside your control to screw up your presentation. But renting a Screen and then not testing it to make sure it's Perfect...........

Just very careless and bordering on criminally negligent if you ask me

I think it highlights that Meridian is exceptionally poor outside of product development. It needs to invest in key functions (communications, marketing, support, web, documentation, QC, etc.) as well as engineering.

Or put another way..............

It took Four Years to develop the Projector and Scaler to where they are today (probably not too much of an exaggeration)

It took William Phelps between Four Days and Four Weeks altering the Projector Look Up Tables to get the image and colour "perfect"

It took the Secretary Four Seconds to find the Cheapest company to rent a Screen from...............

And Hey Presto, you may as well have demo'd a "normal" business type projector as all your hard work has just gone up in smoke........And the Press think to themselves and Write "It wasn't any better than anything else I've seen"

More sort of scream than screen, huh.

I saw the demo in NYC. I came away impressed. The screen did not help the cause. It was a 14' wide screen I believe.

My observations were the image had great color and great vibrancy but for some reason in low light scenes it had just a drop of haze to it which I have noticed in several DILA demos. Is this a limitation of DILA technology? I do not see this with the better DLP products. The video processor did an admirable job- motion was very smooth and had to be locked to 24 or a multiple- no cadence breaks and very clean and stair step free (very very very impressive on live video when there was absolutely no moire pattern on microphones and I could even see through the microphone grill- I don't know if I've ever seen that from a video system before).

It was not until I fired up the same scenes on my home unit- Runco VX-55d fed from a crystalio CII shot about 30' to my ~11.25'x4.6' 2.4 screen- that I could take in the full performance of the 810 on movies. I was surprised to see how much noise was present on iRobot BR and how well the Meridian VP removed it without removing any detail. There was some motion stutter but I suspected (and later got confirmation) that this was due to the hard drive buffer- you've seen this with playback on your computer- kind of a momentary freeze of the image and then it keeps going. What's impressive to me is that when this happened the VP never lost the cadence. The image on the screen had great detail but it was not scream out and grab you hard detail, it has a subtle look to it- call it "film like" if you want. The color looked to me to be dead on. When they showed something that was shot to look kind of old, the image did. When they showed Speed Racer, the image popped very hard.

Upon reflection, I think the night time showing, when we are run down from the day and a bit cranky and the less than optimal screen conspired to produce a subjective result that is not quite fair- most of us were really impressed but none was "blown away". I think the problem is we've all seen some pretty good projectors and for the 810 to shine so far above the rest, it requires a very large screen. In the end my impression of the 810 is probably of no surprise to anyone here. This is a great choice for someone who is going to do a 20'+ wide screen. You need the pixels, not for resolution, but for fill factor. And of course it has the light output.

On my way out one of the Meridian folks showed me a picture of a demo they ran at Dolby Labs where the PJ shot an image on to something like a 40' wide screen. That looked like it would have been stunning.

Bottom Line: I think Meridian has put out a leading product that is appropriate for the price. Lets face it, if you are spending 185k (before tax!) on a projector and VP than your theater cost is probably in the 600k+ range (probably closer to 7 figures than 6). If that's the case, you will very much appreciate the extra pixels and light output and lens flexibility. In my theater, I find I am very satisfied with what I have, but of course, I am already invested in it.

PS- I did not bug M about HDMI but, please M.... finally, they ran 2 DSP8000s for audio and they sounded great as usual. As a side note, everyone to a person who has been in my theater will comment that the video image is really terrific and 2.4 presentation is wonderful, but the speakers steal the show. At the 810 demo I found myself enjoying the speakers on the live music passages especially.

best regards,
Jerry

I worry about this. There is a fine line between transfer noise and film grain (that we've only really started seeing, and recognizing it for what it is, with the advent of HD). I wonder what the Meridian VP would do with the baked (large grain) film stock used for Saving Private Ryan, for instance?

Oh, and any high end VP that can't maintain 24fps from 60Hz film material isn't worth the money. IMO.

Me too. NO NOISE REDUCTION PLEASE! You cannot remove noise without removing real detail. I want to see the source, not the processor...


You can get expect that sort of functionality for $1k and less...

Mark

Im sure it can be disabled. Btw- my CII cannot hold a stable cadence lock when doing 24/48 out- it has to do with the Gennum VXP chipset and the word is the Radiance cannot do it either for similar reasons. I agree they should all do it but so far I am disappointed that the CII is failing to deliver on this promise. I don't think its film grain on the i Robot BR- it looks very noisy. Scene at the beginning of the movie when he visits his grandma for some pie.......

best regards,
Jerry

I agree about fill factor being an issue on larger screens, but still think the M810 is excessively expensive for the performance it delivers. CEDIA should see some announcements which seriously undermine M's "unique" projector...

Mark

Lumagen ProHDP has solid 48Hz output... assuming a good source, eg blu-ray.

Hadn't heard of this problem with the Gennum... bad news for the Radiance as this is one of the things I need before mine can replace my ProHDP :|

Mark

I'm also disappointed that the CII is still failing in this regard as I'd heard it had finally been resolved. When I made my processor decision, Lumagen's proven 24p functionality in the VisionHD series was a key factor.

I'm not sure where you heard this. 60i to 24p functionality was de-prioritized due to the amount of work that was required to implement audio switching and the colour management system. Lumagen has only just started to work on this functionality and I'm pretty certain that the Radiance will not suffer from the same limitations as the CII. Most, if not all, of the functionality will be done in the FPGA data pipeline *after* the VXP. It's also a different VXP chip in the Radiance to the CII. Scare stories from PMS?

Funnily enough, I may be Beta testing the new DVDO Edge VP which is penned to retail for $799. It has the same ABT chipset as the VP50Pro which delivers highly regarded cadence detection.

I heard it from a dealer who is very knowledgable and working as a beta for the Radiance. He knows my big concern after quality is 24 or its multiple and he's selling me one when its resolved so its in his interest to let me know when it is.... Back to the 810- its a really well done product.

best regards,
Jerry