yes exactly. you are not supposed to watch it with timelapse camera but with your eyes and since our eyes and brain can comprehend 30fps (including subliminal messages :)) there is enough frames up to 60 for our brain to evolve in the next 10 years to start noticing pixel shift. and in 3-4 years you will anyway have a new projector or something else as this will be obsolete.
[quote]Hi, do you aware of virtual 7.1 surround sound. I think this also how exactly why @Sefton_Bates and I sharing the same thought of the term “native”. Don’t get me wrong, the projector is displaying 1080p on the projector screen (or wall)! However, like what “virtual” mean as marketing term for audio product, the “native” shall also justify it meaning.
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This is not quite the same, though you can get some parallels, virtual surround is trying to trick the brain that sounds are coming from different positions by using special frequencies, but you can still notice the difference. Similar processing to virtual surround is wide stereo from Sony or Dolby SRS.
In the Native 1080p your brain functioning at 30hz cannot see the difference. there is no way unless you take a time-lapse camera and convert the image from 240hz to something you can see.
Words “Native resolution” have been around to define number of visible pixels on the screen (monitor or projector) long before LCD projectors were marketed. So with full right companies can sell products that deliver Native 1080p as such. It is the tech world problem that it decided to use the same wording for something else. (In this case there is a small LCD screen somewhere inside that has Native xxxxp resolution used as a base to create final screen, but you do not care about it as this is not the end result you are seeing.) Them using the same term does not revoke the right for us all to use the words as we used before. Compromise would be calling it a Native 1080p using 0.25 CHIP with pixel shifting technology.
Native resolution did come about with LCD monitors, and then later with LCD projectors, but refers to physical pixels of the device. Native resolution became a very important distinction as many manufacturers would instead advertise the maximum resolution the device would accept (these devices would then internally downscale the image to the native resolution). These days, with pixel shifting technologies, the distinction has blurred (excuse the pun). At its core pixel shifting is producing an image with a higher apparent resolution with less physical pixels. The tech is good, but it doesn’t quite beat a device will all the physical pixels (ie. native resolution).
This video has a good comparison between pixel shifting and native resolution technologies: YouTube (It is in German, but the CC autotranslate isn’t too bad).
Thank you Sefton, that is na nice explanation of how technology works. However, this all started because you claimed that Philips cannot use Native 1080p to describe the product while you and I are well aware this is not true. Native 1080p refers to physical pixels of the device, exactly - the visible image that end user can see, on the monitor that is the actual pixel on the screen, on LCD projector that is the image that is presented on the canvas/wall/whatever.
If for example the technology to show pixels on the screen would not be an internal LCD element but lets say a set of futuristic laser beams from blade runner future, that are able to show 1920x1080p that would still be na Native 1080p resolution of the said projector. Just that then you would not have a problem calling it that because you would not have another element you are thinking of (and rest of us do not care).
Not going into quality of each pixel depending on technology used behind just into number of pixels.
Virtual surround is a trick to our brain as well as pixel shifting. The only difference is whether you can “feel” it or not, if I have not understand you wrongly. I hope we are judging with same logical way.
Sorry, I have not received my PicoPix Max yet, I am not sure if that will “trick” me. In the first place, like all of us know everyone of us are different. Like some people (or young) can hear a higher frequency but some cannot (or old people). How can you be so sure that no one can see a difference with pixel shifting technology vs not. Furthermore, I not even sure a red is the same in two different people eyes.
I have also try to know about ppi for a 120 inch screen @ 1080p PPI Calculator & DPI Calculator (i get the value of 18.358 ppi) I think the quality of pixel will be shown in my eyes. That is not a very fine pixel that “trick” my brain.
If this is true, we should be concern regarding the quality. Do not get me wrong, 1080p pixel will still show, but the different (I guess) using pixel shifting is the clearness of each pixel. I also aware that I am not going to sit very close to the screen to watch with a PicoPix Max. But I do have some concern regarding that.
Im not concerned about the picture quality of that setup, done my research, this is the best you can get in that range. Philips has gone for 0.25 chipset that has shown no issues because of the way pixel shift works in that aspect ratio, while a bigger 0.33 version had sometimes “wobbling” issues.
having a full size chip would make this device non portable thus it would no longer be a pico pix max but rather na normal device with big fans and speakers and no battery that you cannot take out and use in the park for a movie under the stars (which is what we intend to do here)
In the end if you do not like the image, you have 30 day return and refund upon receipt of the PPM in case it “wobbles” for you or you don’t like how it looks. Which is something most of crowdfunding campaign can only dream of.
The video is definitely interesting and shows why some people might actually prefer pixel shifting over non-pixel-shifting solutions, you reduce the (small) pixel gap present in all DMD chipsets by overlapping the pixels. Sure, the image will look softer but still not as out-of-focus as a deliberately de-focused projector trying to mask the screen-door effect.
It’s a shame that the video didn’t have actual close-up shots of the second variant of XPR (the one the PPM has), but I have a feeling that we’ll get more data soon as more and more people receive their PPMs!
Also, their RC servo setup was a very simple yet effective way to solve A/B-testing, haven’t seen that used in that way before, neat!
Actually there are some benefits to feeding a 4k feed to the projector and letting it downscale. It can reduce visible encoding artifacts present in some streaming media.
Well, the same advantage can be had if the source downscales the decoded 4k video and transmits it as 1080p over the lossless HDMI link, but it’s a valid point nonetheless, the 4k video will most likely produce a 1080p image with less compression artifacts than a 1080p encode will.
The term native resolution came about after CRTs. The CRT technology allowed displays capable of displaying multiple resolutions at high quality. LCDs, on the other hand, were only capable of displaying one resolution at high quality: this was the fixed pixel array of the panel (the ‘native’ resolution).
The reason behind this native thread is when the campaign was running it said native - when asked what dmd they used - they wouldnt say because it was a “special” chip under an NDA.
Obviously if they had said, then they would have had to remove the part that said native - so even Philips know they shouldn’t use native as a term… TI don’t and they’re the manufacturers - it will display 1080p but isn’t 1080p - colours don’t come into this as they never said they used 3 chips, but they did say it was native.
Bit like buying a 400bhp v8 but get a 400bhp v6 - same power - but not as described.
And when coupled into the 4 corner and no Bluetooth idiocy - it shows either stupidity at best to blatant misrepresentation at worst.
Remember - this isn’t crowd funding a new startup - this is Philips who have produced projectors for years - they know what they are doing.
Even when it comes to shipping… Have they never shipped to Europe before?
Remember - we are investors - not customers. We invested money and expect honesty - is it too much to ask?
I agree that the NDA excuse was bad, I believe that was due to sourcing reasons more than anything else though.
The choice of “native” as a word may be because most people involved in the project aren’t native English speakers. If the ad agency (which typically won’t posses the level of technical skill needed to have a native/non-native resolution discussion) got a rough draft of the text and spiced it up and added some fancy words they’ve used elsewhere (perhaps in tech writing for LCD TVs) “native” might have popped in there without being questioned.
The annoying thing where (again) the technical details got tangled in a language barrier (or lack of technical knowledge) was when Screeneo marketing was answering the direct question whether pixel shifting technology was used and the answer was “no we’re not using that”. That’s not true, but if you read the first page of either the DMD or DLPC datasheets there’s no mention of pixel shifting/XPR at all which could be interpreted like pixel shifting isn’t used. There’s also zero occurrences of the word “native”, but 1080p shows up a lot. I can understand that marketing being confused by this especially if they’ve gotten a pitch from a TI sales guy.
Reading a few more pages it’s obvious that the DMD only contains 1/4 of the mirrors required but who would expect marketing to survive reading a datasheet like that? They should have been briefed by the engineering department exactly what the correct terminology should be. TI is being a bit sneaky here and Screeneo are the ones getting caught in the middle.
Maybe some terms where indeed misused. But the most important thing is that it was advertised to do a 1080p image at max 60 frames, and it does. Hope everyone will enjoy it regardless the termology;)
Having dealt with Chinese companies - I believe that Philips contracted a Chinese company to design and build a projector - they did this in the cheapest possible way - stretching tech specs and possibly misunderstanding TI specs and also customer requirements.
By the time it had been signed off (without checking everything) it was too late to change.
Even the communication was coming from the Chinese company - with words such as “later” - I’ve dealt with companies that use “later” - I don’t deal with them again. They are the same companies that use “local” components when proper components from distributors are speced. Resistors and caps - fine… Ic’s are often ones that fail test. Or in some really bad situations are remarked Ic’s that look the same - there was an issue with microchip pics that were I think old 74series chips remarked as pics - obviously they didn’t work, but by the time fraudulent components have been identified its too late.
And whilst this wouldn’t fall into this case, the manufacturer is obviously cut from the same cloth - make the most money.
Quite possibly, that tends to happen when you’re in a rush. Interestingly enough the shipping PCBA isn’t the same layout as the “third and final” one posted on IGG, so there were changes done fairly late. Of course, only minor changes would occur at that point so all the architectural decisions affecting HDMI 4-corner processing etc happened way earlier.
I haven’t seen the board build quality first hand yet but what I’ve seen of the main board it doesn’t scream bottom-of-the-barrel manufacturer/designer to me. Somebody at least did a reasonable job copying the TI ref design onto the same board as the Rockchip SoC and the V56 scaler/HDMI switch while making it look coherent. Can we get some info whether this is an ODM build or if it’s designed in-house @Philips_Support_P? @Philips_Support_N mentioned that Screeneo have hardware labs in Germany and China, I assumed at least those are actually Screeneo and not a 3rd party.
When you sell something you use something that most of your customers will understand, the non technical customers who just want watch a movie on a big screen.
Annoying thing is that “experts” don’t understand how the world functions, and that you can’t be ignorant of it. Language is a living thing, it evolves and I am sorry we are using the same “Native resolution” for the thing you are not, but it is a fact of life.
Imagine you are a carpenter and you for some reason call something “wooden entry barrier” and the rest of the world simply calls it a “door”. Would you spend your life trying to tell the world that they need to stop using the word “door” because it is a “wooden entry barried”, and “door” is actually a specific part of that said “barrier”. And convince all the shop selling furniture to stop selling frcking doors because those are barriers?
I do agree they should have told us specifics about the DMD used when requested,
but I think it was a decision from the level above that these stay secret and the people who actually communicate with us have no choice. That is most probably the reason for silence. You need to communicate and answer questions but for every question asked you as social medial guy need to ask approval from someone above, who does not care about his troubles or pissed off contributors -and simply says no to the request. Now the poor guy answering here cannot say to you my boss told me not to tell you, so he stays silent instead - because he does not know what to say. I would say bad mid-level or senior level management.
and since our eyes and brain can comprehend 30fps (including subliminal messages :)) there is enough frames up to 60 for our brain to evolve in the next 10 years to start noticing pixel shift. and in 3-4 years you will anyway have a new projector or something else as this will be obsolete.
