[rescue] Dual headed U10

[Dan Duncan]

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006, Don Y wrote:
> Agreed.  I only use LCD's in my laptops.  I dislike the image
> they present to me -- even when viewing in ideal conditions.

The way computer LCDs look outside of native resolution is what bugs
me.  I have two crts on kvms at home and haven't upgraded either to
LCD because not all the systems I use will support the native
res on the LCD I would buy (probably 19" or more at 1600x1200 which
is what I use at work) so I've stuck with CRT.  I play with vmware
quite a bit both at home and at work but I can't switch to fullscreen
mode on the fly using an LCD because the display either freaks out or
looks horrible.  It works fine at home on my CRTs.  I've seen discussions
about color issues and gaming issues but those don't really apply to me.
(20 shades of blue is still just blue to me.)

> Friends drop off broken LCD's and I repair them and pass them
> on to local charities, etc.  (apparently, many resell them for
> $30-100 -- depending on size).

Nice.  Have you considered selling them and giving the money to charity?
You might get some interest here since LCDs are easily shipped.

> Projection screens have always had problems with light output.
> Rear projections usually suffered from viewing angle, as well.

Yeah, my friend's HDTV suffered from both.  If he dimmed the lights and
you sat right in the middle of one particular couch, it looked GREAT.
If someone else wanted to watch, they got a degraded view.  Not a great
home theater setup for multiple users.

> Ages ago, Kloss (?) made nice front projection systems.
> But, in order to get large (e.g., 10 ft diagonal) images,
> you still had to rely on dim ambient lighting and/or
> "glass bead" projection screens.

The LCD projectors we use at work look pretty good even on a wall and
will take either a VGA or composite input.  (one takes component input)
They probably don't have the sort of duty cycle I'd want for a home
theater but they look pretty good.  I assume I could use the same
screen or wall for multiple projectors (not at the same time of course)
so maybe a couple of grades are an option.

My CRT just keeps lookin better and better!  Maybe I should find someone
locally with one of the biggies (44" or so as I recall?) who wants to
upgrade to newer technology.  I've had my 35" for 8 years and I'd swear
it looks just as good now as it ever did.

> I've thought of using a screen based solution and letting the
> screen serve double duty as a window shade!  (cuts down on ambient
> light at the same time).

Smart!  Maybe park a CRT in the corner for regular viewing?

> I think OLEDs will suffer from the same sorts of problems that
> LCD's do -- burned out pixels.  :-(  Thankfully, the only
> practical way to do this with a CRT is for the deflection amps
> to fail  :-(

Yeah but OLEDs have short lifespans and are supposed to very cheap to
replace just the screen while keeping the electronics.

> Pioneer (?) makes a modular projection system like this.
> You cascade the boxes and tell them what sort of arrangement
> (3x3, 4x4, etc.) you have and each box sorts out which portion
> of the signal it needs to display.
> Unfortunately, since they are physical boxes, there are (very
> small!) borders on the edge of each.  So, it isn't completely
> seemless (though they worked hard to make the borders VERY
> small and unobtrusive)

Ooh, I'll check it out.  Has anyone finally implemented my idea
for putting speakers on a bus and making them individually addressable
so you can "rotate" them depending on whether you want to watch TV
or listen to music in another chair?  When left and right for music
come to me from front and rear it bugs me.

-DanD

-- 
#  Dan Duncan (kd4igw)  dand at pcisys.net  http://pcisys.net/~dand
# Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearence of magic.
# 		ARTHUR C CLARKE