[rescue] Dual headed U10

[Don Y]

Dan Duncan wrote:
> 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

Yes, resampling issues.

> 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

Yup.  I have a pair of GDM500's for my primary workstation.
They are a bit large but, if you sit across the room, they
are comfortable to read  ;-)

> 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.)

<grin>  Don't you love it when a woman asks you whether the
*coral* blouse looks better or the *ocre* does -- and you
just stare with a blank look on your face??  :>

>> 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.

I don't want to get involved handling money like that.
They are gifted to me knowing that I will pass them on
to charities -- and let those *charities* decide how
to best capitalize on the gift.  I.e. if they decide
to upgrade some of their front-office machines to use
LCD's (save power?), then they can opt to do so.

>> 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.

A front projection screen on a glass-beaded screen can look
quite viewable.  But, most folks don't want to deal with the
screen (since it then needs to be stored someplace -- rolling
it up *into* the ceiling poses construction issues... e.g., if
your ceiling joists are at right angles to the location of
the screen!)

>> 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.

You can often find fried Sony sets headed for the trash.
They appear to have short lifetimes (?).

Usually, the failure is in the HV power supply.
Unfortunately, many of the sets use proprietary
components that cost an arm and a leg *if* you
can convince Sony to sell them to you.

(and, if you bring the set to a repair shop, they will
typically fail to fix the underlying cause of the failure
so the set ends up on the curb a year or so later after
a few hundred bucks of repairs)

[note I dont own a Sony TV so I am only speaking from
observations of disgruntled owners and sets that I
have run across "headed for the dump"]

>> 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?

The appeal of the window shade/screen would be that the
room wouldn't *look* like a "TV room".

>> 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.

I have been working on some spatialization software that
effectively could do that.  You feed it a source signal(s)
and tell it where to place those signals in the room
around you.  So, leave the speakers in place and just "move"
the virtual source locations.

(uses a sh*tload of CPU, though)