Strange Attitude Blog

I’m totatally stoked.  After doing much research and experimenting.  I have determined that my projector is working just fine. I had to reconfigure the thing to accept different incoming settings.

It appears there is a fault in the 1.0 firmware (isn’t there always) of my Z3 .  That causes a fault when receiving a 720p signal via HDMI.  It’s called an HDMI handshake fail.  If I send a 1080i signal all is well.  So that’s what I did.

Now if I could just get the guys at Sanyo to update my firmware for free we would be in good shape.  Either way, I’m a happy boy.

CURSES!!!!! Now begins the stressful process of selecting a projector that not only needs to last me a long time but also needs to keep me happy. All of that done by spending as few dollars as possible.

Right now I am running a Sanyo Z3 Home Theater Projector.  When purchased it was mid grade.  The high end ones were in the $7,000 – $10,000 range.  Way to rich for my blood.  I spent $1600 on the Sanyo and got about 90% of the quality of the $10,000 units.  There is usually a pretty steep curve when it comes to return vs. cost on high end theater stuff.  Now that $10,000 unit can be bought for $700 and the ones that cost double that are quite a bit better.

Point being, at least it’s a good time to upgrade.  There have been real increases in performance since then and the cost has come down a great deal.

Here are the requirements.

1. Sub $2000 range
2. 1080p or super high quality 720p resolution
3. lens shift-ability
4. minimum 10,000:1 contrast
5. min 1200 lumens brightness

I’ll have to hit I few valuble resources for info

Projector Central

AVS Forum’s under $3000 Display Threads

Projector People

These three place do a great deal to help a guy pick out crap like this.  But they are also good and convincing him to spend more than he needs to.  I need to keep that monster in check.  But I’ll give the AVS guys some credit.  They have a Sub $3000 forum, a over $3000 forum and then a High End $20000+ forum for the high rollers.

Here we go…….

WRONG!!!!!!
Holy crap did we get a pile of ice and snow dumped on us last night. Personally I like snow. I enjoy being cooped up in the house due to weather. It’s kinda comforting. But yesterday was not good.

It started off with a very chilly bike ride to the YMCA. In spring I like to go on a quick paced bike ride to Rock Cut. This is about a 2 – 2.5 hour ride for me. That was my plan but by the time I got the YMCA I decided to hang my hat there and workout. The wind just cuts through you.

Laura and I went out to the bookstore just to get out and then we stopped at an electronics retailer so I could look at new projectors.  At that time the ice started falling and the wind certinaly picked up.  No good….

Last night was a blast. I made some pork chops (tough as hell though) and Laura bakes up some brownies so we could have an awesome dessert.  Nothing better than some vanilla (non fat sugar free ans surprisingly really really good) ice cream (product) fresh baked brownies, cashews, cranberries and a little chocolate syrup to top it off.  DEEELISH!