Santa Barbara trip pt 2 of 2

Kayaking

Tuesday was kayaking with the Santa Barbara Adventure Company. It was also a half day event along the Gaviota coast. Since I am not a swimmer, I have never really been out in the ocean water. It was pretty exciting getting the kayak boat into the water as waves are often crashing on you and our guide had to time the waves in order to help put us in. Once you get past the initial "put in" phase, it's calm waters for the most part. We didn't see whales or dolphins but we saw a good number of curious sea lions.

Santa Barbara trip pt 1 of 2

Viks and I took mini-trip to Santa Barbara. Sunday was mostly just walking along State St which is a main street with many little boutique shops as well as big name department stores, and eateries. On Monday we went to Circle Bar B Ranch to go horseback riding. It was a half day ride on a mountain trail and we saw some spectacular views of the coast as well as a glimpse of former President Reagan's ranch. The half day duration was more than I bargained for as my knees hurt pretty bad toward the end. I still need to learn how to trot...cause everytime we trotted, I was quite worried about damaging the "family jewels."

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

I've known about the WinXP SP2 upgrade woes that people have reported for a while but I got annoyed at Windows auto update reminding me everyday to upgrade and so I finally gave in and upgraded. After the upgrade, I had to do the required reboot but somehow I believe the boot sector got corrupted and Windows would not start anymore. All attempts in safemode to remove SP2 proved fruitless. Long story short, I spent a 1.5 days reformatting and reinstalling Win XP Pro. Since it was a clean install, I gave SP2 another chance. Luckily the 2nd chance SP2 upgrade worked without a hitch. Oh well, the bright side is that I had backed up 98% of my data before and my PC is now a little less sluggish. Sigh..I can never leave well enough alone!

In San Jose for the week

Visited JLT & Joel and saw baby NAT for the first time. She really is a cute baby and didn't cry at all when I held her. I get quite nervous holding babies because they appear so fragile. As wonderful as babies are, I don't think I am not ready to be a father right now. I am still getting use to the idea of being married!

Later in the week I caught up with SMC at lunch and later went to poker night at Mike's which was fun. I miss playing poker and witnessing the "irresponsible" betting.

Toshiba MT700 screen shot of "I Robot"

Toshiba MT700 non enhanced photo screen shot of "I Robot" projected onto Da Lite 92" Model C High Contrast Matted white screen.

Toshiba MT700 screen shot of "The Incredibles"

Toshiba MT700 non enhanced photo screen shot of "The Incredibles" projected onto Da Lite 92" Model C High Contrast Matted white screen.

Poor Man's Home Theater (angled view)..still work in progress

The Wife Acceptance factor pt 2 -> -> " Your speakers stick out and take up so much room.."

- Also my screen is behind my speakers. Ideally, I'd like the screen to be on the same horizontal plane of the speaker fronts but the throw distance of the MT700 and my family room dimensions currently prohibit this.

- I haven't yet figured out how to hide the cables.

My house is not exactly home theater friendly so this is the best compromise I can think of for now. I am fortunate that Viks has been very patient & supportive through the process..and thank goodness for spackle & touch up paint.

Poor Man's Home Theater (front view)..still work in progress

The Wife Acceptance factor ;-)

A big challenge was the location of where to mount the Da Lite screen. Given the requirement of the screen to be centered with the two front tower speakers and factoring in the dimensions of the family room and the location of the kitchen nook, the locations of the wall studs did not allow me to mount the screen to be centered with the TV inlet, fireplace, etc. The screen is a pull down and can be tucked away when not in use. However, to minimize wrinkles I'll likely just leave it down. I used chain links from Lowes as extensions for the screen mounting brackets to workaround the location of the wall studs.

Toshiba MT700

After more than a year of reading reviews, scouring the forums, and a lot of agnozing, I finally pulled the trigger and opted for the Toshiba MT700 DLP front projector.

Specs:
- Texas Instruments HD2+ "Mustang" DLP chip
- Resolution: WXGA 1280 x 720 pixels
- native 720P
- Projection format: widescreen 16:9 native, switchable to 4:3
- Light output: 1000 ANSI lumens
- Contrast: Full On/Off 2400:1
- Color Wheel Segs: 6
- Color Wheel Speed: 5x
- Lamp: 250 W / 200 W in ECO mode
- Max. lamp life: up to max. 3,000 hours in ECO Mode / up to max. 2,000 hours in bright mode
- Faroudja DCDi de-interlacer with 3-2 pulldown processing
- HDMI

I am currently feeding the MT700 an upconverted 720P signal from a Denon 2910 DVD player via HDMI and projecting onto a Da Lite 16x9 92" High Contrast Matted white screen. With all things, there are pros and cons,

Pros:
- Wow factor. The 92" image is simply breathtaking .. movie theater-like experience.
- Overall Picture quality bang for the buck
- Color saturation without any calibration equipment is bright and satisfying to this viewer's naked eye
- Excellent contrast
- Very film-like image
- Deep blacks (trust me, I am very nitpicky about this)
- Minimal screen door effect / discernable pixelization at 10' viewing distance
- No heavy TV to trash when the next latest & greatest display technology comes about.


Cons:
- Lack of lens shift requires precise mounting & guesswork to achieve optimal alignment with screen
- Lack of light controlled room restricts viewing to mostly evenings in Eco mode unless the projector is set it to High Brightness mode (but High Brightness mode reduces lamp life)
- Viks is occasionally susceptible to a few rainbows. I rarely see them and have to struggle to look for them.
- Lamps are currently not cheap to replace -> ~$400

Personally speaking, the pros outweigh the cons. I have yet to try 720P high definition on the projector to unleash the MT700's true potential. But thus far, watching films like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings on DVD is a whole new experience. I am a very happy new front projector owner who has found the promised land.