Runco LightStyle LS-5 Projector Review by Art Feierman of ProjectorReviews.com

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

June 28, 2011

Runco is excited to announce a rave review of Runco’s LightStyle LS-5 projector.

“If the LS-5 projector is where your budget is happy, it's going to be a great choice. This is the projector that comes from a local dealer that is trained by Runco. Most can take you from an unfinished basement to a fabulous theater with all the trimmings if you want, or just provide the basics. The LightStyle LS-5 will provide an image of rich saturated and accurate colors. There's nothing to offend, with great shadow detail and very good black level performance among its peers. And Runco offers a good warranty, and optional support programs, allowing you to be downright pampered.”

Click here to read the full review.

Color is Light

Monday, June 27, 2011

June 27, 2011

By James Wood

Hearken back to the days of yore when you were learning anatomy and physiology (there will be a test). Remember what you learned about how the eye works (or just brush up). Essentially your eye perceives light and color separately. Rods are cells that detect light, especially low light. Cones are cells that detect color and detail. Light enters the lens of your eye and some of it hits the rods while other light hits the cones. The combined details of light and color are interpreted by your brain as what you see.

Your eye has about 15 times more rods than cones which means your eyes are a lot better at sensing light than they are at sensing color and detail. Try a little experiment the next time you’re sitting out at night and watching the stars appear. Use your peripheral vision instead of looking straight at the stars and you’ll be able to see more of them. The concentration of light-sensing rods is greater on the side of your eyes so you can see more subtle variations in light with your peripheral vision.

Very interesting, I know, but wait, there’s more. Did you know that most 3D technology is produced by alternating images for the left eye and right eye on the screen. Using polarized glasses (like you get in a movie theater) or shuttered glasses, the alternate images for each eye are produced dozens of times a second. What that means is that each eye is getting less light and losing a huge chunk of the information that it needs to process a full image in your brain.

The next time you’re in a movie theater or watching a low-end 3D TV try this experiment (but make sure you are seated): look at the screen through your peripheral vision. You’ll probably see a flicker or stutter. This is because the rod-heavy peripheral vision perceives the flickering light input, just like with the stars at night. One of the many reasons the 3D movies and TV can be fatiguing is that your brain is working harder to make sense of less information.

At Runco it’s not just about 3D, but 3D done right. So instead of alternating the left and right images Runco 3D created Constant Stereoscopic Vision so that both of your eyes get a constant stream of information, just like in the real world. So, instead of a dim image with flickering at the edges you see a bright, clear 3D projection. The reason why the D-73d 3D projector award after award is that Runco understands more than just home theater design. Runco understands how your eyes are designed.

Image Credit: Qin Liu, MD, PhD and Eric A. Pierce, MD, PhD, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health

Calibrate Good Times

Monday, June 20, 2011

My uncle is a cabinet maker by trade – he’s an artist with woodworking. He’s said to me, “With every project you stick to the plans exactly... until after you’ve made the first cut.” What he means is that plans are a fantastic tool that must be in place, but getting into the project starts changing the plans almost immediately. From the beginning on it’s about varying the plans to fit the reality of the situation. The same could be said for any creative, artistic endeavor. Reality demands flexibility.

No matter how good we make Runco displays and projectors (and they are the best in the world), just the fact that you take it into your home changes everything. The ambient light, the color of your walls, the size of your room and so many other variables affect the artistry of displaying beautiful images in your home theater. All of the plans that were so helpful at the beginning, now need to be adjusted to match with the reality of your set-up.

Calibration allows each Runco display and projector to be finely tuned to its new home so that you will see the absolute best image quality. The Imaging Science Foundation has developed standards for calibration that require intensive training and expensive equipment, and the reality is that you won’t get a better viewing experience from your display than with a professional calibration. Your local Runco authorized dealer can provide you with top-notch, in-home calibration tailored to your exact situation. If you have a home theater room with controlled lighting for a consistent environment you won’t find a better solution than fine-tuned, professional calibration services.

But you’re not always in a home theater with the windows blacked out and the lights turned down. Sometimes you want to watch TV in your living room, but that means the light from windows and lamps is constantly changing. Not to worry, Runco has you covered with the LightStyle™ Series DLP projectors. They’re designed to give beautiful high-definition performance in a variety of lighting situations.

To start off, they keep the blacks black using SuperOnyx™ technology with ConstantContrast™. So, instead of seeing washed-out grey during the day and squint-inducing darkness at night, the image is consistently adjusted for the right level of contrast for the lighting conditions. Next, Runco has integrated ISF calibration right into the projector, so you can calibrate the projector yourself. More than that, there are memory settings for both day and night-time ISF calibrations so no matter what the ambient light is like, you’ll still get amazing video quality. We meet the reality of your life with the flexibility of on-board calibration. The artistry of video projection receives its finishing touches in your home.