Sort of OT: Turn your TV into a 150" projection TV?

I'm thinking about getting one of these. Does it really work as well as they
say? Is the competition better? I think it's a hoax. I'd love to see an
honest opinion of this thing before I send my money.

http://www.maxtheater.com/

 

You either work for these theives or you're incredibly naive. Oh...and Mr.
Web Master, what's you're real name?

Rick Diamond

 

I would put it more in the catagory of a hype than a hoax. This kind of
has been available for several decades, and I'll bet it works, but they
are hoping you aren't paying good attention. You are buying a pair of
lenses, and some plans to build a plywood box to put them in. Plus,
you may have to go into the set and swap around some wires to flip
the scan, but they were vague about that on their page. There is the
line: "Using our "fix" you do not have to turn your TV upside down"

You don't get the nice rear projection screen and box like the one
shown on the home page, you will be building a plywood box
as shown on http://www.maxtheater.com/details/

It probably works, but it likely needs a very dark room, and likely
doesn't look great, just big.

David

 

Neither. In fact, I'm assuming that it's a hoax, until I see a positive
review by a well known company/person.

 

I don't see what clues you into it being a hoax. It is a
bit of a kludge though. I didn't study the site very closely,
but nothing seemed blatantly off base. It was written,
and illustrated (the picture of rear projection set), in hopes
that you would think it is much more than it really is,
but they leave it to you to come to that conclusion.

All I saw them promise is 2 big lenses and some instructions
for putting it all together. It isn't a hoax unless they aren't
delivering what they promised. They don't claim that it is just
as good as a $4000 projector, or anything extraordinary.

David

 

That is exactly what I thought they were selling, after looking at the page.
They also show you an actual picture of the wooden box YOU have to build.

Many years ago, I came across one of those flat plastic lenses and tried it
with a 13" TV (I didn't really build it up, I just hung it in front and masked
some of the spill). It was pretty clear (you could see the shadow mask from
the tube really well , but I'm still glad I didn't pay $25 to try it. My biggest
objections were that it wasn't very bright (it was only usable in the dark),
and it was hard to use with a manual tuner TV. (how many of us remember
manual rotary tuners?). I wanted to be able to watch TV in the daytime.

There was a bar in Boston that had pretty much the same thing hanging
from the ceiling (it was commercially built with a plastic housing and a
remote control TV), and it worked as well as could be hoped for. The worst
was that it wasn't very bright, and even the dim lights of the bar easily
washed it out. There were poorly adjusted Novabeams that looked even worse.

I do agree that it is misleading with that imaginary rear projection unit
decorating the page, but they never promise that you get one of these.
In fact they make it pretty clear what they are selling. The screen shots
look suspiciously good, but they are making pretty good plastic lenses
these days. In fact, if the screen shots are real, those lenses might be
well worth $12 each.

Most people would be disappointed when they realized how much work
was required, for so little gain. There is a lot of marketing speak on the
page that might mislead some people.

I remember when color TV was just starting there was a product that turned
your black and white TV into a color TV. It was a piece of plastic that you
would stick to your old black and white TV. It was blue at the top to render
the skies blue, it was sort of orange in the middle for the flesh tones, and at
the bottom it was green to color the football field. It's crazy, but some people
bought them anyway, even though the print ads for the product clearly show
what the result would be (on a carefully chosen shot). That was closer to
being a true hoax.

David

 

David,

I definitely remember those plastic sheets for the TV.
Our neighbor had one, and we went over to his house to watch it.
Cookie's car was two-tone green and orange.
So was Palladin's horse.

Also; that gives me a definite clue as to your age (and mine).


John nichols

 

The room I plan to use it in can be made completely dark. If it gives a so
so image, I'll be happy. I doubt I can get even that....

If the thing worked at all, there would be premade versions of it in nearly
every TV store.

 

So far, no one in this thread has mentioned that, according to the
site, the lenses provided with this kit are plastic Fresnel lenses.
That is pretty much a guarantee of very poor optical quality.

1. The rings that are part of the design of a Fresnel lens will cause a
good deal of blurriness because of diffraction effects.

2. The lenses are single elements (note that the kit consists of a lens
and a spare, not a two element lens), so that various optical
aberrations can NOT be corrected. There is a possibility that spherical
aberation can be designed out, but chromatic aberration, curvature of
field, and coma are pretty sure to be uncorrected.

3. Unless the lenses are molded with unusual precision, they will lose
sharpness because of random wave-front errors - like looking through a
cheap pane of glass.

There is one advantage to this kind of lens: it is possible to make a
very fast (large f-ratio) lens very cheaply.

I don't intend to buy a set.

HTH,
Gino

 

Im just the opposite, i cant stand when one insists on having every damn light
on while i try to watch a movie.

 

I like a pretty dark room when I watch a movie too, but this will likely need a
Very Dark room to be at all usable. While that is OK for serious watching
(not that you would want to do serious watching with this thing), it is nice to
be able to still see what is on your TV in the daytime.

Gene brought up that this was a plastic single element lens. What else could
one expect at 2 for $25. We have a real video projector (lets just say that it
cost many times what this pair of lenses cost), and it still wants a pretty dark
room to have anything like blacks. It is really bright though. I wound up stretching
a gray sheet to make a screen, just to cut the level down when using it at home.

David