[Privateer]

Background

In November 2016 I bought a used NEC MT 1060 projector (2,600 lumens, Native Resolution 1024 × 768 XGA, Aspect Ratio 4:3) on eBay for £70 and it is the first projector that I’ve used. I had intended to use it for projecting onto a window for Halloween 2017 I but didn’t use it until Halloween 2018.

When I used it for Halloween 2018, I used it with a Honey Bear media player to project a AtmosFEARfx digital decoration onto a window. To be honest, the setup was very rushed as it took a lot of time for me to set it up (because I didn’t have a clue what I was doing) and as a result the aspect ratios of the projector and the media play didn’t match. There was a red background around the image but I put that down to my inexperience. Whilst it wasn’t perfect it, the projection blew the minds of the ToTs (and their guardians) as they’d not seen anything like in our little part of England.

Halloween 2019

For Halloween 2019, I would like to 3D projection map part of our house with the NEC MT 1060 projector. I can’t do all of the house as I’d need a short throw projector with an aspect ratio of 16:10, however on paper an XGA 1024 × 768 should be better than nothing.

Problem

I was testing indoors on a wall. I’ve noticed that before I’d mirrored the aspect ratios of the projector and my laptop there was a red outer box outline. When I connected the media player by VGA cable the red outer box and red background was still there. I thought that it was a colour correction issue but you can’t adjust the colour on the projector when using VGA cable.

I tried adding the video audio cable and then changing sources on the projector but nothing changed. I then put the projector into standby mode to allow the bulb to cool down but when I tried it again the red outer box and red background had gone and the test AtmosFEARfx digital decoration just came out of the wall – where the image was black, the wall was blank i.e. the normal colour of the wall. I shut the projector down and tried again but the red outer box background came back and has continued to be there.

Questions
1. Presumable all projectors should project the black background as blank?
2. Is my NEC MT 1060 projector faulty and if so can it be cheaply fixed, preferable by me?

Many thanks,
Robert

 

[JW Halloween]

You can download the user manual here:
http://www.nec-pj.com/dl_data/mt1065-e_2.pdf

If you look on page E-41 there is a feature that allows you to correct for the color of the wall you are projecting on. It also appears that this feature can be set to automatic so it determines what the correction is by itself. I don't know for sure this is your issue but it sounds like it. I can assure you that the Atmos videos are made so the black background portions are blank.

 

[David_AVD]

I could be that the projector has a faulty board. Faults like that are unlikely to be repaired at a low cost. Could have been why it was being sold?

 

[Privateer]

Hi JW Halloween and David_AVD,

Many thanks for your answers. Apologies for the late reply but I've finally managed to grab a spare hour to sit down and have another look at the projector.

I can assure you that the Atmos videos are made so the black background portions are blank.

Many thanks for confirming that fact. It is very much appreciated. Whilst I suspected that it was indeed the case that the black background portions are blank, and it may seem a stupid question, but as my projector has always shown a red tint to the image I wasn't quite sure. This will be useful for me in the future when I'm using other projectors - especially when I try projection mapping on our house.

You can download the user manual here:
http://www.nec-pj.com/dl_data/mt1065-e_2.pdf

If you look on page E-41 there is a feature that allows you to correct for the color of the wall you are projecting on. It also appears that this feature can be set to automatic so it determines what the correction is by itself. I don't know for sure this is your issue but it sounds like it.

Many thanks for this. I downloaded and printed out the manual. I tried the auto correction and then the manual correction. When I tried the manual correction for red, the red squares in the working area were invisible - yet the surround image was still tinted red.

Another thing that I tried was to put the projector on standby (it takes a few minutes for the fan to shutdown) and when I took it off standby the background was instead of being totally tinted one shade if red, was dark (i.e. un-projected) but with horizontal red lines of different lengths and different thickness. Cycling standby mode on/off a few times didn't seem to make any difference!

Conclusion: I think that my projector is not working properly. It's probably OK to carry on doing window projections but it has limited use because of the colour issue.

I could be that the projector has a faulty board. Faults like that are unlikely to be repaired at a low cost. Could have been why it was being sold?

I think that you have accurately diagnosed the problem with my projector! It is too old to fix and it is probably the reason why it was sold. Unfortunately as I have never used a projector before I didn’t know that it was broken so I'll take it as a learning curve!

Once again, many thanks to both of your for you replies and advice!

Regards,
Robert.