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Same as the first?
The Barco Cine 6 Projector
by Max Christoffersen
October 2001
Barco Cine 6 CRT Projector. $18,895
It
was hard not to think of family relations when the Barco Cine 6 arrived
at the door.
Late last year, the stunning Barco Cine 7 confirmed that CRT remains the most cinematic of home theatre projectors. The simple question is can the Cine 6 do what the Cine 7 does at a lower price and smaller size?
Like its bigger brother, the Barco Cine 6 is a CRT projector designed specifically for home theatre presentation and, while not sharing exactly the same resolution or light output specs, it is a purpose-built to make the most of progressive scan DVD or line doubled material.
The Cine 6 is a rare breed, as it is among the smallest, lightest and quietest projectors in this line-doubling-fan-free class. This projector comes with the Lido line doubler as standard.
On paper, the Cine 6 offers a low but perfectly adequate 140 ansi lumen performance with 1000 lumen total light output, along with 1000:1 contrast ratio. And being a mere 318x660x639 (hxwxd) and 32kg, is a pint-sized performer in the world of CRT projection.
Standard connections are on board, including composite, S-video and RGB/component via BNC inputs. Unlike the Cine 7 the Cine 6 has a maximum scan rate of 38 kHz, with maximum resolution of 800x600 and 7” CRTs. Unlike the Cine 7, the Cine 6 lenses are colour corrected but not colour filtered.
So down to business with professional convergence (alignment of all 3 CRT tubes) done inside a record two hours! Be warned: CRT projector convergence isn’t for the novice and should be left to those who know what they are doing. Apart from it being a technically skilled job and crucial to optimising projection performance, fiddling around inside a CRT projector can kill you with lethal voltages present inside that small chassis.
With convergence complete Sting Live was on screen first and the full-face close-ups were very clean, very life-like and very detailed. Flesh tones looked right and while scan lines were visible from a viewing distance of around 14 feet, this is evidence of good optical resolution.
At times the focus looked soft, but this is usually on the DVD itself and is not necessarily a function of line doubling. The on-board Lido doubler does a good job, but using the Quadscan Elite scaler and Barco together and the video performance rises again with a creamy film-like image on show.
While watching the Barco Cine 6, I was thinking of the stunning performance of the small NEC LT150 DLP projector. While I want to quickly forget the rainbows that were so prevalent on the small NEC DLP, what was hard to beat was the tight focus and colour saturation.
I tried to simulate that DLP focus with the Cine 6, but couldn’t quite match the clean edge definition that was such a feature of the DLP presentation.
But what I could do was present A Bug’s Life and The Fan with such wide depth of colour and dynamic contrast that the focus was not an issue. When you have calibrated the grey scale and have true black, the visual image really ‘pops’ across all colours. And it is really something to have your viewing room go completely dark (see NEC 540 sidebar) when you need real black!
This effect remains impossible for digital projection (DLP and LCD) to match.
Another almost unique Cine 6 feature is the fan-free operation. Don’t underestimate the real difference a silent noise floor can have on home theatre.
I was very conscious of the perception of increased dynamic range in the soundtrack. When I was used to the sound dynamics approaching the noise level of my own projector’s fans, this kept on going and going and going further down to near silence - to the point where subtle detail that would normally be masked from a soundtrack (low level vocals from Dot on A Bug’s Life and the pen writing on the pad on The Shawshank Redemption parole interview scene) leapt out of the soundtrack.
Using the fan-free Cine 6 confirmed that a silent home theatre noise floor isn’t a nicety - it is a necessity!
So
to answer the question: Does the Cine 6 match the Cine 7? The simple answer
is no - but the difference between the two units is a very near thing.
At its price point the Cine 6 offers formidable performance, beaten by
the Cine 7 only by its superior resolution, higher light output and tighter
focus.
But in real world day-today viewing, you could be fooled into believing you are watching the Cine 7.
But then that’s what little brothers do. Put it down to sibling rivalry!
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