The BNC connectors on the back of the Optoma will accept VGA right?
right (and the linked cable is right as well).
Do you have any tips for best settings and the like? I have downloaded the manual and read it but the part about advanced edge enhancement, colour correction and gamma user configuration was very confusing to me. Is that even something i should be messing with?
most of the settings you won't need. The HD3000 was designed to play nice with a series of Optoma projectors which basically had no settings on board. If you're happy with your TV right now, you don't need the color or gamma settings. Those are intended to correct flaws on your TV set. The Edge Enhancement setting is nice, but you'll need good test pattern to see it work. Especially since you have a standard sharpness setting as well.
What is the deal about Colour temp? My tv has this setting as well, but i have always kept it at normal setting.
Given your TV is set correctly, you leave it on standard on the HD3000. Neutral is too cold by the way. On the Sony sets neutral is about 8000°K. Warm 2 is about 6250°K. 6500° is the target. I use Warm1 with an added red push to get as close to the 6500° mark. If your used to colder settings you'll find this quite reddish.
How would i know what to choose? A warmer setting makes the picture more reddish and a colder setting makes it blueish. When i'm unsure about stuff like that i always keep it at a neutral setting.
Basically display a grey scale pattern or turn "the knob" until all color is gone from the picture.
I'm not into the whole ISF-correct-calibrating thing, and my tv is only calibrated by the THX optimiser in a Star Wars DVD. If i were to get a real calibration dvd which one would be of most use for me?
If you have a BD player get the Video Essentials Blu-Ray, if you're DVD only, I like the Avia for the included tutorial.
I don't watch that many movies on my tv, videogames is my no. 1 priority.
then don't worry. I bet 99% of all games are created on completely un- or wrong calibrated displays, so do what you like.
I read that the Optoma uses different settings for each input which must be a good thing? I was wondering if there are a series of pictures that could be used for calibrating colors and sharpness (well sort of like the still screens in the THX optimiser come to think of it) that can be downloaded legally, and uses in picture viewing software on Dreamcast and Saturn* to get the best calibrated colours on the DC input and the XRGB3 input (where the Saturn is connected).
much too low resolution on those players. Even a test DVD has little resolution to make a HD-based sharpness setting work correctly.
If you want to get into calibration, you could also have a look at this test DVD from a AVS member ($25):
http://www.calibrate.tv/ . There's a LONG AVS thread on the usage of the disc (google AVS calibration DVD).
(a post Fubarduck made: "And, most importantly, there is no lag in this mode. However, you lose pretty much all of the XRGB-3's unique features in this mode; screen capture, PIP, DVI Output etc. are all unusable." Guy was mistaken, or I'm reading it wrong?)
Can you tell what's the basic difference between the PCinP and the WINinP mode ? Maybe there's difference concerning the overlay in these two. Pages 52/53 of the manual demonstrate both modes side by side...
