Home Theater Hacks

Hack #83. Build a Lens Hood for Your RPTV

In the unending quest to remove any interior light from your RPTV, a lens hood can provide a fairly easy approach to getting the best picture possible from those CRTs.

One the easiest ways to have inferior picture on a rear-projection television is simply to take it out of the box and turn it on. These televisions—even when bought from high-end boutique stores [Hack #4] —are set up at the factory (and the showroom) to appear bright and showy [Hack #9]. That's not the key to a great viewing experience in your home theater, though.

In Chapter 8, you learned about getting rid of lens flare [Hack #71] . That's important, but involves a lot of work, including some pretty intense work on the CRTs and glass lenses, which is dangerous if you're unsure of yourself. For those of you a little intimidated—or just more enamored with wood, nails, and the DIY approach—there's an easy way to get 80% of the lens flare in your TV eliminated, with a lot less work.

Taking the Last Part First

Realize first that lens flare, and almost all artifacts that are generated within your set, result from light bouncing around and reflecting and refracting where it ought not. Since the basis of your picture is light, reflected off of a mirror, this might seem impossible to correct. However, you can work on eliminating light from reflecting and getting back into the lens system. In other words, you just want to allow light from the lenses, to the mirror, and ...