First off... long time reader, first time poster; many thanks to all the great info in the forums.

I need a bit of help deciding on my first projector. I've narrowed it down to the W500 and the Z60 (The Epson HC 720 is perfect but not available for a good price in Canada). The projector will be used in my basement so light control for movies is no problem, but I'd like some ambient light for general TV watching.

Usage will break down as follows; 70% movies, 20% SD TV, 10% HDTV. I see the BenQ is really strong because of HQV but I think the Z60 will shine when it comes to movies.

Will either of these be adequate with moderate/dimmed light in a basement?


Many Thanks!

Hi there,

If you buy the sanyo, keep me update because I might buy it in canada if get a good price (I plan on getting it from the US). I can't comment on the benq because I dont know it BUT I got a interesting offer from a store in quebec province, pretty good rebate + a free bulb if I remember correctly.

Well... are far as pricing is concerned;

BenQ W500 goes for about $940 and the Z60 for $1325 with a $100 rebate. I'm looking to buy between $1000-$1200 so these two seem to be the best in that price range.

(note all prices are CDN from CDN sources).

The only Benq I've had the pleasure to mess around with is the stepup W5000 so I can't offer any objective advice about the W500. OTOH I do have a Z60 and while it's a wonderful projector and I thoroughly enjoy it I don't truly feel it's designed for ambient light situations. In very moderate lighting situations on a 92" screen the picture is watchable but anything brighter than that or with a substantially larger screen I would find it to be unacceptable.

I have three zones of lighting in my basement, all at different distances from the screen and all on Lutron dimmers so this mockup should give you a basic idea of what to expect. The lighting is recessed, and I'm not sure off the top of my head if the bulbs are 40W or 60W halogens. Walls are dark in color but the ceiling tiles do give a small amount of reflection. Oh, and forgive my poor MS paint skills. I'm not exactly what you would call a graphic designer so this isn't exactly to scale and I did this on the fly. :D

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h204/nillaz/roommockup.jpg

thanks for the sketch,

I'm a bit worried too about the lumens...the projector would be mounted in my living room and there is plenty of windows. I dont plan on using it during daylight but still... (I have a crt TV for regular viewing),

thanks for the sketch,

I'm a bit worried too about the lumens...the projector would be mounted in my living room and there is plenty of windows. I dont plan on using it during daylight but still... (I have a crt TV for regular viewing),

I don't have windows in the basement but it is a walkout and there is a set of glass french doors at the back of the room (approx 20' from screen) going out to the patio. To give you a relative idea of what to expect brightness wise here are a couple pics. Please ignore color shift/slight blurring/crushed whites and blacks/etc as I took these with a crappy cell phone by hand (sorry no access to a decent camera and tripod). This is purely to give you an idea of what to expect from this pj with ambient light. Pics were taken from seating approx 9' from screen. Source is Iron Man Blu-Ray on PS3 connected via HDMI.

1st, total light control:

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h204/nillaz/1totallightcontrol.jpg

2nd, all lights off, blackout curtains open. At this time of day the sun is setting directly behind my house and shining straight in on the screen. Due to placement of windows in your room of course your mileage will vary:

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h204/nillaz/2lightsoffcurtainsopen.jpg

3rd, all lights on , curtains open full tilt. This is without a doubt the worst case scenario in my room and the pic reflects that. I would certainly never watch anything this way.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h204/nillaz/3alllightsoncurtainsopen.jpg

4th, 2nd row lights on, curtains closed:

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h204/nillaz/42ndrowlightson.jpg

Last, 3rd row lights on, curtains closed. Sorry about this one I also had the lights on at my bar to the right:

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h204/nillaz/53rdrowlightsbarlightson.jpg

Did you try this reviews?
here:
http://www.projectorreviews.com/benq/w500/proscons.php
http://www.projectorreviews.com/sanyo/plv-z60/proscons.php

It seems they favored the Z60 more then the benq. As a Z60 owner I am VERY pleased with its performence (I mainly watch HD material), my room is almost fully light controlled. if you have dark walls I am sure you will enjoy it even more.

The only Benq I've had the pleasure to mess around with is the stepup W5000 so I can't offer any objective advice about the W500. OTOH I do have a Z60 and while it's a wonderful projector and I thoroughly enjoy it I don't truly feel it's designed for ambient light situations. In very moderate lighting situations on a 92" screen the picture is watchable but anything brighter than that or with a substantially larger screen I would find it to be unacceptable.

I have three zones of lighting in my basement, all at different distances from the screen and all on Lutron dimmers so this mockup should give you a basic idea of what to expect. The lighting is recessed, and I'm not sure off the top of my head if the bulbs are 40W or 60W halogens. Walls are dark in color but the ceiling tiles do give a small amount of reflection. Oh, and forgive my poor MS paint skills. I'm not exactly what you would call a graphic designer so this isn't exactly to scale and I did this on the fly. :D

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h204/nillaz/roommockup.jpg

Thanks for the great sketch! My scenerio will be similar but slightly different proportions. ~92" screen, projector ~10' away, seating at 15'.

I realize for the best picture almost complete darkness is ideal, being in a basement this is very easy for me to do. However I don't want to be sitting in total darkness every time I watch the projector. Even 20W of light is more than enough for me, but I'm worried about it washing out the picture.

What sort of lighting works best with a PJ? I can have control over wall sconces, pot lights, and floor lamps. Would having a few pot lights dimmed work best as most of the light ouput will be towards the floor?

Nillaz, thanks for the screenshots.

The first picture is great, and the last will be adequate for most TV watching. How do you like the Z60 in general? Aside from possibly the lack of brightness, any other complaints, or praises which would be above and beyond other projectors in the same class (ie. why did you pick the Z60 over others).

Many many thanks!

Did you try this reviews?
here:
http://www.projectorreviews.com/benq/w500/proscons.php
http://www.projectorreviews.com/sanyo/plv-z60/proscons.php

It seems they favored the Z60 more then the benq. As a Z60 owner I am VERY pleased with its performence (I mainly watch HD material), my room is almost fully light controlled. if you have dark walls I am sure you will enjoy it even more.

Thanks for the links, I did read them while I was trying to narrow down my choices. It's nice to hear a positive review from people who actually own as Z60 as usually that's the ultimate test.

From everything that I've read, the Z60 is certainly a good projector, my reasoning for debating with the W500 is because it seems it's really strong with SD content. At the moment all of my viewing is either SD TV, and DVD. After getting the projector I'll include about 30-40% OTA HD, and/or Blu-ray. I'm not sure how great upconverting regular DVD will be from an HTPC, but it should certainly be better than watching DVD's normally on a TV (I think).

With these two models being very popular in the 720P lineup, I'm sure they're both strong contender's so I'll propbably be happy with either... just trying to go the extra mile and get the one that'll be a little bit better for me.:D

Please keep the comments coming, if I can't find a Epson HC 720 today, I'll be pulling the trigger on either the Z60 or W500 this weekend, can't wait!

are you still planning on buying canadian?

best canadian price I could get was near 1400$ Can

Best price I got from the US was 800$ US

(dont include money exchange,shipping, taxes, 100 postal rebate (rebate for the US might be hard to get with a canadian address)

also there is the sanyo warranty concerns (buyin from the us) but still...there is a significant differance $$$.

i'm still shoping...

Yup, Tigerdirect.ca has it for $1323, minus the $100 rebate brings it down some more. Ièm a little bit worried about buying something like this from the states, especially when it comes to shipping & duties etc.

you have a pretty good deal...

the problem is that I can't find it on tigerdirect website...I can't see the z60.

you have a pretty good deal...

the problem is that I can't find it on tigerdirect website...I can't see the z60.

Wierd, seems like they took it down. Yesterday there was only 1 left in stock, but they are getting more next week I think.

Problem is... still haven’t decided between the two yet!

I'm pretty much decided but I must wait a bit more...my personal funds right now are a bit too tight for my tastes.

sadly I cannot help you much on your decision, I'm mostly going for the z60 because of "practical" reason, My GF and I dont want a big white box with a extruding lens to be next the really dark green wall of the main living room of our new house.

Good luck and keep us updated....i'm really close of making the move (screen is allready install and my cables are all run in walls...)

Cool5abi,

Glad I could help out a bit. Any type of lighting can potentially work provided they're placed properly....prior to the recessed lighting I had wall sconces that I just wasn't satisfied with. The placement and the setup just made them wash out my screen no matter what I did. I personally like ceiling pots as they're fairly easy to install, they're completely out of the way, and they are fairly directional. As you mentioned they obviously point downward. Being forward thinking I put each set of lights on a Lutron dimmer so I can independently control them from my remote. This gives me the perfect lighting solution in my room no matter what's going on. I use basic 6" fixtures with black baffles, but there are plenty of "eyeball" fixtures out there that can be pointed any direction you like (i.e. directly away from the screen). You won't have too many issues with screen washout as long as you keep the light source away from the screen. The farther away the better.

Originally I never intended to be using the Z60 to watch movies. I play a lot of video games and for a long time I had a two projector setup, one low cost 720P projector for video games and 1 1080P projector for movies hooked up via a powered HDMI splitter. I chose the Z60 mainly because it has qualifications that make it ideal for gaming, such as an extremely fast processor, respectable image quality for a projector in this price range, 3 yr warranty, and user cleanable panels. Prior to the Z60 I was using an Optoma DLP for gaming.

Unfortunately, I was forced to sell my 1080P SXRD a couple weeks ago. The recession finally caught up to me and I needed the cash for emergency home repairs (damn roof....). I thought I was going to be dissatisfied with watching movies on the Sanyo but that is turning out not to be the case. I'm not saying the picture is as good as my Sony (it's not) but so far it's been better than acceptable. Color fidelity on the Sanyo is very good (especially after a bit of tweaking) and luckily I got a unit with very good convergence and very little chromatic aberration. Black level isn't [I]quite[I] as dark as I'm used to but OTOH shadow detail is excellent. Frankly my biggest complaint about it is using my HTPC on it. Windows just looks a little off to my eyes, but then again I haven't really tweaked the PC for this projector yet so I may be able to get it to be more acceptable.

To be honest the Z500 never even made my short list. Benq has always been known for their high quality optics but they deal with DLP primarily. This was Benq's first attempt at an LCD projector and I wanted to go with a manufacturer with a little more experience with the technology. Most of the other major manufacturers had at least one unit I was considering and probably would have been satisfactory but the Z60 just seemed like the best all around projector for my needs at the time.

BTW regarding the brightness, with a 10' throw on a 92" screen you should have no issues whatsoever, even with a basic 1.0 gain screen and after breaking in the bulb. When I stated my opinion about the Z60 not being designed for ambient light conditions I was thinking of the typical living room/family room where light control can be a PITA such as Roxy described. If he truly only plans to watch it at night than life is good, but those of us in a basement with some form of light control have a bit more flexibility. :D

Thanks to all the posts in this thread, I've decided on getting the Z60 and placed the order on Monday (backordered until next week). Many thanks to Nillaz, Roxy, and wolverin for taking the time out to respond and give me the valuable advice I was looking for.

Nillaz, I'm going to take all your lighting and tweaking advice and see how everything looks. I'll be posting back to let everyone know how things went, hopefully it'll all be setup by next weekend!

can you tell me where you are ordering it and the best price you could find?

Good chance I am ordering mine before end of month

I ordered it from Tigerdirect (.ca). They had the best price locally at ~$1323, but they were out of stock when I bought it. 5 units should be coming in tomorrow and chances are I'll get mine next week.

You might want to call them and ask for item S680-1056. BTW, there is also a $100 rebate floating around if you buy before March 31st.

Hope this helps!

Thanks to all the posts in this thread, I've decided on getting the Z60 and placed the order on Monday (backordered until next week). Many thanks to Nillaz, Roxy, and wolverin for taking the time out to respond and give me the valuable advice I was looking for.

Nillaz, I'm going to take all your lighting and tweaking advice and see how everything looks. I'll be posting back to let everyone know how things went, hopefully it'll all be setup by next weekend!

My pleasure, looking forward to hearing how it works out for you.

I ordered it from Tigerdirect (.ca). They had the best price locally at ~$1323, but they were out of stock when I bought it. 5 units should be coming in tomorrow and chances are I'll get mine next week.

You might want to call them and ask for item S680-1056. BTW, there is also a $100 rebate floating around if you buy before March 31st.

Hope this helps!



that's weird, I sent them a email last week and they told me the dont have the z60 for sale.

I will get back to them with the item number, thanks and keep us updated on how everything is going with your projector

that's weird, I sent them a email last week and they told me the dont have the z60 for sale.

I will get back to them with the item number, thanks and keep us updated on how everything is going with your projector

Hmm, let me know if you have any problems. I have a corporate account with them and might be able to pull a few strings.

I just bought a refurbished Q 500 for $ 499$ delivered on Ebay .3 month warranty. If i get hooked, I will get somethig better soon.