I recently purchased a Sanyo Z-60 and so far I am not happy.

Background:

My previous set-up was an Infocus 4805 with a Vutec SilverStar screen in a dedicated theater with total light control and flat dark grey walls. I loved my previous set-up! When I sold my house, the buyers wanted to buy my theater as-is, so now I am starting over again. I am currently in a rental house waiting for the bank to finalize the paperwork on our new house. I expect to be in the new place by June...

So I purchased a Z-60 for the rental house since it was inexpensive and offered good installation flexibility. I had planned on using it in my new theater as well until I could afford something better. I am projecting on a manual pull-down screen from draper with the standard white material. The room has white walls and I only watch at night (so light control is not an issue). The problem is the picture is almost unwatchable. The colors are way off, especially skin tones. I have tried all of the various modes and used my DVE disc as best I can. I looked at some of the review sites and tried their settings as well with little benefit. Now the white walls are throwing around quite a bit of reflected light; but I thought this would only affect contrast levels, not color accuracy. I can live with bad contrast until I finish my new theater, but the colors are driving me crazy!! Anyone have any ideas? Is the Sanyo just really bad out of the box and require professional calibration? My 4805 was just really good with almost no adjustment, very similar to my old Sony CRT (which I use as a reference). BTW, I am using an OPPO DV981 (my only source) via HDMI directly to the projector. Thanks for any help.

I have the Z5, the predecessor to the Z60. The Z5 is just fine out of the box with very good skin tones and all around decent color. The Z60 should be no different.

Have you tried another source? Are you using modes such as creative and brilliant cinema? If another source with those modes looks bad than the unit needs repair.

I have tried the all of the modes, and while the color changes, it still looks off. I am wondering how much of a difference the screen makes and how much it affects (if at all) color accuracy. Do the white walls affect the color. I just don't want to send the projector back if it is the other stuff messing up the picture.

I'm running the Z60/Oppo 981 combo also via HDMI. The screen is just a wall painted with behr's silver screen - setup in an upstairs bedroom. Using some settings found in the Z5 tweak thread, the picture looks pretty good. Colors/skin tone look life like. Last house had a Panny PT500 setup in the basement and the z60 projects just as nice (if not better) picture (especially when you consider it cost almost half of what I paid for the Panny 5 years ago).

Here is my experience with the same projector:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1111294&highlight=

I switched back to my Sony CRT and could not be happier. I upgraded to a box1040, hdfury, and a ps3 for bluray. WOW! that z60 is no comparison, it's like watching finger puppets compared to the CRT, well maybe not that big of a difference, but you get the point. :)