I currently own an Espon 6500UB (bought here from AVS) and for Blu Rays and movies I love it and wouldn't want another.
However the vast majority of what I watch is HDTV sports, and I want something with FI - I like the effect in general (except for Special Effects laden movies) but especially love it with HDTV sports. And that is the one area that the 6500UB comes up short - the FI (note I haven't yet tried the latest firmware upgrade - I plan to do that next week, though from what I heard, I'm skeptical as to how much it'll help)
Anyway, what proj (in similar price class) woudl you suggest and why
noting that I need something bright- as I project onto a 120" 1.4 gain (Carada) 2.35 screen (no ana lens - just zooming)

This will be interesting. I haven't done much research yet but also watch a lot of HDTV and sporting events and was thinking of getting the Epson 6500. Wonder what PJ will be recommended.

--JK

Something with FI is the limiting factor....there aren't many. The Panny AE3000, Sony VW200, VW80 (from Australia), and only a few others currnetly have it. FI can be helpful, but have you considered DLP? Though I would highly recommend seeing one first, they are MUCH better for fast motion, such as sports.

Something with FI is the limiting factor....there aren't many. The Panny AE3000, Sony VW200, VW80 (from Australia), and only a few others currnetly have it. FI can be helpful, but have you considered DLP? Though I would highly recommend seeing one first, they are MUCH better for fast motion, such as sports.

Not to hijack but.....I'll be calling you soon Jason. Settlement is June 11 and I will be ready for my PJ very soon!

--JK

There's really nothing out there that's super bright with FI (unless you want to go for a boutique $20K+ pj). You might try a DLP like the InFocus IN83 as it doesn't suffer from motion lag and its as bright as the sun. Otherwise, buy a Panasonic AE3000 and use a CC lens with the Dynamic mode, it can squeeze out 1500 lumens. Otherwise, wait 6 months for the new Epson which should have the FI fixed (and hopefully a better looking case).

I'm coming from a Panny pt ax200u and a darker room. I'd like to stay under 4K. Now I have a larger room with less light control but want to step up to 1080.

--JK
126" Carada screen in BW

There's really nothing out there that's super bright with FI (unless you want to go for a boutique $20K+ pj). You might try a DLP like the InFocus IN83 as it doesn't suffer from motion lag and its as bright as the sun. Otherwise, buy a Panasonic AE3000 and use a CC lens with the Dynamic mode, it can squeeze out 1500 lumens. Otherwise, wait 6 months for the new Epson which should have the FI fixed (and hopefully a better looking case).

Does the IN83 have FI?
The VW200 is out of my price range (heck the bulb is almost out of my range)
the VW80 is also gonna outprice me (though at least there's hope of finding a great deal on one)
Sounds like the AE3000u is the option. Has anyone seen it do high def sports?
And/or is anyone in the NY/NJ/Conn metro area with a AE3000u they can demo.

thanks

what issues are you seeing with FI on HDTV?

Just curious...

Not to hijack but.....I'll be calling you soon Jason. Settlement is June 11 and I will be ready for my PJ very soon!

--JK

I'll look forward to talking with you!

Try the latest FI firmware update. Art of Projector Reviews just posted his opinion in the blog section and he is very happy with his testing so far.

thanks, I just posted on his blog asking him to test the new firmware with HDTV sports.

Try the latest FI firmware update. Art of Projector Reviews just posted his opinion in the blog section and he is very happy with his testing so far.

I just read his blog, but I don't agree 100% with him. "Normal" IMO still has that soap opera look with movies; however, it works very well with animation and live concerts. I'm still seeing some artifacts with "normal", but the positives far outweigh the negatives, at least for me. "Low" works the best at retaining the "film look" and smoothing out the image. "Low" mode, I suspect, is the one most here will use for live action "film" movies. "High" is apparently for gaming, but I tried it for animation and it has similar artifacts as "normal" with live action movies and animation. Personally I think this technology will get better and we'll probably have more upgrades to the FI over the next few months. I feel "low" doesn't need much improvement, but it would nice to see the last few wrinkles with "normal"and "high" addressed. I am now very impressed with the overall performance of my 7500UB.

I'm most surprised how the 6500 doesn't excel in hdtv sports. Not that I own one but am getting ready to pull the trigger and assumed the 6500 was the PJ to beat.

--JK

I'm most surprised how the 6500 doesn't excel in hdtv sports. Not that I own one but am getting ready to pull the trigger and assumed the 6500 was the PJ to beat.

--JK

Don't take my post wrong the projector is incredible adn PQ to pnotch.
but for some reason BluRays looks tons better than HDTV (more than to be expected)
I'm thinking it's more to do with my settings or something, b/c as I've adjusted things it has made a big difference (I'll post more on that soon).
So I think (hope) that this is just a matter of ginding the right settings for my set up.

Don't take my post wrong the projector is incredible adn PQ to pnotch.
but for some reason BluRays looks tons better than HDTV (more than to be expected)
I'm thinking it's more to do with my settings or something, b/c as I've adjusted things it has made a big difference (I'll post more on that soon).
So I think (hope) that this is just a matter of ginding the right settings for my set up.

absolutely!

Calibrate!!! :D

It's not a matter of calibration though.
the problem is that when there's movement you see lots of jaggies, and the players appear as if on a video game
I've turned off FI -and 4x4 pull down- same thing (though less so)
I found that changeing the setting on Espon Ultra white or whatever it's called - helped alot with this - though the image is somewhat overexposed/washed out now - but at least it's watchable

when I watch on my 22" LCD it looks great w/ no problems

It's not a matter of calibration though.
the problem is that when there's movement you see lots of jaggies, and the players appear as if on a video game
I've turned off FI -and 4x4 pull down- same thing (though less so)
I found that changeing the setting on Espon Ultra white or whatever it's called - helped alot with this - though the image is somewhat overexposed/washed out now - but at least it's watchable

when I watch on my 22" LCD it looks great w/ no problems

You have tried FI on LOW?

4:4 should absolutely be off for TV...

cgott42, glad you brought this point up.. I to watch alot of pro football on sunday and if there is alot of motion blur I might have to rethink on getting a projector over a plasma..

cgott42, glad you brought this point up.. I to watch alot of pro football on sunday and if there is alot of motion blur I might have to rethink on getting a projector over a plasma..

honestly...i have not seen much motion blur with FI LOW...

It looks great...

I have seen both this PJ and many LCD/PLasma TVs

Would the panny 3000ae be a better fit for this type of viewing?

--JK

FYI I have a 1 1/2 year old 15' HDMI cable from monoprice.

You do really need to install the Firmware 1.09 and FI update as it makes a substantial improvement to FI performance. It's FI performance is probably in the ballpark of the Panasonic AE3000 with the update. Art at projectorreviews.com (http://www.projectorreviews.com/blog/)should have a direct comparison of the FI performance between the Epson and Panasonic posted on his blog within a few days. I have been running my 6500UB with FI set to Low since updating he firmware and have found that HDTV shows (such as Lost, 24, Medium, etc.) look quite good as does the couple of BDs that I have watched. Art in his initial blog report (link above) was using the Normal setting and reported it worked well with the program material he tried.

I'm most surprised how the 6500 doesn't excel in hdtv sports. Not that I own one but am getting ready to pull the trigger and assumed the 6500 was the PJ to beat.

--JK

I've been watching the NBA playoffs on mine, and I thought it was fantastic.

I've been watching the NBA playoffs on mine, and I thought it was fantastic.

Great to hear- what are your settings? Also what do you have as a source? cable? A/V receiver?
Do you have FI on? Have you updated to the new firmware?

thanks!

I hope you get the issue resolved. I just seem to find too many positive reviews when the most recent firmware is installed, etc. It is still down to the ae3000 and the ub6500 for me. Probably be purchasing within the next 6 weeks...or tomorrow, I never know!

--JK

me too
:-)

Is there a web page/post that details how to upgrade to the new firmware, or do I need to call Epson?

Also, does someone have the 6500UB with a PS3 hooked up to it, that I can send a few seconds clip of the HDTV sports to them to play on their setup and let me know how it looks for them.

Check the firmware thread for the 6500/7500

I watched the Quantum of Solace tonight and everything looked great. Even the super fast action scenes had no problem (though they were so fast, that you'd never be able to tell anyway :-) )
Then I replayed the Magic- Celtics game and same thing. when the action stops, it looks stunning, however once things are moving it's video game time.

What I did find out tonight - is that when I hit pause during the basketball game during live action, things are REALLY terrible (for some reason the problem was more pronounced on the Celtics (white) than the Magic (blue) but both were bad - it was worse than just seing jaggies, the entire player was broken apart - "blocky" would be an understatement - somewhere between 480i and some encoding where they distort part of the image by making it look blocky.
Also, if I shut off "super white" it helps a little, but still not right.
Again, all of this is FI - off.

I am not sure who your HDTV provider is but could the problem be with the provider and not the projector? I have had Time Warner (had) and Dish Network (now). For me the HDTV picture is great when it is a static image but when watching sports and fast moving shots I can see blocking and artifacts. These are a product of the providers lack of bandwidth and the compression. I have a 22 (LCD), 26 (LCD), 42 (Plasma), 50 (Plasma) and 110 (Projection) the larger the screen is the more visible the artifacts are. Heck I can tell the diference between the 42 and 50 which are the same exact models aside from the size difference. It just goes back to the saying garbage in garbage out. If the picture from Blu-Ray, DVDs, HTPC look good and your HDTV doesn't I would look at the issue being with the HDTV transmission rather than the projector.

I currently have a 6500 UB and had a 1080 UB before this. The 6500 UB throws a better picture than the 1080 UB did, even HDTV.

Good point. Can someone direct me (or email to me) a clip of sports (fast moving) taped in HDTV.

Actually I just found a video of the Olympics in HDTV which was recorded (a) via the pinnacle HDTV recorder usb thingy and via Cablevision HD feed - and played it on the PS3 and the same problem.
BTW: I currently have Verizon FIOS HD - which seems to be good service - so it doesn't seem to be the feed nor the PVR used.
There seeems to be something wrong between the PS3, 6500UB,or perhaps cable in between.
Before I go out and buy new cables (though as I mentioned I have a monoprice cable)
Can someone -give me their PS3 and Epson 6500UB settings.
Or another suggestion.

A HDMI 9 feet cable for testing is like 20-25$...

Don't you think that is the cheapest and quickest way to confirm if your existing cable is doing this?

I watched the Quantum of Solace tonight and everything looked great. Even the super fast action scenes had no problem (though they were so fast, that you'd never be able to tell anyway :-) )
Then I replayed the Magic- Celtics game and same thing. when the action stops, it looks stunning, however once things are moving it's video game time.

What I did find out tonight - is that when I hit pause during the basketball game during live action, things are REALLY terrible (for some reason the problem was more pronounced on the Celtics (white) than the Magic (blue) but both were bad - it was worse than just seing jaggies, the entire player was broken apart - "blocky" would be an understatement - somewhere between 480i and some encoding where they distort part of the image by making it look blocky.
Also, if I shut off "super white" it helps a little, but still not right.
Again, all of this is FI - off.

Actually I just found a video of the Olympics in HDTV which was recorded (a) via the pinnacle HDTV recorder usb thingy and via Cablevision HD feed - and played it on the PS3 and the same problem.
BTW: I currently have Verizon FIOS HD - which seems to be good service - so it doesn't seem to be the feed nor the PVR used.
There seeems to be something wrong between the PS3, 6500UB,or perhaps cable in between.
Before I go out and buy new cables (though as I mentioned I have a monoprice cable)
Can someone -give me their PS3 and Epson 6500UB settings.
Or another suggestion.

From your two posts, quoted above, I would concluded that BD movies are displayed just fine (ie., Quantum of Solace), I assume with the PS3 outputting 1080p/24 into the 6500UB. For your observation with a paused image from the basketball game looking very pixelized (blocks), this is an issue with the source and indicates the video was not encoded using a high enough bit rate. Either the station or your cable company is running too low a bit rate to keep up with fast motion. You didn't say where or how you were getting the basketball game video to the projector. If you used a PC to capture it that involved some recompression of the video that could be the cause instead. Not too much you can do when the source is already bad, but if your try turning on Creative Frame Interpolation on the 6500U set to Low or Normal using the new 1.09 firmware this may help a little. If there really is a problem between the PS3 and 6500UB I would do as previously suggested and try a direct connection with another HDMI cable as the first step to isolate the problem. Locally you should be able to pick up a 9 or 10 ft. HDMI cable at Costco, Sams or Walmart for under $20 or order one from monoprice for under $10.

I finally got around to testing on my LCD more thoroughly - for comparison.
Definately night and day, I really squinted at the LCD to make out any blockying and the picture was solid - it looks kinda awesomeas you'd expect it to.
Moreso - even after pausing action shots - the frame is solid and the player doesn't turn into a blur.

So I'm sure it's not the source material (which is Verizon FIOS HD taped on a HD-PVR at the max bit rate)
So it's looking moreso like the cable. I'm gonna test it on another cable and see what happens.

I changed the settings on the PS3 and it made a noticeble difference. I'm not sure what all of the settings mean, but basically I shut the all off.
Now the pictue looks normal - though not as high quality as it does on the LCD, but at least it looks like a normal picture and not a blocky video game,
I've also ordered another cable and will see what that does.

Can someone with the Epson and the PS3 tell me what their settings are for HDTV (sports) and what for BluRay
BOTH on the PS3 as well as well the Espn settings - not talking about calibration, just the basic stuff.
I'll put up a separate post with the proper title, but wanted to let you know where this is at