Originally posted by beocop
Why dont' you ask Projectorpeople to open a box, turn it on during the day and leave it on standby mode overnight. That should duplicate the VB problem and they'll see exactly what we see.

Good idea - I sent them your idea just now.

Would you like coffee with that request?

Originally posted by cpc
Yep. Its the infamous "peak-a-boo scanlines", a vertical motion artifact

:)

I was beginning to wonder if I needed to have my eyes examined as I was not seeing the 'issues' others were on here. While not a perfect projector, it is a great value for the money. After seeing a friend's Infocus 4805, I am convinced I made the right decision. I thought I was going to have to tolerate rainbows in order to get a good picture. Now I am not so sure there is that much of a difference in image quality between DLP and LCD. I have not seen a native 720p DLP projector in action, but they are so far out of my price range it wouldn't matter if they did throw a better picture.

Now if I could just figure out which screen to buy with this projector. It is more than bright enough on low lamp for me in my light controlled basement. As more people get this projector it will be interesting to see which screens they use, and why.

Hi guys,
Mount the pj to ceiling yesterday night. However, I find that the lower right corner (when I ceiling mount) is a little bit more red than the other side of the screen. Is it the problem of my own machine or is it the problem for all lcd pj? Any suggestion to fix this?

Originally posted by yipchunyu
Hi guys,
Mount the pj to ceiling yesterday night. However, I find that the lower right corner (when I ceiling mount) is a little bit more red than the other side of the screen. Is it the problem of my own machine or is it the problem for all lcd pj? Any suggestion to fix this?
Was this color uniformity (or brightness uniformity) issue present prior to ceiling mounting it?

Originally posted by TheFerret
Was this color uniformity (or brightness uniformity) issue present prior to ceiling mounting it?
I can remember well. However, after I mount the 81EF filter, the color uniformilty problem become more obvious. (i unmount the filter and still here but the filter increase the contrast and make it more obvious)

Originally posted by HMenke
This was very polite - and I have decided to give up the stuff! :) You are right, others have pointed out that what I called "Dynamic SDE" is actually a vertical scan line artifact. I am running 480p component out of my DVD player. Do you think I might get some improvement with 480i by letting the PJ handling the doubling/scaling duties?

Unfortunately no, the scanline artifact is a property of the panel, not the scaling or input. The flicker tweak was originally discovered to reduce this artifact and has a secondary result of reducing VB. When your PJ is warmed up (about 30 min.) you should be able to eliminate this using the flicker tweak.

Originally posted by yipchunyu
I can remember well. However, after I mount the 81EF filter, the color uniformilty problem become more obvious. (i unmount the filter and still here but the filter increase the contrast and make it more obvious) When you added the 81EF filter did you adjust the green and blue? Do you have an Avia disk?

Originally posted by TheFerret
When you added the 81EF filter did you adjust the green and blue? Do you have an Avia disk?

I don't get an Avia disk, I use a japanese published disk HiVi Cast.
The red color is unbalanced in the lower right corner. And I guess it's somekind of color / brightness uniformity error. I can adjust the green and blue only part of the screen?

I don't own a projector yet but I have some questions regarding the VB many of the 700 owners have written about. Many of the cases seem to involve leaving the unit in standby, but could there be other reasons?

Does the the type of cables (component vs. HDMI) influence the amount of VB?

Would the length of the cable influence the amount of VB?

Would the quality of the cables influence the amount of VB?

My recollection is that most of the reports of VB come from DVD players and not HD material. Does the quality of the material influence the amount of VB?

Would the type of screen influence the amount of VB?

Finally, would the type of DVD player influence VB?

Have I asked too many questions?

Lonnie

I'll come clean from the get go and tell you I am new to projectors and we did sit there several times and mumbled.....Wow! So if you're new too this will give you some impressions on this pj....if you're a seasoned pj user looking for measurements, stats and techno-mumbo-jumbo....Wow! By the way, those of us who are new to all of this appreciate you more knowledgeable guys tons....your comments and tenacity toward evaluating this stuff helps us immeasurable...thanks.

My set up is an office that we've turned into a family room (12 x14) with the pj at one end of the 14' dimension and the screen (Da-lite Contour Electrol Electric with High Power) at the other (I'm new at this stuff but figured that one out all by myself :p) We have very good ambient light control with all windows covered, walls dark but the ceiling is off white which probably does reflect back some onto the screen. (Hey, for all you guys worried about the ambient light throw off by a miniscule light on some home theater equipment...what about this pj....looks very pretty but the face of it is almost like a mirror...LOL). The pj sits upon a shelf mounted almost perfectly at center of the screen both horizontally and vertically. My other HT equipment sits on these shelves too (2 shelves 15" x 6'). I'm using a Monster HD 1m (3.3') component cable. I have also purchased the HD Tivo 10-250 but the cable guys don't come until tomorrow to run the two feeds into it. I'm going with the HDMI from the tivo into the pj using the hdmi cable that came with the tivo (haven't a clue if it's a good cable or not....it's black :confused:

I did not need to use the shift lever adjustment hardly at all as the projected image was all but centered on the screen. Used a little bit of zoom ring adjustment to fit the image to the screen as it was a slight bit larger than my 92" diagonal screen out of the box. The pj sits about 11' from the screen which is right on the 1.5 target for viewing this size screen. We sit directly beneath the shelves and the pj is above our heads by about 2'.

I have not tweaked anything and for our first evening watched right out of the box. So all settings are default...or that's what I assume unless some Panny guy changed something before shipping.

BY THE WAY....my vote would be for a AE700 tweaks thread. I'm reading several comments about adjustments and tweaks guys have tried and it's a pain in the butt trying to find those in this "don't start another thread" novel that has compiled over the past several months. Hey AVS...how about it? :D

FYI: We've been watching HDTV on a Panasonic 34x50 tube for the past 4 years...both OTA and Dirctv. And of course DVDs on a Sony NS999ES DVD/SACD player.

Here are my initial impressions:

1. Wow!

2. Color and Contrast: Unless I inadvertently touched something I believe my pj was set to "dynamic" out of the box and though I felt it was nice and bright the colors seemed off. So I found the little button to change the picture and went with Cinema 1 for our movie...that seemed the best to us, though the Cinema 2 seemed good too. Cinema 1 had movie like colors and was plenty bright and the contrast was good too.

3. Screen Door: I've seen the extended Def plasmas up close so I know what it is....none seen on this Panny pj. I did noticed the vertical scan line artifact people have been talking about. It would be nice to have a tweak for that but it does not take away from the viewing experience for me...just something I've never seen on our HD tube...but hey, nice trade off for a screen that TAKES UP MOST OF THE WALL IN OUR FREAKING FAMILY ROOM! :D

4. Other artifacts: I've noticed what to me looks like compression artifact (inherent in the DVD ?) I've never seen before, maybe now showing up on an image of this size. I watched portions of Jurassic Park and the scene where they ride out and see their first dino munching on a tall tree showed this when the camera pans back and the dino looks great, but the people are much smaller (duh!) and this compression artifact is around their heads. It's similiar to what you can see in some of the menus too....the photos are not sharp but have that compressed look. Is this, as I assume, not a pj problem but a source problem? Will an up converting dvd player solve it? I did not seem to notice it on other DVDs as much (Disney's Dinosaur, the movie we watched last night Twisted, a Doobie Brothers Live DVD (got to get it if you like these guys, it's awesome), Star Wars Episode IV. It seemed mostly to show up on the Jurassic Park DVD. Anyone else seeing this on other DVDs?

5. VB: I've not seen any at all, but not real sure what to look for (Yeah, yeah...I've read the descriptions, but none of that on my pj so far.) I did turn off the unit using the "on-off" switch in the back of the pj....just in case. I was worried that after reading all of these techno-fine-tooth-comb posts that I'd be sitting there with Olympic Judge cards evaluating the pj rather than just enjoying the movie..."VB 10...SDE...10...dynamic mode 5.....vertical scan line artifact 6". However, I really got drawn into the movie by the mere enormity of the screen size. We felt like we were in a movie theater without the guy sitting in front of you who leans back suddenly in his chair crushing your foot or the woman munching on "You're Supposed To Suck Them Not Chew Them" candies. At one point my wife leaned over and said "Size does matter"....which was a bit of a distraction....but moving right along.

6. Fan Noise: Sitting directly below the pj we do hear it, but it's just a mild sound you can only hear in very quiet parts of the movie. As I mentioned, I did not change anything (I did make sure it was set to "table") so the fan settings are right out of the box. Maybe the higher setting would be too much, I'll try that tonight and follow up.

7. SD & HD TV: only viewed DVDs. I will check that out Friday night and follow up.

8. WoW!

Again, not a techno review (could you tell?) but intended to help those newbies considering their first pj. I'd say "go for it". I love this thing and look forward to gleaning all I can from those more informed guys on this forum to tweak the guts out of this thing so I can get the best pq possible.

Bob

Originally posted by yipchunyu
I don't get an Avia disk, I use a japanese published disk HiVi Cast.
The red color is unbalanced in the lower right corner. And I guess it's somekind of color / brightness uniformity error. I can adjust the green and blue only part of the screen?
I would ask your dealer to either replace the unit, or ask the dealer/manufacturer to address the issue of weak uniformity. I do not think there is any means to self-correct (user) this condition.

I said before I don't mind an official tweaks thread, but I'm not going to police the content for anything beyond pricing posts. So if it gets out of hand with questions, beat on each other ;)

And with that said: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=465849

Thanks Madpoet! We'll be good :)

Bob

OK.
I didn’t want to post late last night about eliminating VB on my 700 for two reasons. 1) I was too tired - and, 2) I wanted to be certain VB hadn’t returned in the morning after leaving the 700 in stand-by all night.

The best way I’ve found to reduce (by at least 85%- 90%) VB is to send an interlaced signal to the 700 (I’m using a Sony 9000) and let the 700 handle the de-interlacing/conversion. I tried this with the 500 a few months back - and no luck. VB was the same on the 500 no matter what signal I sent (progressive, interlaced, composite, DVI)

I tell you it looks weird to see the U-571 underwater scenes with no banding! You would have to look very very hard to see any. With a progressive signal I could actually count the individual bars. Now everything looked very smooth. Vast improvement. When I switched (by remote) back to progressive - the banding returned! This was too simple. Next I plopped in AOTC (large ship landing in fog) and presto. Much improved. There is still FPN in the scene - but no banding. Next I played the foggy scenes from Pirates and Master. No problem. Next up the Tatoonie desert scene from Star Wars. Shockingly enough - it looked great too! This scene is an LCD killer if there ever was one. The Das Boot - underwater scenes looked fine as well (although a week transfer). So - I turned power off at the remote. I had previously been “hard” powering the unit off at the switch on the projector as had been suggested by many here to help with VB (which in my case didn’t work). I went to bed.

I woke up at 3:50 am (why sleep?) and couldn’t wait to go down and see if the VB was still reduced. I powered up the 700 with the remote - put on U-571 - and was met with the worst “streaking” I’ve ever seen. No VB mind you - which is great - but now I have streaking. Kind of looked like a severe case of FPN. But much worse. The screen looked streaked from side to side. Everything. Sky scenes (ch 13), underwater scenes (ch 15) Even the exploding waves rising up from the ocean were streaked. My heart sank. I let the projector warm up for about 20 minutes. Went back in to in to re-check ...and thankfully the streaking was gone. Everything looked great once again (Whew!). The projector evidently needed to warm up (although I never noticed streaking before when it was cold...?). I turned off the 700 at the main switch this time. When I go home this afternoon I’ll see if the streaking (FPN?) Is back. Or if turning off the main power switch at the projector somehow prevents it. Maybe feeding an interlaced signal in conjunction with hard powering off the unit, and maybe in conjunction with letting the unit warm up for 20 minutes is the key (at least in my case) to reducing VB. (Geeeze)

Couple things:

I did notice a bit of line twitter (combing artifacts) in the interlaced mode(vs. Progressive) but I’ll take that any day over VB.

For me - adjusting the flicker tweak (after 30 minute warm up) did nothing. My 700 arrived with all values at 29. This seemed perfect. I would adjust them - but kept going back to the original factory set values.

I’m receiving my DVI/HDMI cable today and will test my Momitsu with the 700 tonight to see what results I get. No telling.

Weird stuff.

John, you may be onto something. I also feed my 700 a component, interlaced signal from a old Sony 5 disc changer and I have not see VB. I have done a hard power off after each viewing using the switch on my surge protector. Maybe the combination of the two has prevented me from experiencing what others have seen. If I were more brave, I would leave mine in standby and see what happens.

As a side note, is there any correlation between the number of times you power the lamp on and off (allowing for the cool down period of course) and the bulb life? I am just wondering if my lamp life will be adversly affected by only watching an hour or so, shutting down, and then restarting the project again later in the day.

The first notice of this was on the playstation 2. I have indicated this in the tweaks thread.

ianken,

I have seen combing between scene transitions. This is in fact caused by poor de-interlacing and I doubt very much that it is being confused with peak-a-boo's. They look quite different.

.....

Interesting reports on the AE700 overall.

I'd say the major concerns remain:

1) Vertical Banding
2) Peak-a-boo's
3) Colour uniformity
4) Sharpness

Reading these posts isn't giving me a thoroughly conclusive feel for what to expect, but it doesn't seem as though there is an epidemic of any one problem. I guess you don't know until you buy one yourself.

Personally I don't like the idea of using an interlaced signal to cure VB. I'd much prefer progressive from a good de-interlacer. I haven't seen the 700's de-interlacer, so I guess it all depends, but I still figure I'd prefer Silicon Image or Faroudja de-interlacing.

So a lot of you are using low lamp mode.
I thought that early on in this thread someone said that in low lamp, the dynamic iris was functional, but the "AI" lamp function was not, but in high lamp mode, both were functional. Is that true or was it bad information? I thought the idea was that both together would give more CR.
I'm assuming you guys have not noticed any appreciable degradation of perceived CR when in low-lamp mode?
Thanks, Greg

Originally posted by bakpakva
As a side note, is there any correlation between the number of times you power the lamp on and off (allowing for the cool down period of course) and the bulb life? I am just wondering if my lamp life will be adversly affected by only watching an hour or so, shutting down, and then restarting the project again later in the day.

Yes, the number of power cycles on the bulb correlates to its lifespan. This is actually in the user's manual. Although I don't think there is any difference (as far as bulb life goes) between "power off" and "standby" as the bulb probably receives no juice in either state.

Poncho

Count me in on a power buy for the 700... with one caveat. I'll be attending the CES (Consumer Electronic Show) in Vegas in Jan.
I don't want to commit on a pj until I see all of the upcoming marvels at the show.
If I see only an incremental improvements in pj's, then it's a 700. But if there's a gotta have pj just around the corner, then I'll wait a month or two.

Originally posted by cpc

Personally I don't like the idea of using an interlaced signal to cure VB. I'd much prefer progressive from a good de-interlacer. I haven't seen the 700's de-interlacer, so I guess it all depends, but I still figure I'd prefer Silicon Image or Faroudja de-interlacing.

If a cause of VB can be attributed (somewhat) to DVD progressive signal, then, has anyone determined the quality of the progressive signal. Would a cheap progressive player cause VB but not one equipped a good deinterlacer? I don't have the equipment to test.

Has anyone noticed VB on high-def or is this just a 480p DVD issue.

This whole notion of progressive vs interlaced is all great information.

I observed VB on a satellite feed. I do not remember if it was an HD movie, or an SD movie, but it was when I first, and immediately noticed VB. JDEATON will have to comment on that aspect as it was his AE700 that I first demo'ed the unit in his home.

Panasonic Canada claims the AE700 will descend from the heavens onto our frozen soil on Nov. 15 - just in time for the Santa parade here in TO.

MRSP is to be $4499 Canadian (ouch).

Again, my apologies if this is superfluous - I don't recall seeing this anywhere in this thread.

Anyone driving to Buffalo ;) or have any idea about the Sony HS51?

ted

To guys who have VB (or VD),

Are you saying that VB is caused by the projector's scaler? If that's so, you should not VB through the HDMI input since that's not scaled (1:1 mapping). Somehow I doubt that it's scaler related. Someone please verify that VB is present/not present when mapping 1:1 through HDMI. It would defeat the purpose of buying a HDTV projector if you have to use the interlaced signal for bug-free viewing.

For those of you lucky enough to have high ceilings in your theaters (my work in progress, dedicated basement theater is only 7' 8" from carpet to drywall, yea I'm jealous) and want to power down in lieu of standby mode, and don't want to keep a ladder in the room, just use an X10 controlled outlet.

With an X10 controlled outlet (120V 15A rated) you have multiple control scenarios. You have a choice of wall switch, key fob type switch, standard hand held remote control or even computer control via plug-in interface. No rewiring necessary, basic plug and play.

I'm sure many of you are using X10 for lighting control now, so a controlled outlet is a minimal added expense. Some of my X10 devices have been on continuously for over 10 years now , so they have proven to be quite reliable.

(I think basic X10 controller can address up to 256 discrete devices)

Originally posted by SMP01
Has anyone noticed VB on high-def or is this just a 480p DVD issue.


Its there in high def too. Also there with unscaled 1280x720p input signal.

RE: X10. May work for some, but in my house (which is only 5 years old and has standard electrical wiring) the X10 units cause bad problems like circuit breakers tripping in the middle of the night. Maybe I just got a defective one, but all their stuff is garbage IMHO.

Originally posted by TheFerret
tvted, romanesq, both of you missed my point. Someone offered something in which both were available, yet how can one make a decision without seeing both? Not bashing your purchase decisions, but rather the response to the question posed.

If both projectors were offered to you for, say, $2K, which one would you take. Well, most seem to take the Panasonic, but most haven't seen the Sony so how can they judge one product over the next without seeing both?

Yup, I agree. That was my point too. I just made it via the vaporware expression is all.
I really wanted to see the Sony but for personal reasons the timing didn't work out.

I hope the Sony proves to be a great projector thus pushing the technology of the hobby forward.

Its unfortunate that we are not consciously aware that Sony is an OEM provider of LCD panels. Not knowing much about their LCD, compared to Epson, makes for mucho speculation.

Originally posted by TraderGordo
Yes, the number of power cycles on the bulb correlates to its lifespan. This is actually in the user's manual. Although I don't think there is any difference (as far as bulb life goes) between "power off" and "standby" as the bulb probably receives no juice in either state.

Hmm...I've had a lot of 20-30 minute quick showings for people with my projector since I got it. Hopefully this won't effect lamp life too much as I'm almost at 75 hours already! If i can get 2000 hours out of this bad boy I'll be very happy.

$350/2000 = 17.5 cents and hour, or 35 cents for the average movie. Of course, this ain't including the buck on the movie for the projector, or the ??? for the electricity. :)

Originally posted by beocop
To guys who have VB (or VD),

Are you saying that VB is caused by the projector's scaler? If that's so, you should not VB through the HDMI input since that's not scaled (1:1 mapping). Somehow I doubt that it's scaler related.
Unless the PJ is being presented with 1080i over HDMI.
It would defeat the purpose of buying a HDTV projector if you have to use the interlaced signal for bug-free viewing.
Unless the deinterlacer/scaler in the PJ is better than source.

ted

Has anyone here upgraded from an AE100 -> AE700?

I have an AE100 now, about 1500 hours on it. I definitely want to upgrade at some point, if for no other reason, higher resolution and better input options :)

I'm pretty happy with the picture quality on the AE100 now, though, if the AE700 is a significant improvement in pq (and obviously sde), i might be convinced to upgrade now :)

Also, the lumens on the AE100 was rated at about 700 in the high power mode. Will the AE700's 1000 lumens appear significantly brighter? On paper, it's a silly question, I'm more concerned about the real world results.

Originally posted by bapenguin
Hmm...I've had a lot of 20-30 minute quick showings for people with my projector since I got it. Hopefully this won't effect lamp life too much as I'm almost at 75 hours already! If i can get 2000 hours out of this bad boy I'll be very happy.

I seem to be doing a lot of that lately as well. Partly because anytime someone goes downstairs now they want to see the projector, and partly because even if they don't want to see it, I want to show it off! ;-) A short demo usually turns into an hour, as it is hard not to get sucked into the sight and sound experience.

TraderGordo

This is my last comment on X10 as it's way off topic, but a possible solution for some.
If you don't like X10 devices then use Leviton. Leviton is premium quality manufacture of residential an commercial electrical devices.
Leviton home automation devices use the X10 protocol.

In X10's defense, If your X10 device is tripping circuit breakers, you'll need to do some basic electrical troubleshooting beyond the X10 device. Some X10 devices can be a little unresponsive at times ( say someone is doing ark welding with a welder plugged into your service, the harmonic interference induced on your AC line may "blind" the X10 signal temporarily) but you'll need to make the case that any normally functioning X10 device can affect either the thermal or magnetic trip function of a residential branch circuit breaker.

Originally posted by beocop
To guys who have VB (or VD),

Are you saying that VB is caused by the projector's scaler? If that's so, you should not VB through the HDMI input since that's not scaled (1:1 mapping). Somehow I doubt that it's scaler related. Someone please verify that VB is present/not present when mapping 1:1 through HDMI. It would defeat the purpose of buying a HDTV projector if you have to use the interlaced signal for bug-free viewing.

There is a very good article on progressive vs. interlaced dvd players on the Home Theater Secrets dvd benchmarks (part 5). Depending on your player, you might get better results by letting the projector do the job.

F.Y.I.
FAN CYCLING. This is something I noticed for the first time last night (the fan in the 500 cycled as well.)
After a couple of hours of having the projector on (it's like a mini-space heater) - the ambient temperature in my room rose from 69 to 74 degrees. Upon doing so - the fan suddenly cycled to high. And became rather loud. At least it seemed loud compared to the low mode. I turned the A/C on (even though it's 55 degrees outside!) and within 5 minutes the 700 fan cycled back down to it's low (and very quiet) speed.

John,

Do you get VB even with total shut down at night? It seems that your "VB fix" is not related to the standby mode problem but a recurring problem with your source connection. If VB comes on after the standby mode and or goes away after warmup, then it's got to be the projector, not your source.

However, you indicated that you get no VB after a standby mode (but streaking) and using interlaced connection. This is definitely baffling.


Originally posted by John Ballentine
OK.

The best way I’ve found to reduce (by at least 85%- 90%) VB is to send an interlaced signal to the 700 (I’m using a Sony 9000) and let the 700 handle the de-interlacing/conversion. I tried this with the 500 a few months back - and no luck. VB was the same on the 500 no matter what signal I sent (progressive, interlaced, composite, DVI)


Weird stuff.

Originally posted by Monkey_Man
HMenke

It not the screen door your seeing it's brief scan lines. Thats why you can't see it on a paused image.



I am convinced this is an artifact of the video processor. It has nothing to do with smooth screen or screen door of any kind.

The vide processor is either losing cadence lock or is getting confused with video sourced material. The ONLY time I have seen it is when the projector has to deal with interlaced content, either 1080i or 480i.

IMHO of course.

Oops. Double post, mods please delete this one if you will.

OK, here's my take and experience on several issues with the 700U. First, I tried using a Full AC regenerating Sola S4700 UPS with the PJ AND another one with the Denon 2910 and although it improved the color saturation a small but noticeable amount, it did NOT prevent the Overnight Standby VB problem. I just tried that last night and VB popped up after leaving it on standby. (For those who don't know what the Sola S4700 does, it is always online provifding AC power through a complete regeneration circuit i.e. converting to DC then back to new AC 60Hz sinewave same as the PS audio PowerPlant minus the multiwave fucntion and enormous price)

After the OS (Overnight Standby) VB showed up, I had to tweak the flicker to reduce it, and after 30 mins to and hour, finally managed to tweak it to minimize it to the levels it was before I left it on OS.

As for reducing/removing VB with an interlaced signal. With my Denon 2910, I've noted NO improvements between interlaced and progressive as far as VB goes. I A/B'ed the progressive 480p and 720p vs. 480i and 1080i signals for about 45 minutes while setting up the PJ and ended up with using the 1080i setting. The reasons for this were the 480p produced the lowest quality and definition image. Lots of noise and graininess and lack of detail. ("Lots of" being a relative term) 480i relying on the PJ's scaler/deinterlacer combo produced a better image than the 480p from the Denon, but was accompanied by more artifacts noted in fine detail areas and sharp lines in fast motion. 780p and 1080i had the clearest, sharpest images and it was a close call but 1080i looked a little better to me although I wasn't sure why, until I used Avia and found out that for some reason, there was a little the difference being about 0.17 to 0.07 more Y/C delay using the 720p output, so 1080i it was. As far as VB went, no difference for me.

I also have the color uniformity problem. Projecting a 60IRE gray field at maximum zoom enlargement which I am using to produce an 90" wide image from about 11-12 feet, the left side of the image is faintly more bluish, the right side of the screen is faintly more reddish/pinkish. Holding my hand up in front of the PJ casts a shadow on screen with a blue left fringe and a magenta right fringe, and this is most obvious the closer to the PJ the silhouetted object (my hand) is. Shifting to the opposite end of the zoom range though causes almost the whole left side of the image to turn reddish. You would think that there should be a point in between the extremes that there is NO color uniformity problem but that is not the case. As I change from maximum to minimum zoom, there is a point where both sides of the screen have some reddish tint. In normal video content viewing though, it is usually not very noticeable if there is color in the image and even with B/W images, although just barely noticeable, it is not terrible. From playing with the zoom, I would assume that the color uniformity issue is caused by slight differences in refraction at the lens edges from the small angle differences of the differently placed LCDs. There does appear to be a slight misalignment of the blue panel compared to the red and green though, most visible in using the service menu screen.

Originally posted by bakpakva
As a side note, is there any correlation between the number of times you power the lamp on and off (allowing for the cool down period of course) and the bulb life? I am just wondering if my lamp life will be adversly affected by only watching an hour or so, shutting down, and then restarting the project again later in the day.

I've heard that before too. I'm following a "2 hour rule" with my projector. I don't turn it on unless there will be a minimum of 2 hours of viewing, else I use the RP HDTV.

From projectorpeople regarding VB after long period of standby:

We currently have a Panasonic engineer working on this problem. Do you mind holding on to your unit for a few more days until we get to the
bottom of this? If we can not find a reasonable resolution, we will
exchange the unit for you. Please let me know if this is a problem.
Thanks for your patience.

So it seems like Panasonic has gone from "never heard of this problem" to "working on this problem." Has anyone else here been in contact with the PJ vendor or Panasonic about this?

Interesting, I had Panasonic professional tech come over to my house today to check out the VB. Basically, he saw the VB and the basic idea is that it was an ok amount given the price of the projector and that it really is rather subtle. Now, he was totally nice about it and did come all the way to my house to check it out.
I told him about the standby issue and he said he would check in to that.
He said he was going to report it all to his engineers and give me a follow up call.
I also showed the very minor convergence issue in the test screens, that as well he said was very minor and to be expected.

Just passing on some info...

Jordan "AstroCat"

Originally posted by Harkov
Has anyone here upgraded from an AE100 -> AE700?

I have an AE100 now, about 1500 hours on it. I definitely want to upgrade at some point, if for no other reason, higher resolution and better input options :)

I'm pretty happy with the picture quality on the AE100 now, though, if the AE700 is a significant improvement in pq (and obviously sde), i might be convinced to upgrade now :)

Also, the lumens on the AE100 was rated at about 700 in the high power mode. Will the AE700's 1000 lumens appear significantly brighter? On paper, it's a silly question, I'm more concerned about the real world results.


If ur happy with the AE100s PQ u will be absolutely floored with the PQ of the AE700.
In terms of real world results.The differnce is like the differnce between a Porshe and a 10 year Toyota.

Originally posted by djbluemax1
OK, here's my take and experience on several issues with the 700U. ...........
... 480i relying on the PJ's scaler/deinterlacer combo produced a better image than the 480p from the Denon, but was accompanied by more artifacts noted in fine detail areas and sharp lines in fast motion........

Does the above quote lend evidence that would support the following:

Originally posted by ianken
I am convinced this is an artifact of the video processor. It has nothing to do with smooth screen or screen door of any kind.

The vide processor is either losing cadence lock or is getting confused with video sourced material. The ONLY time I have seen it is when the projector has to deal with interlaced content, either 1080i or 480i.

IMHO of course.

To me it is worthy of some investigation, unfortunately I do not have a machine that I could help with this.

Great posts gents.....
Many members of this thread deserve kudos btw.

Thanks,
ted

Originally posted by tvted
Panasonic Canada claims the AE700 will descend from the heavens onto our frozen soil on Nov. 15 - just in time for the Santa parade here in TO.

MRSP is to be $4499 Canadian (ouch).

Again, my apologies if this is superfluous - I don't recall seeing this anywhere in this thread.

Anyone driving to Buffalo ;) or have any idea about the Sony HS51?

ted

I was just at Trutone in Mississauga this aft. They now have the 700 in and will have it hooked up by this weekend. Their MRSP is $3999. Also 2001 Audio claims that it will be in this week and they offered to sell it to me for a few hundred less than MRSP.

ianken,

While the peak-a-boo does not have anything to do with smoothscreen or screendoor directly, they do interact. As mentioned before, it is not likely the fault of video processing. It probably involves the LCD pixels and how they are energized. I do also suspect that it could be a video processing error. I have never totally ruled that out. However, it seems less likely to be that. I may be a de-interlacing/scaling/video processing artifact that is made visible due to the way the LCD pixels are energized. Remember that the flicker tweak reduces the peak-a-boo's, and the flicker tweak has more to do with the lcd energized voltage and polarity flipping and has nothing to do with video processing.

To compare this, I'm going to hook up my very sharp 19" CRT PC monitor to see how it looks and see if I can find any peak-a-boo's. I doubt I'll see any.

Does anyone have any DVD's with corresponding scenes which they notice repeatedly show peak-a-boo's? I don't see it often enough.

FYI: Got my 700 today ... will be hooking it up tonight and projecting on to a 90" Dalite Deluxe InstaTheater (my temporary setup until the media room is finished). Will let people know how it works out ... :)

Hello everyone,

I am interested in the AE700, but I've found the 500U many hundreds cheaper at Costco. I'm wondering if someone could kindly take a minute or two and give me a breakdown between the two, i.e. what the extra $600-$700 would get me with the AE700.


If someone wants to read about my room setup or what I'll be doing with the PJ (if it matters), I've made an earlier post here.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=465899

Thanks much in advance,
Aaron

Basically, with the AE700 you would be getting better image quality (due to 20% increased brightness and 70% improved contrast ratio), 2-3x longer bulb life, HDMI, and greater flexibility in placement (due to larger zoom range and lens shift). Only you can decide if these are worth $600-$700 price difference for you...

-tony

I just received my AE700U last Friday and for 2 days everything seemed fantastic. Then on Sunday night I watched the Monsters Inc. movie on ABC. My conection was componet and HD OTA. The peek-a-boo or whatever it is was evident whenever anything moved on the screen fairly quick. When the little monster would open his mouth it would become all garbled(peek-a-boo scan??). I was not happy with this.

I then watched Directv with S-video and noticed on Fox News more of this. The news bar across the bottom would have this same problem as above from time to time. The words would jitter or be garbled. Not all the time though. It seemed the longer the unit is on the worse it gets.

(H Menke), you have stated that you have seen this also. Have you noticed it on all connections and/or all video or just certain connections or videos?

I have watched videos from various movies thru HDMI with the Toshiba upconverting DVD player and haven't seen these problems as often. The Toshiba gives a fantastic picture by the way. At either 720P or 1080i.

Now tonight I noticed the vertical banding(ARRGH). At least I think that is what it is. None of the problems are acceptable to me. Does anyone have a solution? Is it just a handful of units that have these problems or all? Is anyone else wanting to return their unit if these problems can't be resolved?

The place where I purchased mine from, said that if I wanted to return the unit I would have to pay a restocking fee of appox. $300.00!! I don't feel that is right if the units have these issues.

What does anyone else think?? If these issues were permanetly fixed I would love this projector. It has a fantastic picture.

I have had a Sony 10HT for the last 5 years and it had none of these issues. And after all this time still no burnt out pixels!! The reason that I upgraded is that the Sony bulbs only last about 1300 hours and are way too expensive.

Tony, thanks for the breakdown. That's exactly what I was looking for. Just in the increased bulb life alone, the cost difference becomes less and less.

With the increased brightness and contrast, would the AE700 better allow me to watch football during the day without shutting the blinds? For movies and prime time HDTV, I don't necessarily mind darkening the room, but on Saturday afternoons', I don't want to have to make the room very dark when I've got a bunch of people over watching football.

Originally posted by tbacos
Basically, with the AE700 you would be getting better image quality (due to 20% increased brightness and 70% improved contrast ratio), 2-3x longer bulb life, HDMI, and greater flexibility in placement (due to larger zoom range and lens shift). Only you can decide if these are worth $600-$700 price difference for you...

-tony

Originally posted by gkanders
So a lot of you are using low lamp mode.
I thought that early on in this thread someone said that in low lamp, the dynamic iris was functional, but the "AI" lamp function was not, but in high lamp mode, both were functional. Is that true or was it bad information? I thought the idea was that both together would give more CR.
I'm assuming you guys have not noticed any appreciable degradation of perceived CR when in low-lamp mode?
Thanks, Greg

Has anyone answered this yet?

Does the 700 Have AI like the 500, and is it the combination of AI (requiring high lamp mode) and dynamic iris that allows the highest contrast??

Originally posted by skeelow
(H Menke), you have stated that you have seen this also. Have you noticed it on all connections and/or all video or just certain connections or videos?

At the moment I am running 480p component DVD and (temporarily) 480i composite from a digital cable box that passes most channels as plain old cable analog (truly offensive, but I am skipping the need to buy a 25ft S-video in anticipation of my HDMI cable box on Saturday).

I see the artifact on both composite and component. It is "powerful" enough to punch through the noise on the composite feed. It was a constant companion during the election coverage Tuesday night. What disturbs me is that the cleaner the input, the more evident is the artifact. For example, SWE2 AOC shows it the most clearly.

Do you notice it when the image is panning vertically or do you also see it for horizontal pans? I see it on vertical and diagonal pans because with a diagonal pan there is a vertical motion element.

Since some people here do not see it, maybe it varies from unit to unit. If that is the case, you might ask for an exchange under warranty rather than a return. However it seems like it will be a hard case to make that this is an abnormal defect.

I still love this PJ, despite trying to work these issues. Last night I watched one of my DVDs of Star Trek: TOS and it is just stunning. You can see the pores on people's faces and their makeup - incredible.

Originally posted by bubbawilly
Has anyone answered this yet?

Does the 700 Have AI like the 500, and is it the combination of AI (requiring high lamp mode) and dynamic iris that allows the highest contrast??

No appreciable degradation of perceived CR in low lamp mode in dark material. Somewhat appreciable degradation of perceived CR in brightly lit material (i.e. daylight) but only detectable in A/B switching between Hi/Lo modes.

Dynamic Iris is functional in both High Lamp and Low Lamp modes. My understanding is that AI is an integral part of Dynamic Iris and not a separate feature - that is, the AI histogram analysis is occurring in real time and subsequently makes constant adjustment to the iris aperature in real time. The AI supports Dynamic Iris and the Dynamic Iris is driven by AI - two aspects of the same feature.

mikeyc,

Do us all a favour and if you visit Trutone in Miss or 2001audiovideo, comment to them on the other sources and prices. Will you buy from them? Or will you save almost $2000.00 CAD? Hmmm....

About the peak-a-boo's. They look distinctly like the picture becomes broken up into horizontal lines, like scanlines. Its a very specific look.

Originally posted by HMenke

Do you notice it when the image is panning vertically or do you also see it for horizontal pans? I see it on vertical and diagonal pans because with a diagonal pan there is a vertical motion element.

(Reply From Skeelow)I see it on vertical and horizontal movements. And like I stated, the bar across the bottom of Fox news sometimes goes garbled.

I just watched Toy Story on the Toshiba upconverting DVD player and no problems. It looks fantastic. It is conected thru HDMI.


The tech told me he would check out my unit if I return it and if it shows up when they watch it they would send me a new unit. With my luck though it will work perfectly for them. It happens everytime I have a car problem. I have to take it the mechanic 2 or 3 times before the car acts up. So i would rather get a refund if they don't charge a restocking fee.

[/B]

With the increased brightness and contrast, would the AE700 better allow me to watch football during the day without shutting the blinds? For movies and prime time HDTV, I don't necessarily mind darkening the room, but on Saturday afternoons', I don't want to have to make the room very dark when I've got a bunch of people over watching football.

It would undoubtedly be better than the 500, but whether or not it will really be bright enough is hard to say. You're definitely going to lose some punch in the image with ambient light in the room. Whether or not it is still watchable would be up to a variety of factors, not the least of which being your tolerance for a dim image.

I should be receiving my 700 within the next few days. When I do, I'll take some photos comparing it with my L300U, as well as showing it in various stages of a darkened room.

-tony

Originally posted by mikeyc
I was just at Trutone in Mississauga this aft. They now have the 700 in and will have it hooked up by this weekend. Their MRSP is $3999. Also 2001 Audio claims that it will be in this week and they offered to sell it to me for a few hundred less than MRSP.

Gotta be closer to the border Toronto. I just picked up my AE700 shipped to my PO Box in a border town in Washington state. I live in Vancouver and am 20 miles from my border town PO Box. I bought it from ProjectorPeople and my cost will be approximately half of the $Can MSRP. Don't let Panasonic Canada dictate the price for you. You have options.

"Sitting directly below the pj we do hear it, but it's just a mild sound you can only hear in very quiet parts of the movie."

To me, that's totally unacceptable.

There is almost nothing worse than a sound you don't hear most of the time -- except in those moments where you aren't supposed to hear anything at all.

While I don't know how loud the projector really is, if there were a quieter option (Sony perhaps?), I'd pay for that.

Mark

Finally watched HD on AE-700. Source is Japan's NHK BS-Hivision (1080i). They were showing re-runs of Athens olympic (swimming event) and the picture was just stunning. Later at night NHK was showing 2001 Space Odyssey in HD - the picture was good (looked old, I could see scratches in the film) but not as jaw dropping as the HD of Athens olympic re-run. I hope to watch some HD movies soon (Starworld Hi-Vision and WOWOW Hi-Vision). BTW, Hi-Vision is Japan's version of HDTV. DVD even with an HTPC was a disappointment compared to Hi-Vision content. I'm seating 13-15 ft away from a 100 inch screen. I still can't believe this is an under $2000 PJ. Can't wait for HD-DVD to come out. :)

Note that this is the first time for me to see HDTV in a 720p PJ.

Separately, the fan in full power mode was quite loud. Fan in low power mode was very quiet by comparison but I'm afraid the PJ will develop color uniformity issues later if I switched to low fan (just like what happened to my AE-100). The PF is on a coffee table and I'm about 1-2 meters away and the fan was quite distracting. I wonder if I could change the fan to a quiter one.

Earlier (many pages ago) someone asked about Cinema Reality. I did not see this in the menu option. Tonight I found out that it only appears if you have an interlaced input. Basically, it looks like CineR simply toggles 3:2 pulldown on and off. The manual mentions that it should be turned off if there are problems with subtitles being displayed correctly. The default is On. Obviously in progressive mode this has no meaning so that menu item is grayed out when a progressive signal is detected at the input.

Speaking of progressive vs. interlaced. Tonight I decided to compare 480i to 480p component. I must say that 480i was clearly an inferior picture coming from both of my DVD players (Pioneer DV-563A and RCA DRC232N). For me it's 480p all the way.

Cinema Reality might be an interesting feature if you are inputting an interlaced composite or S-video signal from a TV feed and a movie comes on. The PJ should then pick up the 3:2 automatically. Otherwise it doesn't do much for me.

Originally posted by tvted
Panasonic Canada claims the AE700 will descend from the heavens onto our frozen soil on Nov. 15 - just in time for the Santa parade here in TO.

MRSP is to be $4499 Canadian (ouch).

Again, my apologies if this is superfluous - I don't recall seeing this anywhere in this thread.

Anyone driving to Buffalo ;) or have any idea about the Sony HS51?

ted

No TVTed, it was not mentioned but I wish you hadn't (just Joking) ;)
Man I just don’t get Panasonic Canada. I don't see the 700 on their web site yet, but if this is true... they just don't want to sell projectors in Canada do they? If this turns out to be my first projector, I’ll be heading south of the border or west across the Pacific... heck there’s even a vendor in Ontario who imports. I’ll take my “out of country warranty” chances and save a considerable sum off of the Canadian MSRP any day!

Originally posted by aias10
If ur happy with the AE100s PQ u will be absolutely floored with the PQ of the AE700.
In terms of real world results.The differnce is like the differnce between a Porshe and a 10 year Toyota.

I just have one question. Do you find the image of the 700 to be less sharp than the 100..? I'm really scared of that smoothscreen technology, I've seen the 500 in action and I found that there was more VB than on my AE100. I also found that the smoothscreen technology made the image less "razor sharp" but more film projection like.

In short, I'm more a "in focus & razor sharp" king of guy. I can't wait to check out the 700 in action, but I'm also serious thinking about the Z3 for the sharpness factor.

Take care,
lpr

Does anyone have the custom settings that allow the BRAVO D2 to send true 1280X720 res to the 700U? and also, does anyone know why when using 720P on D2 with standard settings(XGA); the picture setting on the Pani shws "working signal of 750/60p"??? By the way the OSD tweek recommended in the "tweek" thread did improve my PJ's VB by 85% I hope getting the PJ to work on it's native res may further help this problem...???

I wish someone could answer whether its possible to safely REMOVE the smooth screen optical elements from the AE300/500 and AE700. I watched a dvd on my 200 tonight. Slackers. Thats is one goofball movie. Anyways, I had my futon flat and pointed towards the screen, instead of left to right, since I was watching by myself. I moved around and at times I was watching it as close as 1.25x screen width away and with my defocus the picture was screen door free and reasonably still sharp.

It would suck if the AE700 looked softer than the AE100/200 and had rampant VB and peak-a-boo's. VB is the luck of the draw, but sharpness and peak-a-boo's could be controlled better if there was no smooth screen.

I'm also curious about 1080i:

Many people like the look of 1080i fed into their 720p projectors, vs the 480p or 720p. Its possible that the downscaling of the projector does a good job. Problem is, you can still end up with some combing due to the de-interlacing.

What about feeding an AE700 a 960p signal? It will be de-interlaced and just need to be downscaled. It could look better than 1080i or 720p. Anybody try this? Of course, the only way is to use an iScan HD I think. Up-converting DVD players don't output 960p do they?

I've had my 700 for a month now and I am very pleased with the quality, no indication of screendoor or blinds effect and brilliant colours. I have one complaint; on disks of The West Wing and now also on Troy the projector switches from 16:9 to 4:3 during viewing, sometimes once a minute, sometimes 5 times a second. Needless to say it makes the image unwatchable. I assume it is a problem with the disk, something to do with the aspect ratio indication signal (I just made that up; don't know if there is such a thing). Any ideas? I can't find a way to switch of the Auto switching of the aspect ratio. It is only on these two titles I have problems so far (out of 20+ watched).

Originally posted by Deonlr
I can't find a way to switch of the Auto switching of the aspect ratio.

Press the "ASPECT" button on the remote control to scroll through the different aspect ratios.

If you've lost the remote, I believe you can find the aspect ratio in either the PICTURE or OPTIONS menu.

It doesn't help, it still changes automatically all the time, even if I manualy switch it to 16:9. I need a way to override the auto detection?? of the aspect ratio.

Originally posted by Deonlr
It doesn't help, it still changes automatically all the time, even if I manualy switch it to 16:9. I need a way to override the auto detection?? of the aspect ratio.

It could be your DVD player. My Pioneer will output everything at 16:9 when it is in 16:9 mode (including 4:3 menus, FBI screen, etc.) , however my RCA will output 4:3 as 4:3 and 16:9 as 16:9, even though its output is set to 16:9.

Originally posted by Deonlr
I can't find a way to switch of the Auto switching of the aspect ratio.


That should be the "WSS" option in the menus. WSS = Wide Screen Switching.

I haven't tried it myself but I guess you should switch it to "off" if it is giving you grief.

My Pioneer 525 'TV Screen' setting is set to 16:9 (ae700 is native 16:9). If I change it to 4:3 on the DVD it stops the switching, but you take a major hit on quality and the aspect ration is slightly out if you put the projector on 16:9.

Thanks Hazard, will give it a try tonight.

hmm...for all those people who are complaining about fan noise, I think you need to turn your volume up or something. Even on high fan mode it's barely inaudible from 2 feet away. On low fan mode I litterally have to put my ear next to the projector to hear anything coming from it. It almost scares me how quiet it is because you wonder if it's working or not in low lamp mode.

Speaking of low lamp mode, someone menitoned color uniformity issues with using it, and they had it before...what's that all about?

Originally posted by Lightjug
No TVTed, it was not mentioned but I wish you hadn't (just Joking) ;)
Man I just don’t get Panasonic Canada. I don't see the 700 on their web site yet, but if this is true... they just don't want to sell projectors in Canada do they? If this turns out to be my first projector, I’ll be heading south of the border or west across the Pacific... heck there’s even a vendor in Ontario who imports. I’ll take my “out of country warranty” chances and save a considerable sum off of the Canadian MSRP any day!

Well the info did come from their Customer Service dept. I guess the 15th will tell all. For me it becomes the issue that if it is priced similarly to the Sony HS51 (the HS20 and AE500 were similarly priced) then I would conclude they have no desire to sell to me and I would lean toward the Sony. The other alternative would be a purchase from one of forum sponsors so I too would take my "out of country warranty" chances.

ted

For all you hosers, good day, eh?...

I received an email from avdeals in Oakville (just south of the frozen tundra) that they MAY be carrying the AE700.

No mention of price.

Has anyone tried the new sony or panasonic upconverting dvd players with the AE700?
I'm trying to figure out which one would work best with the AE700.

So far, the Sony has some potential color problem (but not always) and the Panny has macroblocking ... hmmm...

Any advice? Thanks!

Jordan "AstroCat"

just got my panny 700 two days ago.

location: living room
layout: 12.5 x 19 room
projector location: 11.5'/middle of the screen
current setting: dynamic with no tweaks
input: hd digital cable from time warner nyc via component

i put it on a shelf behind my couch and am projecting it onto a wall that is currently painted "sandstone cove" by behr. i will have to sand it down and probably go with a behr silverscreen diy on the wall.

i am projecting it on dynamic mode. i haven't done any tweaking or anything like that.

in the middle of the living room, is a ceiling fan with an 80 watt bulb. look at my gallery (link below) to see 3 different pictures.

pic 1 - full power on the 80 watt bulb right above and in the middle of the screen/living room. as you can see, the picture is totally watchable for regular tv viewing. for those worried about ambient light with this projector, don't be. the only question is, since it's only 11.5' from the wall, is that why's it's still viewable? the further you put the projector, it may make it more washed out.

pic 2 - same scene but with the lights off.

pic 3 - the lights are on and you can see the viewing cone is pretty amazing as i'm almost right against the wall.

i'm not at the detail level as most here, but for what i wanted and what i need, this projector is PERFECT. as many have said, set-up is a breeze and the pic quality is awesome. i will do the flicker tweak and calibrate via DVE or AVIA but for now, i couldn't be happier, especially for the price.

http://gallery.avsforum.com/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=7465415

djsunyc,

nice pictures, thank you.
what is your screen size?

something like 56" high and 92" across (in that area)

For all the online store that sells the pany 700.....Is there any store that does not charge a restocking fee?

Projector People has a 7 day return policy, if returned within the 7 days there is no restock fee, Oh, almost forgot, you will incur a 15% restock fee if you put over 4 hours on the lamp....

djsunyc,

Thank you.

Well, last night was the inauguration of my 700. We watched "The Day After Tomorrow" on it.

I did minimal tweaking (see below) and started by just plugging it in and turning it on. (Note: I used to have a Z1 and a blackout cloth screen in my last place).

My (temporary) setup:

Denon 1600 DVD player (in progressive mode)
Component video
Da-Lite Deluxe InstaTheater 90" 16:9

Out of the box experience:

- No VB (and I'm not gonna spend time looking for it either!)
- Totally silent (i.e. the fan is low enough for my in-city loft)
- Pretty bright (esp. Dynamic mode) but not over-bright as I have ambient light and white walls.
- Len shift a little sticky, but good enough
- Smooth screen is good, but not as incredible as others think it is (just my opinion).
- Colors and picture modes very, very nice. Cinema 1 too dark for my loft, so I suspect I'll be running Dymanic always.

As far as the picture goes, yes, I did see peek-a-boo scanlines. I never saw them on the Z1, but I did on the AE300. I think they have someting to do with Panasonic's implementation of the projector rather than a generic LCD issue. They're pretty minimal and I felt I could live with them for the rest of the excellent features this projector has (but see below!!)

I thought that the picture from my Denon was a little grainy, quite frankly (even my partner commented on this). This surprised me - I was expecting better, but decided to let it go for now as I had done no tweaking whatsoever.

Half way through the movie, I reduced the Sharpness down to -4 and I also did my old Z1 trick of slightly defocusing the image. Result: a beautiful picture (or was it the 1/2 bottle wine? :) ) ... much more film-like, smooth, no grainy-ness. Now this was more what I was expecting! I realize de-focusing is anathema to some people, but it works for me.

Re: the peek-a-boo scanlines - I never did seem them again throughout the whole movie (despite a lot of rapid action shots). Maybe I got used to them or maybe defocusing a little helped them. I don't know and don't care :)

All in all, I am very happy with the 700 - it's feature set is outstanding - and it's picture quality is beautiful once tweaked a little for your liking.

Dear Mrad.... Wellcome to the happy Pani Family; however you will most likely experience VB after 10hrs of operation especially after leaving the PJ in "standby" mode...."BUT DON'T WORRY" if you follow the instructions on OSD "flicker adjustment" it makes a huge difference and takes the problem away almost completely!!!!

Dynamic mode is very "hard" on the picture. I can really see the pixel structure on it, you definitely need to turn the sharpness down on it.

Originally posted by AstroCat
Has anyone tried the new sony or panasonic upconverting dvd players with the AE700?

uh... ALMOST!

OneCall delivered my Panasonic S97 DVD player at 9am this morning. Ordered it yesterday at 4:00pm and got overnight delivery for an extra $22 upgrade from their free shipping.

The AE700 (from VA) is "on the truck" (UPS, scheduled for delivery today).


First projector, setting it up for my new home theater. I'll be projecting onto a textured light cream-colored wall to start, until I can figure out what size screen I want. Then I'll be ordering my Berkline 099's (did not yet because I don't know if I'm going to want the straight connecting arms, or the wedge-shaped; depends on screen visibility).

Hopefully I'll get my Emotiva pre/pro and amp delivered soon! For now, 7.1 driven by my old trusty Sony DA5ES (with second amp for rear channels).


Anyone in the Sacramento area interested in checking the projector/player out? Let me know :)


Update
The PJ is in the house! I feel a cough coming on. Must go home soon. Won't get to play with it too much until Sunday as I'm going skiing tomorrow (can't pass up new snow!) ;)

Originally posted by Poncho
I wonder if anybody would be interested in a AE700 power buy with a forum sponsor after the first of the year, assuming the supply catches up with demand by then?
Did someone say "Power Buy"? :)


http://mansfieldms.com/img/projector-800.jpg (http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htforum/showthread.php?postid=2446458#post2446458)

Hi! What would you say is the zoom ratio that one could use without sacrificing image quality? The reason I'm asking is that I could place the projector max. 13.5 ft away from the screen. I would like to use a 105" screen. At 13.5 ft away from the screen the zoom would have to be 1.56x to get the image to fill the screen. Would the image be good enough to go with a 105" screen or would I be forced to go with a smaller screen?

This is a very long post, offered as a substitute for the many short ones I wanted to make on this thread.

I come from the ranks of The Lurkers, small hooded beings who only sit and wait, watching the pecadilloes of others. When they have learned the ways of their adversaries, they strike... boldly and without mercy.

Received my AE-700 from AIM Digital (Australia) yesterday. Price: under $3k Australian. I had already seen a demo at Panasonic HQ, 6 weeks ago, thinking "hmmmm...."

Summary: This projector DOES need set-up, but you will be rewarded by its excellence, once the set-up is done.

Straight out of the box (using a three-lead RCA-to-RCA component cable made for audio, projecting onto the backing of a large piece of blackout cloth - 1.5 x 3 metres, 60 x 118 inches - purchased yesterday.) I found the following...

1. VB? What VB? There's been too much navel-gazing on this subject around here.

2. SDE? Minimal. Almost not there. Certainly not anything to bother anyone except a pedant or a member here who has been terrified by hundreds of obsessive posts on the subject into thinking that this is anything but a superb projector.

3. Sharpness, clarity, brightness? Excellent.

4. Coping with interleaved PAL 625i? Delightful. No problems at all. Very "film-like".

5. Black levels? Ahhh.... black levels. They need tweaking.

I've read the Cine4Home (hilariously Babel-translated) web site regarding this projector. I adapted one of their techniques to fix my black level problems and make the AE-700 a very worthwhile purchase.

In their article, Cine4Home mentioned the "cyan wash" (some green, more blue) that seems to gently invade LCD pictures (this PJ no exception). I decided to try and fix this first of all in the darks ("blacks") and then to follow Cine4Home's other *very important* and fundamental observation: this is only the start. Tweak further after neutralizing the "blacks".

I have in my possession a free Lee Filters Sample Swatch. What a wonderful publication the Lee Sample Swatch really is! There are a couple of hundred 1 x 2-inch filter gel samples in it, complete with technical info on the color properties of each sample. Just about any color you'd want, in shades too.

So, while watching "Master & Commander" on my new PJ, I idly leafed through the Lee swatch, keeping an eye (literally) on the black bars top and bottom of active picture area. The aim was to first get rid of the blueish cast that made the "blacks" of the picture glow bluishly to an annoying degree, adding to the blue/black "pedestal" effect. I finally settled on Lee Filters #109, "Light Salmon" to do the job.

Selecting the appropriate filter is a fairly easy process. You just sit there like a vegetable, watching the movie, leafing through the various gels and looking at the screen through them until things balance. "Master & Commander" is good for this, as it has a lot of candle-lit (i.e. orangey lighting) scenes. The blue/black pedestal really shows up in these as a clash against the film's intended color balance. Now I had my "blacks" neutralized and without cast (although the best you could say was that they were "dark gray"), things looked better already. The next trick was to balance the mids and whites... and reduce the black pedestal.

Theoretical digression: What the Cine4Home site revealed to me was that the bluish cast in the "blacks" is NOT part of the color management of the PJ. It is a fault (if you like) of the LCD process and then of the individual model of PJ: a bias in the "full off" blacks in the blue/green direction. That is, when all three colors are at theoretical "full off", ZERO, (0,0,0), the resulting "Black" is just too blue/green. Fix that, THEN fix the rest of the gamma curve. After cutting out and placing the selected "Light Salmon" filter in front of the PJ's lens (it wedged in very well) the assembled throng (wife and daughter-in-law), forced to put up with Aussie Bob's new toy, yelled, "Pink!"

"Ah yes," I said, "but the blacks are neutral".

"So what?" they retorted, "Everything else is pink!". Oh, the pedantry of the uneducated. Do they not comprehend that I am A Scientist?

But they were right: the rest of the picture was now pink(ish), even though the blue cast in the "full off" blacks was now gone.

Not having a color spectrometer I used my eye, and the eyes of the adoring, female peanut gallery to "fix the pink". Not by gels this time, but by the AE-700's comprehensive colorimetry adjustments. My strategy was to REDUCE the brightness of the other non-blue colors, thus making the picture somewhat darker, but also attenuating - as much as possible - the now "dark grayness" of the "black" bands top and bottom of the picture. When this was done (it was a masterstroke to involve the girls in this process, as it gave them "ownership" of the problem), I settled on the following values (all other settings left at ZERO or DEFAULT):

PICTURE MODE: NORMAL

Menu: PICTURE/ADVANCED...

BRIGHTNESS R: -16
BRIGHTNESS G: -4
BRIGHTNESS B: 0

After that, I adjusted the BRIGHTNESS and CONTRAST values to taste. After much mucking around I settled on the following values (all other settings left at ZERO or DEFAULT):

Menu: PICTURE

CONTRAST: +8
BRIGHT: -16
COLOR: -6

Menu: OPTIONS

LAMP: High

The CONTRAST adjustment gives the picture more "punch" (without clipping whites) and the "BRIGHT: -6" reduces the black pedestal to extremely pleasing (low) levels, very "film-like". The "COLOR: -6" setting is to offset the extra color "richness" from the BRIGHT and CONTRAST adjustments. Select on test.

The above CONTRAST setting was great for contrasty films. For a low contrast "British look" film (I used "Shakespeare In Love" as my test piece) I just elevated the CONTRAST setting to +16, leaving everything else as indicated.

Both of these set-up schemes were committed to USER memory settings. I toyed around with some of the gamma settings, but in the end returned these to ZERO. The lesser the manipulation, the better.

Another film I used as a test for this process was "Three Days Of The Condor", bought from a service station display for $10: cheap and crappy transfer (I thought) but a good film with a good script, acting and evocative music (I mean: isn't that why we watch movies in the first place?). When I saw this on my CRT 76cm widescreen TV, I thought it was soft. But this was not the case when viewing with the AE-700. Turns out that the transfer was really excellent in that *it had no artificial sharpening* (i.e. no edge fringing). When projected it was as near to a cinema experience from an LCD projector (or ANY projector) as you would ever want to view. It's now my test DVD for these purposes. I think that much of the complaining in this thread about "edge fringing" has really been about the decision made by various producers to add artificial sharpness to the picture during the transfer to tape (and then to DVD). You tend not to see it on small picture tubes. It is revealed in all its ugliness with a good PJ. Motto: "The less canned sharpening, the better."

So, to summarize:

1. Add filter in front of lens to neutralize the 0,0,0, native LCD "blue/black" cast. I used Lee #109 "Light Salmon" from the Lee filters swatch (free sample).

2. Use color adjustment controls to then re-balance the rest of the picture. Always subtract color, NEVER add (adding will increase black pedestal).

CONCLUSION:
The resulting picture (after several hours doofusing around, much of that time working out my strategy) was SUPERB. Film-like, bright, natural colors. Very good blacks, better than at the cinema. I could project up to 10 feet wide (120 inches, or 3 metres) and view from 2.5 metres (9 feet) with no brightness or SDE problems. The resulting, technical loss of absolute brightness only came from removing the unwanted, irritating bluishness of the "blacks", followed by pinkishness in the rest of the picture after this cast was adjusted. When actually viewing a movie, it is immaterial.

Now that I've worked it out, the set-up process I used should take anyone else about half an hour at the most.

Viewed in a dark room, projected on blackout cloth (completely untreated) the experience was (and will continue to be) truly awe-inspiring. Forget special screens, Goo and so on. This PJ works well with a pretty crude set-up. It has now passed the Peanut Gallery test and the girls are new converts to Big Screen home viewing.

Me? I was already converted.

The Panasonic AE-700 is an excellent projector.

Wow! This is the longest this thread has gone without a post. No one wanted to be the first to follow Aussie Bob. No worries mates. What a write-up!

As to peek-a-boo, I noticed that on my 300U, I see mild peek-a-boo for about the first 15 minutes of a film. After that, it's gone for the most part. I don't know if this has anything to do with the pj warming up, or me simply becoming accustomed to it.

Anyone else?

Originally posted by Nolan Cromwell
Would the image be good enough to go with a 105" screen or would I be forced to go with a smaller screen?

Your mileage may vary, but my projector is about 12-13' from a 111" temporary screen and the picture looks great to me. I'll probably go with a 92" or 106" because those are the standard sizes that would fit the space, but I have no issues with the picture or brightness.

Wow, Bob. Over 2300 posts in this thread, and I have to say yours was the among the best. (almost certainly in the top 2000)

Thanks for the excellent write-up.

So, I'll be the first to ask the obvious question: where does one go to obtain the magical Lee Filters Swatch Sample thingy?

Thanks.

-tony

Originally posted by funkapus
Your mileage may vary, but my projector is about 12-13' from a 111" temporary screen and the picture looks great to me. I'll probably go with a 92" or 106" because those are the standard sizes that would fit the space, but I have no issues with the picture or brightness.

Yes! That's the answer I was l looking/hoping for! I was very concerned with the impact of zooming on PQ. I have read that using the zoom must be avoided to maintain PQ,that would have left me with a 70" image size from my max. 13 ft distance. Thanks for clearing that up.
With the next paycheck, the checking account balance will meet & beat the price of the unit. Hopefully, dealers have them stocked so I get the unit before the playoffs!

Tony,

Lee have a website (leefilters)... sorry no full URL as I haven't made my 5 posts yet.

Find a dealer. Request the sample swatch. These filters come in huge sheets when you buy them. I found that the 1 x 2.5-inch swatch size was just right for shoving infront of the Panny's lens... just made it, sizewize.

I originally obtained the swatch to modify a film-scanner I have. I had figured out how to brighten the light by 4x, but the colorimetry was out of whack after that. The scanner software (Imacon, Denmark) had a "service" function, complete with Cine4Home-type colorimetry measuring histogram. I just kept swapping filters, placing them in front of the light and observing the R. G and B lines until they superimposed. I lost half a stop of the two-stops improvement in raw light power from it, but still, it means I can now stop down the enlarging lens I also installed and achieve perfect sharpness(from depth of field), with no need for unsharp masking. Real "darkroom" looking scans with nothing artificial. Beautiful!

A highly recommended tool. I got mine from the same pro lighting shop that supplied the 4x fluoro tube for the scanner. You might try film services companies, professional lighting specialists etc.

Having only one AE-700 I don't know if the Light Salmon filter would do for all items of this model. I know it worked for mine.

Of course, a proper color spectrometer a la Cine4Home would be perfect, and would get the error in the blacks right first time. But from what I can see they're $4k US (with software) and you get to use it once, maybe twice (if you upgrade down the track) if you're just a home-based HT junkie.

I wrote my post above in all good conscience as the DIY investment, apart from the PJ itself was $35 Australian for that HUGMUNGOUS piece of blackout cloth, $4 for a packet of thumb tacks, plus a free swatch that's already served to improve out of sight (or should that be "into sight"?) a $20k film scanner and a $3k (Aust) projector. Good value, in my books.

I guess I'll get around to buying an offcut of the Light Salmon gel sometime and try to make its installation a little more secure than just shoving it into the front of PJ lens and hoping it doesn't fall off. Then there'll be the cost of a mount and so on.

The most exciting thing about the whole process, from a technical point of view, was that sudden "lightbulb" moment when I suddenly "got" what Cine4Home were talking about (www-dot-cine4home-dot-de, via Babelfish).The bluish cast to the "full off" blacks has NOTHING to do with the color settings on the PJ. Its part of the LCD setup (I also assume different brands will have slightly different dichroic mirror arrangements and thus will have slightly different casts to their units). Project a strong light through a fully "off" LCD panel and you get "blue/green" blacks, not neutreal ones. This has to be fixed first. THEN you can use the color adjustments to fix the cast you introduce with the filter by virtue of neutralizing the "full off" blacks.

OK, mucking around TOO much with the individual brightness gains WILL affect the blacks. The key to my approach was subtlety. As an old broadcast TV hand, I know from experience that whenever you think you've achieved a punchy perfect picture, back it off a bit and that will usually be the right choice.

My original CONTRAST setting was maximum (+32). But I clipped out too many white highlights that way. Likewise, my original BRIGHT setting was full "off", -32, but this crushed too much shadow detail. We get used to bright, punchy pictures on our TV tubes, but in reality much of this is at the expense of losing the extremitys of shadows and highlights. "Less" is always "more" when it comes to visual adjustment.

On the Light Salmon filter, I don't think it was a perfect choice, but it was the best available with the materials included in the swatch. Maybe there's a better filter NOT in the swatch. Maybe a color spectrometer would give the "perfect" filter to buy. Luckily, the AE-700 has good color adjustment controls, so any inaccuracy forced upon me by my original choice of filter could be gotten around by using "rat up a drainpipe" cunning.

Thinking about the cinema experience, as opposed to the HT experience, cine release stock is only designed to achieve a contrast rating of about 1000:1. So anything better than that is an improvement. I suppose, from a purists's point of view, perfectly black "blacks" are an ideal, but at what cost? the results I achieved with my own efforts delivered excellent pictures at a great price, in my opinion better than that elusive "cinema" experience (three reasons straight off: I can fart, smoke and pat my dogs in my own home... try those in a cinema and the Moral Majority would have you out of there faster'n you can say "Max Cady").

All I can say is, that if "'Er Indoors" (my long-suffering wife) thinks it was a good buy, then my decision has passed the rolling-pin test.

Try it yourself. If you don't like the results then it's cost you nothing for the swatch. But I think you WILL like the result.

I did.

Great post Bob, I am already sending out some emails to try and get a swatch and I don't even own the AE-700, yet.....

I have owned a rear projection CRT (Toshiba 50h81) until it went on the blink two weeks ago. I owned it 3 years to the day and the cost to repair is over half of the cost to replace. So.... time to look for new technology. I have always been interested in PJs, and I stumbled on to this thread and I read it several times a day. Like some, I am waiting to see what the new Sony HS-51 brings. But after this review, I am not so sure I can afford it. I hope this is not off topic. I believe there are many lurkers in this thread looking at the pros and cons of these two PJs.....

Review of Sony HS-51 (http://www.projectorcentral.com/sony_vpl-hs51.htm)

One thing I'd like to say about the adjustable lens...

As long as you have the AE-700 at a "normal" to the screen (i.e. axis of projection is 90 degrees to the plane of the screen) then the vertical and horizontal adjustments work brilliantly. the picture remains rectangular and, as far as I can see, there is no, repeat NO, loss of PQ. It's just a superbly designed piece of glass and does its job admirably.

I can understand some of the (for want of a better word) "obsessive" worrying about features like this. Same with SDE.Same with VB.

Let me tell you all: you'd have to be a total teched-out specification junkie to find these things a problem. There is no problem. Panasonic haven't produced a dud projector here. There is no scam. No con. It works well.

I only bought the unit because having my own (as opposed to my clients') projector finally became economically feasible. There are all sorts of enticements out there to wait for better technology. All kinds of rumors that a particular design is bad, or just pure marketing hype. Everyone is scared of making the wrong decision, and they obsess about trifling details that, in the real world, matter little, if anything at all. If you wait for something better all the time, you'll never buy anything. Remember this: you can't take it with you. If you want a projector, or a car, or a new whipper snipper for the garden, and you've done the basics of checking out the competition and evaluating performance (on threads such as this) GO OUT AND GET THE DAMN THING. Stop filibustering! Otherwise you'll ending up holding the floor in an empty room, forever wondering, "What if?"

Aussie Bob,

Wow. That is a very good post. Informative and confidence inspiring. Good work mate! Thats one heck of a show. Congratulations on your very well done move from Lurker to ruler of the LCD front projector user wasteland.

What was your source player?

mrad,

Also a very good post. It brings hope to us nit picking fence sitters.

- - - - -

My 200 has become a very good friend, but perhaps I will pass it on to infect someone else with the affliction that is front projection, and finally go forth to purchase an AE700 myself...or maybe I'll just worry and speculate, continue to ask questions and not go see one for myself. Heheheh. Ok, I guess thats what I'll do. I must see on of these beasts for myself. If anyone in the Toronto area has one, I'll bring the beer :) [ and my 200 for a comparo :D ]

Source player: a crappy old Toshiba SD-1300, bought because it was one of the first players to have an on-board zoom function. I find that it's having trouble playing burned DVDs. At first, they play well, but as they "cure" or the dyes on them "mellow out" a little, the Toshiba starts skipping and freezing. These burned (i.e. copied) DVDs play fine on my PC. The old Toshy just doesn't have the fine laser focus to handle anything other than perfect, commercially manufactured DVDs.

I guess I'll have to change to something with a better laser, at least as good as.. hmmm... let me see, the El Cheapo deck in my PC.

Thanks for the HS51 link (to Projector Central) Ahzroe.

Shorter HS51 review: good contrast, but an overly "digital" looking picture with many intrusive artefacts. Spend an extra US$1,500 on an image scaler and it makes it better (and you poorer). Real output: 250 lumens. Sounds like a "work in progress" to me.

Go out and get your Pannys boys and girls!

Just hooked mine up - I'm a first timer too, so the Wow! effect was in place. I watched half of finding nemo without sound in my temporary config! Wife even finally apologized for harrassing me to "just buy a regular TV like normal people do." One slight disappointment that I haven't seen anyone else report (and I think I've read 98% of the 2k posts here):

I have a stuck pixel on my green panel, in the upper right corner. (DAMMIT, WHY CAN'T MINE BE PERFECT!) It's just a white dot that I can see if I look for it. I'd never notice it in regular program material. So, my question for the experienced PJers out there: is this enough for me to get bent at and request a warranty repair/replacement? I know that it's up for debate whether Panasonic will cover it - and personally I probably won't really care. I just want to hear whether y'all think I'm letting them off easy.

E

Mine will be here Monday! It's kind of funny how in the hs51 review they kept on "comparing" it to "other" new LCD pj's like the Panny. Unless I read it incorrectly it sounds like the panny is the overall winner for most people................unless you WANT to spend an extra $1500 for your new hs51 you just bought! Buy the panny and upgrade your sound system for $1500!!!!

I'm posting this here since Aussie Bob first noted it: LeeFilters (http://www.leefiltersusa.com/) in the USA.

The AE700 tweaks people will have to read this here since I cannot post it in that thread (not an owner). :p

Aussie Bob got me thinking again about using dynamic mode with color correction on the 700 for maximum brightness and contrast...

What's the difference between putting a 'light salmon' CC filter in front of a 700 lens vs. painting a screen with DIY gray screen paint doped with 'light salmon' to achieve the same effect off the screen? Painting would be easier for me than getting and mounting a filter, and I'd remove a cruddy plastic optical element in the process. Either way I'd have to re-blanace all of the inputs so I could max out the brightness and contrast on the Dynamic mode...

And speaking of DIY color balancing - is a photographic spot meter any good for color-balancing a front projector? I have one I can mount on a tripod - I intend to play with it and some colored IRE screens once the projector gets here, but I thought I'd save myself the trouble if it's a known no-op for some reason.

Thx!

Do any of you guys get different overscan amounts for different resolutions? Right now, I am feeding my DVD and HD box through component. I set the PJ up with Avia and have perfect alignment and very little overscan (about 3%). When I switch to my HD feed which is 720p, I get about 2 inches ofblack all the way around my screen. I am wondering if this is a function of the PJ or the source. This is not my first PJ and my previous did not have this problem with my HD source and it was set up the exact same way. I will be getting a HDMI switcher next week and hope to clear this up by using all sources at 720p. Any help here appreciated.

MrPixel,

First, your light meter question: you might find that the "black" you're trying to measure would be too dark for a light meter to give a meaningful result. Unless you meter goes down to -1 EV and further, you might have trouble. In any case, it's EASY to see when a black's blacker. That's not the problem, really. It's more a matter of getting the black pure and without cast. After that, the rest will follow by just adjusting your BRIGHT and CONTRAST controls until your own particular taste says it's OK. The job's not complicated. You're tuning for your own taste. We're not calibrating Hubbles here.

Secondly, light meters are panchromatic (sometimes). You can't use a light meter to measure color temperature without filters. More trouble. Would you be certain of getting the right filters?

On the projection filter vs. screen paint question...

I suppose either approach could deliver a similar result. But I disagree with you that sticking a piece of 1 x 2-inch gel, cut out of a free filter swatch, into the front of a lens, could in any way be MORE difficult or expensive than guessing the EXACT color of the paint you need (remembering its appearance alters after drying), buying a pot of it, pulling down your screen, putting down a drop sheet, opening the can of paint, stirring it, and rollering it (with attendant moths, mozzies and dog hairs) onto a 10 foot wide piece of material that, until you messed with it, was a perfectly serviceable projection screen.

There is a lot of determinism in your approach. You rely too much on exactness and measurability in it. My approach gets you near, then you tweak by sight until your own eyes tell you you're within range of your desired result.

I'm also aware that it's very easy to get off track with the semi-DIY approach. You can end up getting in a terrible mess, using one control to counteract another. That's why I left most of the settings at their default and just used a few of them.

If the light meter doesn't work (for the reasons suggested above) then the ONLY alternative is one of those $4k software/hardware packages. They will get it absolutely right for you, but you'll have spent more than the projector's worth in doing so. Better to buy a $10k PJ that has what you're looking for built-in.

Take a step back. Let the Force be with you. Trust your own judgement. Ask your wife (*** essential ***) to help you. Don't obsess with perfection, because for $2k US, you're not gonna get it. But you're going to get something that, after a while, you'll wonder why you ever worried about it. And you'll watch your movies on the Big Screen in the meantime, instead of mucking around with paint, rollers, light meters and other filibustery paraphenalia. Chill out, MrPixel! Relax and enjoy.

Here is a composite picture of the set-up I worked out in one evening from a cold start, achieving great results for almost no cost (the yellow rectangle gives the approximate image size at the len's surface, where the gel was mounted... plenty of room).

Awful, isn't it? Ugly. Jerry-built. Ramshackle. Don't forget, it's an experimental jig only... but an experiment that worked (they're the best kinds). Even the bend in the filter (it's just wedged in there) didn't affect the picture.The picture was SUPERB. A piece of gel, designed for light transmission, won't affect your PQ either. Too close to the lens. Simple optics. I use the same material to scan fine art negatives at 8,000 dpi., without any problems at all. I guess I'll buy a bigger sample of the Salmon gel during the week and mount it properly. But the results will be no different, just the robustness of the job.

Take a deep breath... and try it.

Also a picture of the (well-thumbed, much loved) Lee filters swatch I used. Each sample is about 1 x 2.5-inches.

A little while back someone noticed a flash of what looks like tv "snow" while watching the projector. Well, I've now seen it for the first time. It happened 3 times over the course of 3 hours. It last for about 1 frame and I've never seen it before. It's like it loses some kind of sync for 1 or 2 frames. Very strange! I'm using HDMI with a Panasonic DVD-S97S at 1080i.

What would cause this. I never saw this at 480p with the new S97s or my older RP-91. Is this related to upconverting or using the HDMI cable?

Thanks for any help!

Jordan "AstroCat"

Hey Aussie Bob -

I'm mellow, really! It's just my major inner dork showing through. That and the 4 beers. Granted, I'm a bit anxious to get my 700 on Monday - I went and auditioned one about a week ago and it's pretty bang on for my needs.

Many thanks for the spot meter thoughts, the review, and the pics, btw! Those Lee filters do look real fun and easy. I have some color and B&W enlarger filters that I'll play with when my wife's not looking, but we'll be very happy with the 700 out of the box on a white screen - except for our ambient light needs.

The only reason I'm considering doping a piece of BOC with DIY gray and adding some salmon/red is that some 20%+ of my usage is in mild ambient light (multiplayer XBox gaming, movies, sports). I'm just wanting to boost brightness/contrast in the ambient light I have downstairs in the day by using Dynamic mode - I'm not trying to nail 6500 degrees squarely on the head (I find D65 too warm for most movies and TV actually). My wife has a sharp eye and won't like the color push in Dynamic mode out of the box - I've seen it and she's actually pickyer than I am. I've had an X1 (my "rainbow LSD trip" machine) and then a Toshiba LCD data projector in the house for some months each - what I need to do better with the 700 is nail a decent but not perfect ~60" image in mild ambient light that 20% of the time. My Sheila would be very very happy about that. Having seen the 700 in 720p, it will blow them out of the water in many other ways, too. Hence the devoted salmon-doped gray screen thought...though I'll admit it's a bit dorky (but hey, you're the one that put the Lee filters on to start with ;!). Of course, what I'm really wanting is one of those black Sony screens that only reflects RGB. Maybe in 2005 they'll ship them.

The force is already with me, so live long and prosper :).

Originally posted by reaper
That's great! I have a club!

I wouldn't be a good club founder if I wasn't still sitting on the fence would I?

I am really leaning toward the HS51. There seem to be many benefits to that projector that may justify the added expense. I have recently found pricing info that places the HS51 within $650 of the AE700 as well. So, here are my thoughts as to why the HS51 may be worth the added expense:

1. I saw both and personally liked the HS51 better during my limited demo time at CEDIA

2. The HS51 is based off of brand new LCD chips that hopefully leverage TODAY what the D5 chips will leverage tomorrow. I.e. I haven't read anything about the difference between the Sony chip in the HS20 vs the HS51 other than resolution difference. But I'd assume that they benefit from some other technology improvements such as possible contrast ratio improvement at the chip and VB reduction/elimination.

3. The HS51 comes with a 2 year warranty vs the 1 year on the panasonic.

4. The HS51 has much higher measured contrast than the Panasonic.

5. I like the design of the iris better on the HS51, it looks more intelligent in my mind.

6. SDE effect doesn't bother me that much and I couldn't see it at the back of the demo room at CEDIA.

7. The HS51 runs quieter according to spec anyway. I think we can believe that number despite the pre-production unit issues experience earlier.

8. I personally perceive the Sony products to be of better quality (regardless of price) just based on years of reading this forum and hearing about issues. It seems there are less issues with the Sonys than the Panasonics.

In my mind, it seems as though the 700 has 3 things going for it... price, smoothscreen and zoom lens. I don't think I need the huge zoom range as my proj will be setup at a reasonable distance from the screen where either projector could work. In my mind, that doesn't typically help a single customer. It more helps panasonic sell projectors to more users given that so many people have different setups. Since it doesn't matter in my setup, I don't see it as a benefit.

The smoothscreen is probably this guy's strongest point. I really liked the filmlike presentation that it provided. I just don't know if it made up for the difference in contrast and black level that the Sony brought to the table.

The other benefit, price, however keeps me on the fence. I will have enough saved to buy the 700 in short order. But saving up the extra $650 for the Sony could take me some time. I quite often find myself thinking... ahh forget it, let's just get the 700 and enjoy. But on the other hand, I am very much unlike the typical buyer on this forum. I want to buy something and use it for a looooong time. I am thinking I will use it till 1920x1080 devices are <$2k. That could be 5 years or more. Also, I dropped about $6k on my audio setup, so it seems a tragedy to compromise on my video for a mere $600 in price difference.

So, I have not decided but it's obvious where my heart lies. Don't flame me for posting my HS51 love in the AE700 forum... he asked. Who knows... maybe I'll buy a 700 after all.

reap

Well, I thought I'd post some new thought for my fence sitters club after reading the PC review of the HS51. Quoted above are my original thoughts about why the HS51 could be the right choice. Let's review.

1. I can't change my feelings from CEDIA but I do remember that the 700 was a close second. Nothing has changed here. But I will state that CEDIA didn't 100% convince me that the 51 was the machine for me. Otherwise I wouldn't be on the fence would I?

2. Not a word in the review about VB? How do I take that? I assume they never saw it. But that's no certainty. Guess we're left hanging there :(. I'd still guess that VB is less prevalent on the 51. I personally think the VB issue may not be quite as bad as one might think after reading this thread though.

3. Warranty wasn't mentioned but I would assume the same applies.

4. Still true.

5. Still true

6. Still true

7. What!? It's louder than the AE700! Big surprise there!

8. Still true

So now some comments as last time. The scaler issue is a big one in my mind... not for DVDs... but gaming.. I am not buying a $1000 scaler for this thing. I can upscale my DVDs with a $200-$300 DVD player. But what about xbox 480p? What about ps2 480i? Umm, that sounds like a big issue. The only caveat here is that PC made a big error re scaling effect in their first 700 review too. Do we trust them now?

Second item: noise! What? That came as a big surprise. I still feel a bit reluctant to believe that it is louder. But, I have knocked that off of my list of benefits and am putting them on equal ground.

Vertical banding may be a bigger issue on the 700 than the 51. But I doubt it'd bother me much if you can only see it in a few scenes of some certain movies. I've never heard my fav movies (LotR) mentioned in that group. So, maybe I am OK there.

I don't know what to say now. I spent the last 3 weeks scratching my head about how I could save up the extra $650. But now I am starting to scratch my head and think... why? What do I gain?

OK, contrast... and maybe less VB. But at the expense of brightness. I wonder if you turned the brightness of the 700 down to 250 lumens, could you still see VB? Maybe that's why it's invisible on the 51.

I don't know. I am starting to lean a little this way now. I just thought it was fair to warn you people on this side of the fence. I don't want to hurt anyone if I happen to fall in. Hrmmm...

Other thoughts? Club members... speak

reaper

AstroCat,

The White Flash doesn't sound very desirable... :(

What about using 720p ?

Sorry, MrPixel, the grandkids were throwing tantrums that two closed doors between me and them couldn't shut out. You sound already chilled.

Where I come from "VB" is a brand of beer. I just get so sick and tired of hearing about it, and hearing so many freak out about it mostly from theory and rumor. Some of this frustration got transferred to you and your pink paint idea.

I don't reckon it would be easy to get the right hue and saturation perfect without a lot of experimentaton (which is what I did, of course, but each "coat" only took me as long as it takes to flip out the next filter from the swatch... no mess, no fuss).

You might also consider that adding tint to your screen would have the same effect as putting a light absorbing filter in front of the lens: a darker picture.

What's happening with projectors today, is what happened with digital cameras a couple of years ago. We have a technology that's on the edge, not... quite... good... enough, and there are many (including myself) who are trying their own tweaking scenarios to get better results, to move a little past that edge. Now that digital cameras are better than a few years ago, and now easily surpass (well, many of them) 35mm resolution, much of the debate has died down, except on dedicated, navel gazing forums such as this where perfection is assumed to be something that can be attained, where consumers are always thinking they're getting ripped off and where (mostly) it's all in their late-night, fevered imaginations.

One day soon, no-one will worry about VB, or SDE, or MM, or using Goo because the technology will surpass these Band Aid fixes and barely existent problems.

I purchased my own projector because I wanted to enjoy watching movies ina more cinema-like atmosphere. With one night of farting around (and a bit or pre-reading) I worked out a way that suits me fine, based on sound principles and a little intuition as to which way to approach the problem.

I'm sure that in days to come, the same plaintive questions about which cable to buy, how to get rid of image artefacts that hardly rate a mention, where to purchase the latest, greatest whatchimecallit to get that extra milligram of imagined performance, will continue. Most of it for nothing really, because so much time will have been wasted on mind-numbing jargon-enriched stress and worry that all the enjoyment people will get from their purchases will have gone down the black hole of despair as they read somewhere, that somebody has, or might have, or claims to have, or knows someone who has something a little bit better.

Enjoy.

Originally posted by MrPixel

What's the difference between putting a 'light salmon' CC filter in front of a 700 lens vs. painting a screen with DIY gray screen paint doped with 'light salmon' to achieve the same effect off the screen? Painting would be easier for me than getting and mounting a filter, and I'd remove a cruddy plastic optical element in the process. Either way I'd have to re-blanace all of the inputs so I could max out the brightness and contrast on the Dynamic mode...

And speaking of DIY color balancing - is a photographic spot meter any good for color-balancing a front projector? I have one I can mount on a tripod - I intend to play with it and some colored IRE screens once the projector gets here, but I thought I'd save myself the trouble if it's a known no-op for some reason.

Thx!

I've been projecting onto a light tan wall while I figure out what I'm going to do about a screen. I was surprised that it looks as good as it does. So the coloration of the screen isn't a bad idea. It might actually help it from looking so much like a screen if you're in a multi use room. My sample swatches came in from Da-lite today, and with testing, I think I'm going to go with the glass beaded screen.

I'm a photographer and have several light meters including a 3 way color meter. It doesn't really work right in grayscale calibration due to it's filters are designed around a black body radiation with is different than the high pressure mercury bulbs that are used in most of these projectors. Reds are different when you measure spectral distribution.

All this to say that if you don't have a reference point, mild differences in grayscale aren't going to be obvious as the eye adjust for these differences. Do you really see yellow red under incadesent lighting?

I respect what Aussie guy is trying to do, but I'm not so sure that the chase is worth the catch.

Originally posted by AstroCat
A little while back someone noticed a flash of what looks like tv "snow" while watching the projector. Well, I've now seen it for the first time. It happened 3 times over the course of 3 hours. It last for about 1 frame and I've never seen it before. It's like it loses some kind of sync for 1 or 2 frames. Very strange! I'm using HDMI with a Panasonic DVD-S97S at 1080i.

What would cause this. I never saw this at 480p with the new S97s or my older RP-91. Is this related to upconverting or using the HDMI cable?

Thanks for any help!

Jordan "AstroCat"

I sure hope these "flashes" don't become an issue. As a test - I would put things back to how they were before you saw them. see what happens.

I've watched about a dozen movies on the 700 and so far so good. I 've been using 480p and 480i.

Aussie Bob...you are a damn fine writer, I appreciate your efforts.

We members of the Moral Majority here in the States also drink beer, fart and pat our dogs while watching movies. No worries, you'd fit right in.

I was using 1080i from the Panasonic DVD-S97S. I have about 14 hours or so on the projector and never saw it with component out with the RP-91 player.

For a test I will watch for a while at 720p, then I'll watch at 480p all over HDMI and try and narrow down the issue. So far, it's either my cable (unlikely), the dvd player (unlikely, because the other guy saw it on a different player), or the projector (most likely!)

If there is something wrong perhaps it is fixable?

I'll keep everyone posted!

Jordan "AstroCat"

anyone using a Elite Screen with there 700?

like the ones you can get at tiger direct

I can't seem to find no info on elite screens and there how good there quality is (I bought one anyways, lets hope it doesn't suck) and was gonna use one with the ae700 I just bought :)

Ok, further results now that I am finding time to watch. I spent 6 hrs yesterday (took the afternoon off from work) and watched a couple dvd's. AOTC is absolutely incredible. Crisp clear detail and awesome colors. Me and my wife are both still mesmerized with this thing.

VB- I finally found it. In the service mode on the gray test screen it was clearly visible. Then, during the sand dune scenes it was there slightly in the sky. My wife commented I was looking too hard and should just enjoy the movie. I then went into the service mode and checked the flicker tweak settings. All were at 26 except green which was 28. I dropped it down 1 notch to 27 and went back to inspect the scene again. Much better. Very faint now and I am debating on if I should do a further tweak or not. Really this is minimal now and I am so pleased with the picture quality. Of course I did this when it was warmed up after about 1hr of viewing. I have still been powering off manually for now. I am sure I will forget some night and wake up to find VB but at least I should be able to tweak it out.

SDE- none, I know it is probably there but from my seating distance of 2x there is nothing, nada...zip.

Fan Noise- I am running on high lamp but low fan mode. I did hear it kick up a notch when I went to the high lamp mode but it was minimal. High fan mode is fairly noticeable though so it seems like there are 3 settings??

Black levels- Contrast is plenty good for me, in fact better than all the in store LCD demos I have seen. Of course some were not an ideal setup too. Black levels are quite good. Sure they can be better, maybe with a gray screen this will help but really not an issue. Maybe I will upgrade the screen down the road. Shadow detail is very good. I could pick up details I had missed on my Hitachi 50" RPTV. My Hitachi is 7 years old but I thought it still produced a good picture. Now after watching AOTC last night it is no contest. Panny wins hands down.

I am still just using a black out cloth screen with velvet border. The velvet puts a really nice edge and helps with the viewing experience.

The remote is really easy to use and also the menus. I still have not even run DVD essentials and am totally satisfied with the picture quality.

Bottom line is I cannot see how anyone would not like this projector. I know my friends will crap when they come over. I can't wait to get HD now and be really amazed. I am sure glad I got off the fence...Reaper, I am nudging you here :)

I have a camera buddy who is going to come over to take screen shots next week. He has a Canon digital with about $6k in gear. Really high end stuff. Hopefully we can get some high quality screen shots to post. Stay tuned.......

Originally posted by AstroCat
I was using 1080i from the Panasonic DVD-S97S. I have about 14 hours or so on the projector and never saw it with component out with the RP-91 player.

For a test I will watch for a while at 720p, then I'll watch at 480p all over HDMI and try and narrow down the issue. So far, it's either my cable (unlikely), the dvd player (unlikely, because the other guy saw it on a different player), or the projector (most likely!)

If there is something wrong perhaps it is fixable?

I'll keep everyone posted!

Jordan "AstroCat"

AstroCat,

You're not the only one who sees the occasional odd flash when using the HDMI input. I'm using a Gefen HDMI switcher along with an Elite 59 AVi with HDMI out and a DirecTV DTC 210 with a DVI to HDMI adapter. (Both devices set to output 720P) I really think we are seeing some kind of digital/HDMI artifact as like you I have never seen it through the component inputs. The frequency of the flashes is absolutely unpredictable, some evenings none other evenings one or two per hour. I don't think length of the HDMI cable is the issue. My guess is this is simply a characteristic of the 700 or at least some of the early 700's, similar to the way the green screen in the flicker adjustment usually appears to be the main offender. I'll be very interested to hear if you can find a cure. Good luck.

Originally posted by amrod
anyone using a Elite Screen with there 700?

like the ones you can get at tiger direct

I can't seem to find no info on elite screens and there how good there quality is (I bought one anyways, lets hope it doesn't suck) and was gonna use one with the ae700 I just bought :)


I am using one myself.... i ordered it directly from them however since it is cheaper that way...I was using a da lite screen from the late 70's before this and also used a plain white wall... i can say the image is a lot better with the screen and for the price i am happy....

Hello,

Just got my AE700 hooked up last night. I'm using DVI-HMDI from the cable box to the projector and component from the Zenith 318 to the projector. I have a question. When watching HDTV from the cable box, my picture is perfectly centered. When I switch to the DVD player, my image shifts to the left and no longer is centered on the screen like it should be. Any idea why this is happening?

Thanks in advance!

Regarding the use of light meters and filters for color and black level calibration, this is the foundation behind the SMART III calibration system.

What they add to the mix though is they check each meter against a known calibrated source before shipping it to you and include some software (souped up Excel workbook) to record and interpret your readings and recommend setting changes. It is a very good system for the price, but is also pretty labor intensive. For each calibration run you take readings from zero to 100 IRE separately with Red, Blue, and then Green filters in place, punch in your 33 readings, get an interpretation back, make recommended changes, and repeat until done. It takes hours, but hey that's why the ISF calibrators with the more sophisticated equipment get the big bucks I guess.

Hey guys, got my projector hooked up, DVI-HDMI from my HTPC... for the life of me, I can't get my AV receiver on-screen display up to change the sound input from TOSLINK to my digital coax.

Any advice?

First a question--what calibration DVD to people recommend using for setting up this projector?

I just got my projector in yesterday. I was going to buy a screen for it, but after projecting it onto my wall, I think I'm actually happy enough with it the way it is! I was projecting a 116" diagonal image onto a wall that is slightly off-white (it has a very slight lavender tint to it) and the image looked fantastic! Even during the day when there is some ambient light leaking in. Direct light of course washes it out, but as long as you can keep the ambient light from shining directly on the screen the projector is bright enough to overcome it. There was enough light in the room for me to easily read a newspaper or book and yet the picture was still plenty good enough for casual viewing.

I'm very impressed with the projector. My friends are going to be so jealous when they realize they spent more on their 55" TV's than I've spent on my 116"! I've yet to check out TV on it--I've only played DVD's, but I am one happy camper!

Originally posted by Milehigh
Hey guys, got my projector hooked up, DVI-HDMI from my HTPC... for the life of me, I can't get my AV receiver on-screen display up to change the sound input from TOSLINK to my digital coax.

Any advice?

Don't you need to feed one of the the "Monitor Out" (composite, S-Video, or Component) from the A/V receiver to the projector to see the on-screen display?

Originally posted by AstroCat
I was using 1080i from the Panasonic DVD-S97S. I have about 14 hours or so on the projector and never saw it with component out with the RP-91 player.

For a test I will watch for a while at 720p, then I'll watch at 480p all over HDMI and try and narrow down the issue. So far, it's either my cable (unlikely), the dvd player (unlikely, because the other guy saw it on a different player), or the projector (most likely!)

If there is something wrong perhaps it is fixable?

I'll keep everyone posted!

Jordan "AstroCat"


What is your opinion on the quality of the image from the S97 at 720p /1080i ? Does it add that extra WOW factor to DVD's or does the AE700 already do a pretty good job of upscaling from 480i/p via component.

I know that technically upscaling at the source then sending uncompressed video via HDMI is superior to running via component to the PJ, but I was curious as to what your eyes actually tell you:-

ie, does it look that much better, and was it worth the extra $$$ for the S97 ?

Thanx

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Aussie Bob
[B]
Received my AE-700 from AIM Digital (Australia) yesterday. Price: under $3k Australian. I had already seen a demo at Panasonic HQ, 6 weeks ago, thinking "hmmmm...."


Aussie Bob, Could you please PM or email me (tech at sk8.co.nz) I wanted some feedback on your expereince with AIM as I was also planning to purchase from them.

Thanx

I just got everything set up. I have the new DirectvHD/Tivo receiver hooked up via HDMI-HDMI cable. My problem is that I am getting no signal from my sat. receiver. I checked two different HDMI cables and got zilch. Component does work, however. On my projector menu, the picture select option is not highlighted when I am hooked up via HDMI. I am trying to figure out if it is the receiver output or the projector input that is not working. If anyone has had this problem or heard of such, please let me know.

Is there a slider-switch on the back of your receiver to switch between analog HD output and digital HD output?

there is no switch on the back

Has anyone else had problems with poor geometry of the projected image from your 700? I hooked mine up yesterday (beautiful image, by the way!), and the lower right corner of the image is bending downward by almost an inch. I'm 99% sure I'm going to return it for exchange, but I was just wondering if I'm alone in this flaw...

-tony

rockytopps,

The problems most likely lies in your HD Tivo. There is a very well known problem with the HDMI card it the recievers. Check the Tivo Community Forums for more information. (Sorry I can't post URL's yet)

Tony, I have a ball socket on my DIY mount and it was critical to get the projector squared up in all planes to the screen. If I had it off slightly to the left or right the geometry was off on that particular corner. I am sure you tried all this in your set up but I thought I would mention it.

People giving feedback on your AE700, it would be helpful if you could always list your source player, output resolution (480i/p - 720p or 1080i) and what cable/connection you are using (ie component/vga/hdmi(dvi)). That would be most useful.

So have AE700 owners found a new problem with these "white flashes"? It sounds like some sort of video synchronizing problem on HDMI. I hope this is not a common issue. HDMI signals were to be the better way. Are all of those experiencing the "white flash" using an HDMI connection? What cable brand, type and length? What program material and what resolution? Interlaced? Progressive? Is there anyone using HDMI who has NOT seen the white flash?

:)

Well, between Aussie Bob and the PC review, I've officially left the sotf club and jioned the ae700 club. Should have it by mid week. I'm excited!

Here is a screen shot comparing my L300U (bottom left) to my new 700 (top right). The 300 has 550 hours on it, and has been calibrated using DVE. Amazing to me how crappy and washed-out it looks (YELLOW!) when viewed next to the new 700. Both images were taken with the same camera (a Canon 10D) and the same settings (1/8", 4.0), minutes apart, attached to the same equipment (XP30 DVD over component shooting against a 106" Dalite High Power Screen) from the same spot in the 80% light-controlled room. In other words, aside from the calibration of the projectors and the 500 hours on the L300U, this is a pretty controlled direct comparison.

By the way, the screen shot is cropped from a much larger 6MP image captured from "Pirates of the Carribean" and doesn't appear to be the sharpest paused scene, but I wouldn't blame that on the projectors...

Originally posted by tbacos
Amazing to me how crappy and washed-out it looks (YELLOW!) when viewed next to the new 700.
Is the 2nd guy from the right supposed to look extremely sunburned, as he does on the AE700 side? I've seen the movie in the theater, but don't remember this part. On my desktop CRT monitor the AE700 side of that picture makes it look like he should be heading to the hospital. Could be my monitor somewhat though.

--Darin

BTW, Pirates of the Caribbean is a good DVD for demo. I watched it last night (at work) and noted the colors, fog, black levels, etc. for testing some projectors. Even a couple of clear sky scenes would come in handy.

Is the 2nd guy from the right supposed to look extremely sunburned?

I don't know, as I haven't calibrated my projector yet. However he is a pirate, and has therefore has probably spent a fair amount of time outdoors without SPF60 on... :)

Originally posted by sk8conz


Aussie Bob, Could you please PM or email me (tech at sk8.co.nz) I wanted some feedback on your expereince with AIM as I was also planning to purchase from them.

Thanx [/B]
Unless you're planning a trip over I think you'll find they only deliver within au.
At current NZ prices going over and picking one up would probably still be cheaper even with flight costs and gst. BUT would panasonic-nz accept warrantee claims?

I was around here a few months back until I bought an AE500 and have since disappeared. Until now! :) The place I purchased my 500 doesn't have an "upgrade policy". For those of you who have sold your 500s to get into a 700, where r u selling them and what (if I can ask?) is the typical pricing? I realize it depends on bulb hours (my 500 has about 760hrs on it) but I know of no "Blue Book" for used projectors?
Looking to upgrade-
Warren
NJ Shore

Originally posted by Jcam9
Ok, further results now that I am finding time to watch. I spent 6 hrs yesterday (took the afternoon off from work) and watched a couple dvd's. AOTC is absolutely incredible. Crisp clear detail and awesome colors. Me and my wife are both still mesmerized with this thing.

VB- I finally found it. In the service mode on the gray test screen it was clearly visible. Then, during the sand dune scenes it was there slightly in the sky. My wife commented I was looking too hard and should just enjoy the movie. I then went into the service mode and checked the flicker tweak settings. All were at 26 except green which was 28. I dropped it down 1 notch to 27 and went back to inspect the scene again. Much better. Very faint now and I am debating on if I should do a further tweak or not. Really this is minimal now and I am so pleased with the picture quality. Of course I did this when it was warmed up after about 1hr of viewing. I have still been powering off manually for now. I am sure I will forget some night and wake up to find VB but at least I should be able to tweak it out.

SDE- none, I know it is probably there but from my seating distance of 2x there is nothing, nada...zip.

Fan Noise- I am running on high lamp but low fan mode. I did hear it kick up a notch when I went to the high lamp mode but it was minimal. High fan mode is fairly noticeable though so it seems like there are 3 settings??

Black levels- Contrast is plenty good for me, in fact better than all the in store LCD demos I have seen. Of course some were not an ideal setup too. Black levels are quite good. Sure they can be better, maybe with a gray screen this will help but really not an issue. Maybe I will upgrade the screen down the road. Shadow detail is very good. I could pick up details I had missed on my Hitachi 50" RPTV. My Hitachi is 7 years old but I thought it still produced a good picture. Now after watching AOTC last night it is no contest. Panny wins hands down.

I am still just using a black out cloth screen with velvet border. The velvet puts a really nice edge and helps with the viewing experience.

The remote is really easy to use and also the menus. I still have not even run DVD essentials and am totally satisfied with the picture quality.

Bottom line is I cannot see how anyone would not like this projector. I know my friends will crap when they come over. I can't wait to get HD now and be really amazed. I am sure glad I got off the fence...Reaper, I am nudging you here :)

I have a camera buddy who is going to come over to take screen shots next week. He has a Canon digital with about $6k in gear. Really high end stuff. Hopefully we can get some high quality screen shots to post. Stay tuned.......

Nudge acknowledged :)

I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on a AE700 and was wondering what the latest is on pricing. I know people have posted that VA was selling for a few hundred less that PP, but VA wasn't shipping until lately. Now that supply is starting to ease is anyone else matching VA's pricing? (I know we can't quote prices except for MSRP so I'm intentionaly being vague). I would just order from VA, but I'd prefer to find someone that has the same price and also offers a trial period without a restocking fee, like PP does. Thanks for any help.

John

Got my AE700 from PP this week. In short, just stunning. I'm feeding a HD and 1080i DVD signal in via component. 100" screen and sitting only about 9 feet away. Still looks fantastic. Watched HD college football today. God Bless America.
The projector is mounted on the ceiling, right side up, via a 'projector box' I built for it that has plenty of ventilation. Screen is a piece of sheetrock painted w/ the Bear Silver Screen mixture. Distanance from the screen is about 13-14 feet.
I am not a projector expert, but I am very anal about picture quality...coming from a 55" HD Mitz...and I have to say that I am EXTREMELY happy with the PQ of this little projector. Better than I was expecting. I have looked hard, but not have seen *any* VB. None. Keep my fingers crossed. Oh yeah...ran through DVE on 'natural' mode and didn't touch the color settings. Love this thing.

Originally posted by dvmdoc
I was around here a few months back until I bought an AE500 and have since disappeared. Until now! :) The place I purchased my 500 doesn't have an "upgrade policy". For those of you who have sold your 500s to get into a 700, where r u selling them and what (if I can ask?) is the typical pricing? I realize it depends on bulb hours (my 500 has about 760hrs on it) but I know of no "Blue Book" for used projectors?
Looking to upgrade-
Warren
NJ Shore
Can I ask why you think the 700 is worth a upgrade?

I saw my AE700 for the first time tonight. It was at my friend's house, who supplied the HTPC. I used to have the AE300.

If you are watching HD content, the improvement of the AE700 is significant & immediately noticeable. Frankly, HD on the AE300 is wasted.

I am going to reserve judgement on DVD improvement until I have it set up exactly the way the AE300 was.

And yes, the vertical banding is still there, as is the fixed panel noise, but they seem much less. I'll know for sure once I have it set up at my house.

[Edit] The service menu 3 color tweak didn't really help my old AE300 with vertical banding & FPN. I can't remember if we tweaked the AE700 before or after I noticed the banding & FPN. I'll do more testing later.

Have spent only a few hours with my 700 in a jury-rigged setup while I'm finishing my HT room.

SETUP:

-100" diag. blackout cloth screen, coated side.

-18' throw, minor vert. lens shift.

-relatively light-controlled room, light walls & carpet, white ceiling.

-super cheapie sylvania dual VCR/DVD player connected with component ins/outs.


As laughable as the player might seem (my other player is an older Sony with only S-video out), I feel it's served to create a baseline image to work my way up from, and even shows how much can be achieved these days for a fraction of what we'd all have spent on a much lesser-performing system just 5-10 years ago.

NOTES:

While this environment begs for the "dynamic" picture setting, I find it to be very "video-like", and MUCH prefer the 3 "cinema" settings in all respects other than overall brightness or "punchiness". The cinema settings have an amazingly film-like quality to them, and I've been stunned by that quality at each of my pitifully short viewing sessions. At those settings, however, and with this environment and screen size, I find the brightness and especially the contrast absolutely abysmal. Even after trying a significantly smaller, punchier image, I must try not to be spooked by the contrast & black levels. I've known, of course, of LCD's limitations in this respect, and that there is much improvement to come in my setup, including possible tweaks with a filter, but HOOOOOO-OOIIEE folks, it's BAD, and has a long, long way to go to get to the "acceptable" or even the (dare I dream?) "pretty good" level. I didn't expect that after Panasonic's ballyhoo & such favorable user feedback. I'm praying (perhaps I should just assume) that the tweaks/screen choice/environment combo can actually cover that distance, but I'll be doggone impressed if it can. Maybe so. I'll let you know.

The striking disparity between light and dark scenes suggests that the AI/Dynamic Iris function has a significant effect.

Outside of my unnerving experience with the out-of-the-box contrast, I'm really impressed with most other aspects of my 700's performance/features. The subtlety in its displayed range of colors is extraordinary even in this environment. The broad zoom is absolute gravy. The lens shift is, as others have noted, quite sticky, but as a "set once" type of function, I can easily live with that.

My very first glimpse of the 700's performance was with the opening night shots of JAWS, which, of course, slugged me in the face with the contrast issue. More curiously, I was also struck by some subtle image-lag, which I'd hoped was not still an issue with LCD's. It's nearly nothing compared with the acid trip-like effect that was ubiquitous on older LCD displays, and I haven't really noticed it since those scenes, but there it was. I (really) think I'm avoiding dark scenes because of the "contrast cringes", and such scenes may emphasize the effect. We'll see.

One interesting color issue: Despite fooling around (somewhat blindly I admit) with the color controls, I am finding that faces, especially tanned caucasion ones, take on a kind of unnatural brick-red tone, worse on some DVD's than others and certainly subject to an individual movie's color characteristics. I am aware of the commonly lamented red push on video displays, but this, like the contrast issue, seems to stand out like a sore thumb (or face) measured against the other, stunning aspects of the 700's picture. It's EXTREME on Enter the Dragon, with which I am intimately familiar (both the movie & this particular disc).

I have also found that the sound on DVDs is out of sync (early), due, I assume, to the time taken to process the image (upconverting, etc.) This is not unheard of, but disappointing to find. Interestingly, it's also extreme (and I mean REALLY extreme) on Enter the Dragon. Either that disc is already somewhat out of sync and has its own red push, or my 700 is, as are some of my friends, allergic to Kung Fu movies.

If my finished setup & tweaks resolve the contrast, brightness (at around 100"), color anomalies, and sound sync issues, I'll be sound as a pound. I suppose only an amp equipped to do so will resolve the sound sync problem, but I'd be grateful for input about any of these issues to steer me in the right direction as I proceed (for instance, could the digital-to-analogue conversion in a crappy DVD player conceivably impact aspects of the image such as the color or contrast?).

I'll post a more respectable review once my 700 is in a more respectable setup.

KongFan

P.S. I vote AussieBob's posts as the Best-of-Thread winner

Kong Fan

I check the AE700 with my Accupel HD signal generator and found that color saturation needed to be turned down a bit. This was over DVI/HDMI over 1080i. So, turn your saturation down some. A calibration disk will get you close enough.

Color decoder was spot on. I'm talking about "hit the nail on the head" accurate. No need to dig out color decoder service menu codes for any adjustments. Its just not needed.

...and once you view the accurate color on this projector, then go back to something that's not accurate, the difference is striking.

KongFan,

The short answer is YES, a crappy source will produce a crappy picture. Try the Denon 2910 DVD player. That's what I'm using, and after setting the black level to 0 IRE instead of 7.5 IRE, the black levels are much closer to black. Contrast has improved a lot. In addition using DVE or AVIA to calibrate the picture settings will help achieve maximum contrast and ensure that color saturation and hue are excellent. Although Natural mode with color temp -1 proved to have the closest default setting. Calibrating with all the AVIA screens resulted in an image that is even more incredible.

Unfortunately, as with other people using HDMI connections, I too have noticed the damned white flash problem. When I first noticed it, I wondered if it could have potentially been caused by some sort of power problem but after connecting it to a dual inversion AC regeneration power source the white flash popped up again. I think I'll try calling Panasonic's tech support to see what the heck is up with this.

Originally posted by djbluemax1
Unfortunately, as with other people using HDMI connections, I too have noticed the damned white flash problem.

Which HDMI sources are associated with the white flashes? I am wondering if it happens primarily with upconverted DVD. I have not seen it with DVI-to-HDMI out of my HD cable box. I am thinking it could be caused by momentary interruptions of the digital signal stream (perhaps more likely with DVD than a video feed).

Originally posted by JimP
Kong Fan

I check the AE700 with my Accupel HD signal generator and found that color saturation needed to be turned down a bit. This was over DVI/HDMI over 1080i. So, turn your saturation down some. A calibration disk will get you close enough.



I agree! I had to turn down the color to -6 (max -8) to get an accurate (to my eyes) picture w/ nice flesh tones.

any comments on how the 10 bit processing of the 700 would compare to the 12 bit processing of the HS51? Any thoughts? WSR mentioned great grey scale performance due to the 12 bit processing on the 51.

Originally posted by Jcam9
Ok, further results now that I am finding time to watch. I spent 6 hrs yesterday (took the afternoon off from work) and watched a couple dvd's. AOTC is absolutely incredible. Crisp clear detail and awesome colors. Me and my wife are both still mesmerized with this thing.

VB- I finally found it. In the service mode on the gray test screen it was clearly visible. Then, during the sand dune scenes it was there slightly in the sky. My wife commented I was looking too hard and should just enjoy the movie. I then went into the service mode and checked the flicker tweak settings. All were at 26 except green which was 28. I dropped it down 1 notch to 27 and went back to inspect the scene again. Much better. Very faint now and I am debating on if I should do a further tweak or not. Really this is minimal now and I am so pleased with the picture quality. Of course I did this when it was warmed up after about 1hr of viewing. I have still been powering off manually for now. I am sure I will forget some night and wake up to find VB but at least I should be able to tweak it out.

SDE- none, I know it is probably there but from my seating distance of 2x there is nothing, nada...zip.

Fan Noise- I am running on high lamp but low fan mode. I did hear it kick up a notch when I went to the high lamp mode but it was minimal. High fan mode is fairly noticeable though so it seems like there are 3 settings??

Black levels- Contrast is plenty good for me, in fact better than all the in store LCD demos I have seen. Of course some were not an ideal setup too. Black levels are quite good. Sure they can be better, maybe with a gray screen this will help but really not an issue. Maybe I will upgrade the screen down the road. Shadow detail is very good. I could pick up details I had missed on my Hitachi 50" RPTV. My Hitachi is 7 years old but I thought it still produced a good picture. Now after watching AOTC last night it is no contest. Panny wins hands down.

I am still just using a black out cloth screen with velvet border. The velvet puts a really nice edge and helps with the viewing experience.

The remote is really easy to use and also the menus. I still have not even run DVD essentials and am totally satisfied with the picture quality.

Bottom line is I cannot see how anyone would not like this projector. I know my friends will crap when they come over. I can't wait to get HD now and be really amazed. I am sure glad I got off the fence...Reaper, I am nudging you here :)

I have a camera buddy who is going to come over to take screen shots next week. He has a Canon digital with about $6k in gear. Really high end stuff. Hopefully we can get some high quality screen shots to post. Stay tuned.......

I agree - I've now logged 30 hours on my 700 and I couldn't be happier (well - maybe a little). I really love the projector re-located to the back of the room.

SDE? What SDE? There is none. (Maybe a peek-a-boo scan line now and again - but no biggy)

RE: VB - I've reduced it to a minimal level I can easily live with - and I'm very pleased. It came down to two things. Running the 700 in interlaced mode (don't foget to switch on Cinema Reality!) and turning off the main power switch at night. I know it's wierd - but these two things worked for me. And as you can tell from my posts - I'm a VB nut. I first reported it on the 700 way back on October 1st when I previewed the unit at Daniel's house.

My unit won't let me run high-bulb and low fan at the same time. Are you sure you can do this? I've noticed 4 different fan speeds. Of course I'm running at the lowest (I'm a fan noise nut).

I love the remote and the menus. Absolutely nothing to complain about in this area.

I really think the 700 is a fantastic machine w/ much improved contrast and black level over the 500. Which was a fantastic machine in it's own right (for the price).

With all the (possible) issues (SDE) and concerns (brightness, fan noise) about the new Sony HS-51, and it's limited throw - I'm very glad I jumped off the fence and bought the 700. Now when is that 900 coming out???

Originally posted by KongFan
While this environment begs for the "dynamic" picture setting, I find it to be very "video-like", and MUCH prefer the 3 "cinema" settings in all respects other than overall brightness or "punchiness". The cinema settings have an amazingly film-like quality to them, and I've been stunned by that quality at each of my pitifully short viewing sessions. At those settings, however, and with this environment and screen size, I find the brightness and especially the contrast absolutely abysmal. Even after trying a significantly smaller, punchier image, I must try not to be spooked by the contrast & black levels.

"Dynamic" is easily the least pleasing factory modes regardless of the environment. "Video" is also not very attractive. In your room, I would be more inclined to go with "Normal" and High Lamp with Contrast at 0 and Brightness about -1 or -2. "Natural" is also a possibility but it is a notch dimmer than "Normal". The 3 Cinema modes are going to be way too dim and washed out unless the room is totally darkened.

Originally posted by cpc
People giving feedback on your AE700, it would be helpful if you could always list your source player, output resolution (480i/p - 720p or 1080i) and what cable/connection you are using (ie component/vga/hdmi(dvi)). That would be most useful.

So have AE700 owners found a new problem with these "white flashes"? It sounds like some sort of video synchronizing problem on HDMI. I hope this is not a common issue. HDMI signals were to be the better way. Are all of those experiencing the "white flash" using an HDMI connection? What cable brand, type and length? What program material and what resolution? Interlaced? Progressive? Is there anyone using HDMI who has NOT seen the white flash?

:)

CPC,

I commend your approach of using a "scientific method" in attempting to determine what might be the cause of the "white flash" phenomenon. I too want HDMI to be the better way as it just makes sense to eliminate DA conversions where ever possible. As I've stated, I'm using a Pioneer Elite DV 59AVi outputting 720 Progressive. The DirecTV STB (with DVI to HDMI adapter) is the DTC 210 also set to 720P. Before I added the Gefen HDMI switcher into the mix I was feeding the 700 HDMI from the Pioneer DVD player only. This is where I first noticed the occasional white flash, so it does not appear the Gefen switch is contributing to the problem. The main HDMI cable from the Gefen switch to the PJ is a Monster 400 HDMI 6 meter. The 2 cables from the sources to the switch are the 6' HDMI cables that came with the Gefen. Upon adding the Gefen switch into the mix, my first observation was no picture, just video noise on screen. It turned out the Monster plug was not making a good connection with the Gefen switch even though the plug was fully inserted. By wiggling the Monster plug slightly up and down and side to side I was able to get a stable picture. This observation makes me believe there is an issue either with the Gefen output receptacle or the Monster plug, as the input receptacles on the Gefen with Gefen's cables make a stable connection and no amount of wiggling causes an unstable picture. At this point the Monster cable is working but it is not a connection I trust as the slightest touch of the Monster plug at the switch will cause a loss of sync (picture). Another observation regarding HDMI video switching through the Gefen is that it is not instantaneous. It takes roughly 8 seconds to switch video from one source to another before a stable picture is displayed. Interestingly the last step of this rather lengthly switching process is one "white flash" after the picture appears. My assumption it this is the hand shake or sync that is a normal part of digital video switching. So, as for the occasional white flashes my guess is that for what ever reason they are caused by a momentary loss of sync. Another point to consider in my set up is the cable length is rather long about 26 feet in total. The 6 meter Monster is longer than I need and although I know its almost never the cable, I am not pleased with the poor fit of the Monster plug in the Gefen switch. I have ordered a cheap ($14.95) 15' HDMI cable to see if: 1) I can get a solid connection to the Gefen output, and 2) to see if the occasional white flashes have anything to do with cable length or the Monster.

John

Originally posted by JimP
Kong Fan

I check the AE700 with my Accupel HD signal generator and found that color saturation needed to be turned down a bit. This was over DVI/HDMI over 1080i. So, turn your saturation down some. A calibration disk will get you close enough.
Why 1080i? Does your Voom STB not offer 720P, or is there a problem/issue you concluded, through testing, that it was better to force the AE700 to deinterlace & scale a non-native signal instead directly feeding it a native resolution? Curious, here.

I would echo the question by TheFerret below... I'm hooking up my AE700 to my Comcast hi-def cable box today via component, is it better to feed it a straight 720p signal, or a 1080i and let the projector scale it?

Originally posted by TheFerret
Why 1080i? Does your Voom STB not offer 720P, or is there a problem/issue you concluded, through testing, that it was better to force the AE700 to deinterlace & scale a non-native signal instead directly feeding it a native resolution? Curious, here.

*** Edit ***

Wouldn't you know it, I finally get the Hi-Def cable box hooked up to the projector, and cable has been OUT all morning... go figure, Murphy's Law comes into effect EVERY time I want to do something :(

Originally posted by HMenke
"Dynamic" is easily the least pleasing factory modes regardless of the environment. "Video" is also not very attractive. In your room, I would be more inclined to go with "Normal" and High Lamp with Contrast at 0 and Brightness about -1 or -2. "Natural" is also a possibility but it is a notch dimmer than "Normal". The 3 Cinema modes are going to be way too dim and washed out unless the room is totally darkened.

I agree completely. "Normal" looked best to me. "Dynamic" was completely unwatchable (in my environment), and "Video" wasn't much better.

Originally posted by JDEATON
AstroCat,

I really think we are seeing some kind of digital/HDMI artifact as like you I have never seen it through the component inputs. The frequency of the flashes is absolutely unpredictable, some evenings none other evenings one or two per hour. I don't think length of the HDMI cable is the issue. My guess is this is simply a characteristic of the 700 or at least some of the early 700's, similar to the way the green screen in the flicker adjustment usually appears to be the main offender. I'll be very interested to hear if you can find a cure. Good luck.

Synch instability for a digital source will result in complete loss of signal wherein analog synch instability would show line breakup but rarely complete loss of source.

Does the AE700 re sample synch ala a frame synchronizer? If it does it may require some tweaking of the PJ dot clock. Has anyone tried tweaking the PJ dot clock or is the the artifact too intermittent?

ted

Originally posted by cpc
So have AE700 owners found a new problem with these "white flashes"? It sounds like some sort of video synchronizing problem on HDMI. I hope this is not a common issue. HDMI signals were to be the better way. Are all of those experiencing the "white flash" using an HDMI connection? What cable brand, type and length? What program material and what resolution? Interlaced? Progressive? Is there anyone using HDMI who has NOT seen the white flash?

:)


I posted on the white flash a while back in this thread. I continue to experience it, but it is not very annoying. I would just hope it doesn't start happening more frequently. I have 56 hrs on my 700, and received my 700 in the second shipment from ProjectorPeople, so it was probably one of the first produced. The ONLY time I have seen the white flash is while playing DVDs - I have a Denon DVD-1910 player connected to my 700 via the HDMI input. I have the player set to 720p. My cable is a 'Blue Jeans' DVI-D to HDMI cable, and is 16'. I experience the white flash, on average, about once every 1-2 hrs, sometimes less often, sometimes more. So, when watching a movie, I see it about 1-3 times.

You guys are now getting into some interesting territory. With these white flashes, I'm not sure what to make of them either. I've seen them on occasion. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to them. I get it sometime once or twice over several hours and it has only been via cable.

I have pccables' dvi to hdmi cable running from a scientific atlanta explorer 4200HD. I don't think I've seen it at all via my Denon 1500 DVD running via component cables. But I've watched a lot of hours via TV, and only maybe 6 or so via DVD.

Am I worried about it? Nope.

Regarding the resolution issue. My STB was set at 1080i but I just went in yesterday and added the 720p option as well. When I go into the setting now, I set it says I think 760 in the menu. Before with 1080i, it was showing 1100 something. Do I see a difference in the output? I don't think so. For HD, it has looked spectacular in both.

Anyone here own PS Audio's P300 Power Plant? I tried hooking up the projector to it via my air conditioner's extension cord. Within an hour the P300 shutdown it appeared from overheating. I went over to touch it and it was crispy hot as in burning to the hand.

I shut everything down. Went out and got a very solid looking 25 foot black extension cord. The tan one I was using was the flat wire kind. Anyway, I connected it and ran it over the evening with no shutdown. The PowerrPlant has a 300 watt power limit. I had my tube preamp also connected and the power ratings were fluctuating from 90 to 100. Why those are the numbers I don't know. The manual says the projector is at 180 watts. I don't know what the preamp power rating is but together, they are not showing over 100.

I also noted that there was a 10 watt power change when I switched from high lamp to low. So, I decided to go with that for a while. Later, I went back to high lamp. The P300 was very hot but instead of leaving the lid open partially like I usually do, I took it off and opened the window behind it to let some cooler air in.

Now with all that said I can tell you that I think there is a 15% improvement overall. The P300 has added a less flat, punchier picture with what "feels" like a stronger fill. When it shut down from overheating the first time, I was very disappointed because I really liked the results I thought it was giving.

Anyway, for those of you not looking at power the panny via some power generator like this, my apologies.

Originally posted by TheFerret
Why 1080i? Does your Voom STB not offer 720P, or is there a problem/issue you concluded, through testing, that it was better to force the AE700 to deinterlace & scale a non-native signal instead directly feeding it a native resolution? Curious, here.

Two reasons.

I leave my Voom satellite box on "native", therefore, when it receives a HD signal, its usually at 1080i.

On my Denon 5900, I've experimented between 720p and 1080i over DVI on both my 60" Sony GWIII and the Panasonic AE-700. In my opinion, I think 1080i looks just a tad sharper. I know that you're usually better off feeding a display device its native resolution, but the bottom line is which image you happen to like best. As this varies from one individual to another, I'd recommend you test for yourself and see which one you prefer.

That's why when I was checking with the Accupel, I just looked at the 1080i over DVI/HDMI.

Originally posted by TheFerret
Why 1080i? Does your Voom STB not offer 720P, or is there a problem/issue you concluded, through testing, that it was better to force the AE700 to deinterlace & scale a non-native signal instead directly feeding it a native resolution? Curious, here.

Another possible benefit of sending the AE700 1080i is that it has been mentioned that the AE700 does 3:2 pulldown/deinterlacing for 1080i inputs.

This means it will reconstitute the original progressive frames from film or progressive (1080p) sources. Then the reconstitued 1920x1080p frames are scaled to 1280x720 for the LCD panel.

By sending 1080i, you gain vertical resolution, if the claims of 1080i 3:2 pulldown on the AE700 are true (assuming the video was captured or telecined to true 1080 lines resolution).

If a 720p projector does not do 3:2 pulldown/deinterlacing on 1080i inputs, all you see is 540 rows of vertical information per unit time, scaled to 1280x720 of course.

With 3:2 pulldown and deinterlacing, a 720p projector gains:

720-540 = 180 lines, or a 33% increase in vertical resolution.

So, if you plan to watch a lot of movies from Voom on the AE700, if it does 3:2 pulldown and deinterlacing on 1080i, it would be best to feed it native 1080i over downconverted 720p (assuming the broadcast signal is 1080i, and further assuming the HD set top box does not do 3:2 pulldown and deinterlacing for 1080i signals) ).

I experimented with HDMI 1080i vs HDMI 720p on my Motorola HD cable box. The 1080i was noticeable sharper and more detailed. The 720p had a slightly soft look to it.

Also, with HDMI 1080i I have not seen any of the "peak-a-boo" scan lines that can sometimes appear on 480p component. This gives me encouragement to try an HDMI upconverting DVD player.

Could there be an instability or flaw in the hardware/software driving the Panasonic's HDMI input that is causing momentary loss of synch or handshaking (HDCP or otherwise), and therefore the white flashes are appearing?

This is something Panasonic's techs should be made aware of.

Dan

Remember when using cable boxes (STB) that the picture could be getting scaled by the STB. For example, most HD shows are 1080i in my area, while some football is 720p. If i have the STB set to 720p and the show is 1080i, the STB does the scaling (rather poorly). I would suggest looking for a "pass through mode" option on your STB to allow the projector to do the scaling. See if it looks better that way. The Time Warner boxes in my area recently added the pass through option.

RGB, it didn't even occur to me in this day and age that these projectors wouldn't do 3:2 pull-down. But, wouldn't there be a trade-off worth comparing whether or not the 3:2 pull down on the STB is better than on the projector?

Originally posted by reaper
Well, I thought I'd post some new thought for my fence sitters club after reading the PC review of the HS51. Quoted above are my original thoughts about why the HS51 could be the right choice. Let's review.
...
Other thoughts? Club members... speak
reaper

Well, as the one who branded you our fearless club leader, I'm weighing in on the side of the AE700 now. Justification: There will be new machines available in the next year or so, and I can have a lot of fun in the meantime with the Panny. I've changed my mindset from "This is a long term purchase: Treat the decision as one of great importance" to "There's better around the corner; Don't worry so much."

Takes a lot of the pressure off, at least for me.

Trey

P.S. Shelf mounting is really appealing to me, too, after installing a winch(!) in my attic for the last projector. The AE700's throw makes that possible.

I know this is slightly OT, but I'm not sure what other forum to post it in, so here goes:

Does anyone have a recommendation for where to buy a good 5M HDMI-HDMI cable online? I'd like to use an AVS sponsor, but I'd also like to go with a store and a cable that someone else has had success with. I went to all the local B&M stores today (BB, CC, and GG) and all three of them only carry Monster. I flatly refuse to pay 200%+ more just for the name brand.

Thanks.

-tony

Originally posted by treyhsmith
Well, as the one who branded you our fearless club leader, I'm weighing in on the side of the AE700 now. Justification: There will be new machines available in the next year or so, and I can have a lot of fun in the meantime with the Panny. I've changed my mindset from "This is a long term purchase: Treat the decision as one of great importance" to "There's better around the corner; Don't worry so much."

Takes a lot of the pressure off, at least for me.

Trey

P.S. Shelf mounting is really appealing to me, too, after installing a winch(!) in my attic for the last projector. The AE700's throw makes that possible.

So, with this line of thinking, have you found a dealer with a good upgrade plan? If so, can you describe the plan?

Anyone else know of any good upgrade plans?

reap

HMenke,
I'm using my AE700U primarily for DVDs so yes, my white flash experiences were using a DVD player as the source, putting out either 720p or 1080i. Both showed the white flash problem.

JDEATON,
I'd be interested to know the results of your switching cables since I use the exact same HDMI cable. 6M Monster 400 HDMI-HDMI. I also wondered if the problem might be the cable but I haven't gotten around to A/B'ing cables yet.

romanesq,
Are you sure that your PowerPlant only reads a 100watt draw with your projector running? Is the pre amp on or off? Something's not right there since the projector alone should be drawing something along the lines of 180-190 watts on its own. I'm currently using a Sola S4700 with a 490watt load capacity and once the PJ warms up, it shows a draw of about 40% which is about right, and the PJ is the only thing connected to it. I remember a review stating that they found the Powerplant's amp meter to not accurately show the current draw. Maybe you should check the total draw with a good mulitmeter like a Fluke 87, you could be close to the limit of the P300 if you have the pre amp on as well. (No idea what your preamp draws). And yes, I also saw a slight but noticeable improvement in the overall picture quality. Unfortunately, it didn't cure either the white flash problem or the overnight standby VB problem.

I have searched the forum and only saw a few posts but with no followup on the 2.35:1 with the AE700. Can anyone relay experiences they have had using the AE700 with a 2:35:1 screen? I live in an old house (c1860), so most rooms are not big. The room I'm setting up the AE700 is about 13x14.5. The AE700 seems to be a good fit and I was considering the 2:35:1 option of 81 inches wide by 34.5 inches high. Most viewing will be DVD, with *some* HD content in the future. The AE700 will also be hooked up to a HTPC using ZP, FFDSHOW and NV Decoders. Carada would be the likely choice for the screen.

Originally posted by HMenke
I experimented with HDMI 1080i vs HDMI 720p on my Motorola HD cable box. The 1080i was noticeable sharper and more detailed. The 720p had a slightly soft look to it.


I will second-this. I'm watching the NE Pats game on CBS right now, which is broadcast in 1080i. I have my motorola HD cable box hooked to the 700 via component cables, and with the Motorola set to 1080i. The picture just seems 'more dull' with the 720p setting, though it's still quite spectacular. For some reason, the picture in 1080i seems brighter and more colorful too, but not sure why that would be. Another set of eyes in my room confirmed all this.

Interestingly, before this game, we were watching a game on Fox, and the pq was not nearly as good as it is with this game on CBS. Fox broadcasts in 720p, but not sure if that's the reason why.

Originally posted by reaper
So, with this line of thinking, have you found a dealer with a good upgrade plan? If so, can you describe the plan?
Anyone else know of any good upgrade plans?
reap

Nope, I imagine I'll just take my lumps in the free market zone of AVS Marketplace/Videogon. Sell the AE700 when I'm ready to upgrade, realizing there will be a loss.
I wonder if any dealer would entertain such a scheme. It's worth asking about, for sure.
Trey

Originally posted by djbluemax1

romanesq,
Are you sure that your PowerPlant only reads a 100watt draw with your projector running? Is the pre amp on or off? Something's not right there since the projector alone should be drawing something along the lines of 180-190 watts on its own. I'm currently using a Sola S4700 with a 490watt load capacity and once the PJ warms up, it shows a draw of about 40% which is about right, and the PJ is the only thing connected to it. I remember a review stating that they found the Powerplant's amp meter to not accurately show the current draw. Maybe you should check the total draw with a good mulitmeter like a Fluke 87, you could be close to the limit of the P300 if you have the pre amp on as well. (No idea what your preamp draws). And yes, I also saw a slight but noticeable improvement in the overall picture quality. Unfortunately, it didn't cure either the white flash problem or the overnight standby VB problem. [/B]

I think your point is exactly correct regarding the display accuracy of power used. I think the preamp is using about 70 watts at most. It's a tube preamp using 10 tubes and it's on at the same time as the projector causes it supports the audio. I could check this with a multimeter: thought I had one around the house, will have to check. PS Audio doesn't claim the reading is accurate either. They say that if you have something connected at less than 50 watts, the reading may not even appear. Before I connected the projector, the preamp didn't even register, so it's probably less than 50 watts.

But since I changed the extension cord from the flat tan appliance type to the black round cord, the power plant P300 has not shut down. But I've also removed the top completely and I think that helps some with the heat. It is still running hot but so far so good. The meter with the lamp set on high goes up about 10 watts and reads 100. Even if the meter is inaccurate, I think it is still falling within the 300 watt limit before shutdown.

I'm using standby and I don't see any problems. VB is lines that run across the screen for several lines right?

I have a 2:1 ratio 53x106 screen. I zoom out for 2.35:1 movies with the AE700. I then mask from the top and sides. I also lens shift down. It might sound like a pain but it only takes about 20-30 sec to do, and about the same to put it back to 1.78/1.85:1. Unless I invest in a panamorph type lense this the 2nd best way. We sit 1.5x 106" width back and it looks totally good.
Basically it the same as a 122" image when zoomed at 2.35:1

Jordan "AstroCat"

Originally posted by talo
I have searched the forum and only saw a few posts but with no followup on the 2.35:1 with the AE700. Can anyone relay experiences they have had using the AE700 with a 2:35:1 screen? I live in an old house (c1860), so most rooms are not big. The room I'm setting up the AE700 is about 13x14.5. The AE700 seems to be a good fit and I was considering the 2:35:1 option of 81 inches wide by 34.5 inches high. Most viewing will be DVD, with *some* HD content in the future. The AE700 will also be hooked up to a HTPC using ZP, FFDSHOW and NV Decoders. Carada would be the likely choice for the screen.

Originally posted by tbacos
I know this is slightly OT, but I'm not sure what other forum to post it in, so here goes:

Does anyone have a recommendation for where to buy a good 5M HDMI-HDMI cable online? I'd like to use an AVS sponsor, but I'd also like to go with a store and a cable that someone else has had success with. I went to all the local B&M stores today (BB, CC, and GG) and all three of them only carry Monster. I flatly refuse to pay 200%+ more just for the name brand.

Thanks.

-tony

Many folks have suggested Ram Electronics which is a sponsor at the top of the page here on my computer. PCcables is another source and I have one of theirs running DVI to HDMI. Looking darn good.

Seems like everyone is having the "white flash" problem with HDMI. Perhaps we should all call about it. Maybe something will get done?

I will call both Panasonic and Projector People tomorrow about this issue and see what they say.

Jordan "AstroCat"

Originally posted by romanesq
But since I changed the extension cord from the flat tan appliance type to the black round cord, the power plant P300 has not shut down. But I've also removed the top completely and I think that helps some with the heat. It is still running hot but so far so good. The meter with the lamp set on high goes up about 10 watts and reads 100. Even if the meter is inaccurate, I think it is still falling within the 300 watt limit before shutdown.

I'm using standby and I don't see any problems. VB is lines that run across the screen for several lines right?

I suppose it's possible that the smaller appliance cord had a higher resistance than the larger power cord which may have caused the P300 to overheat. Well, at least if it's not doing that now, it's a good thing.

As for VB, yes, it's where you see alternating light and dark vertical bands across the screen. If you don't see it, you probably don't want to look for it, but in case you were curious enough, the simple way to see what to look for as far as VB is concerned is to go into the flicker tweak menu and change the flicker settings so that there is a lot of flicker (if you do try this, make sure you note the original settings so you can change them back afterwards). Once you exit the menu and go into any light colored screen, (best with either gray or something light blue like a sky backdrop) you'll see the VB that people are talking about. VB in movies is usually most abvious when there is a light background that does not have a lot of detail and has more or less uniform color. Like scenes with fog, or light skies or desert sands etc. Be warned though, if you don't see them, and you weren't sure what you were looking for in trying to spot VB, doing the tweak to see what VB is will make your eyes more sensitive to noticing VB and you might start to notice it when you didn't before.

Then again, you might be one of the lucky few who has gotten a Panny that doesn't show this problem since you say you leave it in standby and haven't seen VB. Quite a few of the rest of us have noticed the VB appearing very obviously when the projector has been left in standby mode overnight.

I received my projector on Thursday from VA, and have loved it so far. Comcast came today to bring out the HD box, looking forward to watching LOTR FOTR on WB tonight on it. Last night I was watching Saving Private Ryan on it, and while the picture looked fantastic, I noticed near the upper right corner of the screen a big blue circle. I hadn't noticed it before, not sure if its always been there or not it's my first projector. So after the movie was over, I put in Gladiator to see if it was just that movie or other movies as well and the blue circle was still there. So I went to bed and turned the projector completely off like I always do. And this morning I was checking out the Gladiator again and another movie, and the same thing happened again. Can anyone please explain what this might be or if anyone else has had this happen to them, and if there is any solution.
Thanks, Nick

Originally posted by tbacos
Does anyone have a recommendation for where to buy a good 5M HDMI-HDMI cable online?

I bought the 23ft version here:

http://www.avcable.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=HDMI&Category_Code=DVI

It turned out to be an extremely well-made cable, good flexibilty, came neatly coiled and bagged, precision molded, with gold-plated contacts and HDMI logo. Over my HD set top box at 1080i, the picture is awesome.

Interesting about the 1080i preferences on here vs 720p for HD sources. Are people also prefering 1080i over 720p for DVD's when using the output of an upconverting dvd player? Which one? Is anyone using an iScan HD? Which output resolution looks the best?

White Flashes are sounding disturbing the more I hear about them. I agree its time to inquire at your dealers, and to Panasonic.

Originally posted by AstroCat
I have a 2:1 ratio 53x106 screen. I zoom out for 2.35:1 movies with the AE700. I then mask from the top and sides. I also lens shift down. It might sound like a pain but it only takes about 20-30 sec to do, and about the same to put it back to 1.78/1.85:1. Unless I invest in a panamorph type lense this the 2nd best way. We sit 1.5x 106" width back and it looks totally good.
Basically it the same as a 122" image when zoomed at 2.35:1

Jordan "AstroCat"

I was looking at the Carada 88'diag 2.35:1 screen. I could go with a 16:9 screen too, which is the native for the PJ. Since most of the source material will be DVD and if and when I switch to some HD, then I think the adjustment could be scripted via FFDSHOW or some other method so the transtions should be easy. I'm wondering if it is unwise to go to 2.35:1 rather than 16:9 considering the PJ.

I'm just jumping inot the front pj realm after looking at the Samsung RPTVs for the past year so I apoligize for the questions on this. Educating one self when so many option exist is not easy, espcially after changing direction in the past 2 weeks. Thanks

got my second unit today...
...hooked first one up yesterday and HDMI port is dead right out of the box. HD tivo had a born on date of Aug. 12 made in Mexico. I took it back today to Tweeter here in Nashville and they said they had some new units in. They went to the stockroom and brought out their last unit. I opened up the box to find out it had the exact same born on date, so needless to say I wasn't very confident. Got home and hooked unit up to my new projectors Hdmi input and to my amazement....IT WORKED!!!! For approximately 15 minutes that is It went haywire showing pink and green lines all over my screen. Man I am so ticked. I spent $175 for a 40ft. Hdmi to Hdmi cable and can't even use it. Before anyone says it, yes I tried two different Hdmi cables, so it isn't the cables. Component works but the longest comp. cable I have is about 6ft. I guess I am going to have to order a 40 ft. component cable which runs another $140 if I want to be able to use my BRAND SPANKIN' NEW Panny AE700 projector that I just bought. The most frustrating and baffling thing of all is why these HDMI ports aren't checked before the boxes are shipped. Whatever happened to quality control?

Nick, it sounds like your problem might be a dust blob - a little bit of dust on one of your LCD panels. Does the blue circle change/sharpen when you turn the lens focus?

Thanks everyone for HDMI cable advice. I ordered one tonight - can't wait to try out my new Panny S97S upconverting DVD player with my 700!

-tony

So I watched my Panny 700 all weekend and LOVED it. (Even more so once I figured out that my DVD didn't have progressive scan turned on!!) However I now have a problem.

At first I thought I was imagining things. Then I payed really close attention, and I have one pixel that is ALWAYS green when there is a video signal.

When there is no signal and the whole screen is just blue, everything is fine. However as soon as I put a signal on it, that pixes turns green and is always green.

On the flicker menu, that pixel doesn't show up at all on the red or blue background, but on the green background it is brighter than all of the other green pixels.

I suspect I need to send this puppy back and get another unit. The pixel in question is very near the center of the screen, and now that I know where it is, I see it all the time.

Anyone else know what this could be other than a defective pixel? Thanks!

Originally posted by JamesAHall
So I watched my Panny 700 all weekend and LOVED it. (Even more so once I figured out that my DVD didn't have progressive scan turned on!!)

So it looks better to you with a progressive signal than with interlaced?

Just curious--it seems like a few people have been saying that interlaced looked better due to the internal scaler on the 700. I've been debating getting a progressive-scan player to go with mine, but I'm unsure whether it's worth it with this particular projector.

hi everyone

i have just ordered the panny 700 with the panny dvd-s97, does someone have these two running trough the hdmi-hdmi cabel that was supplied with the dvd. and how does that work and what do you think of the picture quality. i have an older pioneer dvd (with only scart and s-video dvd636d) so i hope that the purshase of the panny dvd-s97 wasnt a total waste.

i read in projector centrals review of the panny 700 that the picture quality decreases when you ZOOM to max, in my setup i have to Zoom max to fill the 90" screen from about 9" away. so all of you with the panny do you see a deacrese in PQ when you use the maximum zoom (is this noticable).


thanks in advance

Originally posted by funkapus
So it looks better to you with a progressive signal than with interlaced?

Just curious--it seems like a few people have been saying that interlaced looked better due to the internal scaler on the 700. I've been debating getting a progressive-scan player to go with mine, but I'm unsure whether it's worth it with this particular projector.

Oh good grief yes it looked better in progressive scan! Now, to be fair, there were two things going on:

My DVD player (new) was outputting in 4:3, 518i(or something like that), so the projector was zooming it to fill the screen. So the zoom may have had something to do with what was going on. But when there was lots of motion on the screen, like in the space-battle scenes in ROTJ, the shimmering from the moving objects was very disappointing. I actually thought maybe the problem was that I was projecting onto my wall, not a screen. I do have the picture zoomed quite a bit to about 116" diagonally, with the projector only about 12' away.

Once I realized my DVD player wasn't set up properly, I switched it to widescreen output and progressive scan. The difference was amazing! Those action scenes were now rock solid, with no shimmering at all! It went from "cool, but slightly disappointing" to "WOW!"

I can't say how much was due to moving it to widescreen output from 4:3, but I suspect the big difference was moving it to progressive scan. I could be wrong. I can do some more tests here once I find out from Panasonic what I should do with this stuck pixel. :(

Originally posted by JamesAHall
Oh good grief yes it looked better in progressive scan! Now, to be fair, there were two things going on:

My DVD player (new) was outputting in 4:3, 518i(or something like that), so the projector was zooming it to fill the screen. So the zoom may have had something to do with what was going on. But when there was lots of motion on the screen, like in the space-battle scenes in ROTJ, the shimmering from the moving objects was very disappointing. I actually thought maybe the problem was that I was projecting onto my wall, not a screen. I do have the picture zoomed quite a bit to about 116" diagonally, with the projector only about 12' away.

Once I realized my DVD player wasn't set up properly, I switched it to widescreen output and progressive scan. The difference was amazing! Those action scenes were now rock solid, with no shimmering at all! It went from "cool, but slightly disappointing" to "WOW!"

I can't say how much was due to moving it to widescreen output from 4:3, but I suspect the big difference was moving it to progressive scan. I could be wrong. I can do some more tests here once I find out from Panasonic what I should do with this stuck pixel. :(

If you run the projector in interlaced mode (which also may or may not cut down on VB) you MUST switch to "Cinema Reality" in the options menu to eliminate shimmering (moire, combing artifacts).

Re: stuck pixel - this is the first report I've read about a stuck pixel on the 700. Gotta go back.

Originally posted by rockytopps
It went haywire showing pink and green lines all over my screen.

I also saw these pink and green lines all over the screen. They look sort of like the digital "waterfall" display in The Matrix. I am not sure it is the PJ but it could be. For me it is happening on the DVI-to-HDMI out of a Motorola cable box. It seems to happen when I change channels "too much", causing the communication to be scrambled. The other thing I get sometimes is where the bottom half of the picture is snow. Eventually the entire picture becomes snow. I have reset both conditions by turning the cable box off and on (I am reluctant to cycle the PJ!) and it seems to cure it. The other thing is that sometimes the cable box suddenly "shuts down" for no reason. I think it does that during software updates so I am tolerating it for the time being. I am going to play it cool for a couple of weeks to see if these things sort themselves out.

I checked my HDMI connections and they are tight (although I must say the HDMI connector is mechanically inferior to DVI - I prefer the locking screws on the DVI).

Originally posted by talo
I have searched the forum and only saw a few posts but with no followup on the 2.35:1 with the AE700. Can anyone relay experiences they have had using the AE700 with a 2:35:1 screen? I live in an old house (c1860), so most rooms are not big. The room I'm setting up the AE700 is about 13x14.5. The AE700 seems to be a good fit and I was considering the 2:35:1 option of 81 inches wide by 34.5 inches high. Most viewing will be DVD, with *some* HD content in the future. The AE700 will also be hooked up to a HTPC using ZP, FFDSHOW and NV Decoders. Carada would be the likely choice for the screen.
I'm using a DIY screen, made up of white blackout cloth covering a big window, on top of which is a mask made out of black baize cloth. I've opted for a 2.35:1 "screen" ratio as that is the ratio of my favourite films, and I'm using a HTPC with TheaterTek 2.02 to allow me to have a constant height, variable width setup. The screen size is about 2m wide.

Debuted the setup with "Return of the King" yesterday, and apart from an annoying break in the presentation when the PC crashed, it looked absolutely gorgeous.:)

The only other annoyance is having to change the AE700's zoom and lens shift when watching non-HTPC material, as a regular 16:9 image from my satellite box won't fit within the 2.35:1 screen. What I really need is an additional lens/filter/whatever in front of the AE700's lens that reduces the image size, but I don't know if such a thing exists or (if it does) whether it's affordable.

Anyone have this configuration with the AE700 ?

A 15' throw, 74" screen diagonal, seating at 9', screen 30" up from the floor...

A Toshiba pro-scan DVD player with component connection.


How does the image look at 1.6X screen width for DVD only ?

My 700 arrived on 11/5. My test movie was Master and Commander.
Setup was in a living room with 5 windows covered with venetian blinds and several distant uncovered windows. The room had no direct light coming in but was not dark.

Movie's scenes were almost completely washed out. The opening 5 min are scenes in the fog or ships interior. You could barely see the image on the blackout cloth. The screen was moved in front of the windows to minimize any direct refected light but no improvement was noted.

Second test was at night with the room completely dark. The scenes were stunning!!!! Absolutely stunning....
I concur with the previous comments on ambient light being a no-no.

And what color are the walls, ceiling, flooring in this room? Even with no ambient (non-projector) light being generated within the room, reflections coming off the screen and bouncing (reflecting) off other surfaces can elevate the black levels, too.

hoppyfi

Doesn't take much ambient lighting to ruin a front projector image.

However, there is a new screen in development called the black screen that's is suppose to permit front projector viewing in a normally lit room. I believe it's by Sony and is due to come out some time next year.

The da-lite screen I ordered over the weekend was just over $300. I figure I can use it for a couple of years and toss it, if the black screen is viable (and doesn't cost an arm and a leg).

Happy viewing.:)

I got my AE700 on Friday, set up for HD is comcast HD set top box with DVI to HDMI cable. Everything looks beautiful, Discovery HD channel is like wow ! perfect !
I was watching Sunday night HD football game and I noticed that all
close up shots were very sharp and nice, but all wide angle shots (when
actaul play will start with many players in one frame) were not that sharp
and even color were not very crisp, again if camera will switch to close up
shots then every thing will look very sharp and nice. Is there any tweak
specially for sports? Any help on this will be helpful.

What's an arm and a leg worth when you fanny is parked in front of the screen? You still have another arm left to work the remote, raise the beer, and whatnot. And if things start to become a problem, use the remaining leg to get the significant other to do something for you. :)

Is anyone using the keystone correction when ceiling mounting the 700? How much is keystone affecting the image quality?
Lens shift alone will not lower the projected image far enough on my screen.

I prefer the panasonic over the z3 but may have to go with the z3 for it's better lens shift.

Any other suggestions to lower the projected image of the 700?

I'm close to those specs, mine is 85" diagonal, 14' throw, sitting at about 12'. I'm running DVI-HDMI from my HTPC with a progressive signal in native res, and it looks great.

Someone mentioned HD football last night, Ravens vs the Browns, and my HD cable box is using component cables and was absolutely stunning to say the least. One image in particular, they zoomed in on the Cleveland offensive huddle, and you could actually recognize the faces of the quarterback's teammates, IN THE REFLECTION off of his helmet... unbelievable :)

dh935, it could be the camera, or some broadcast factor. I think I slightly noticed that, but think it is the source and not the projector or something you can tweak.

Originally posted by filper
Anyone have this configuration with the AE700 ?

A 15' throw, 74" screen diagonal, seating at 9', screen 30" up from the floor...

A Toshiba pro-scan DVD player with component connection.
How does the image look at 1.6X screen width for DVD only ?

dh935 and milehigh.

Closeups and distant shots looking a lot different in terms of sharpness is a complaint related to HD signals and the cameras that are used. In some instances, they use both SD and HD cameras at the same game.

Originally posted by vtspyder
Is anyone using the keystone correction when ceiling mounting the 700? How much is keystone affecting the image quality?
Lens shift alone will not lower the projected image far enough on my screen.

I prefer the panasonic over the z3 but may have to go with the z3 for it's better lens shift.

Any other suggestions to lower the projected image of the 700?

Move it to the back of the room - and lower it down onto a shelf.
You don't want to use both lens shift (especially) at it's extreme and keystone correction. That would certainly kill your image.

RE: WHITE FLASHES !

OK. After watching 7 DVD’s perfectly on my new 700 - I now have the dreaded “White flashes” (Bummer!) several people have complained about. I was hoping to slide by - and be immune from this. It looks like a sync problem. Similar to the dropouts we suffered through in the old days of Video Tape. Anyway I’m not using HDMI (Yet) - and most have complained about this while using HDMI. And - I’ve noticed it on two different DVD players using two different sets of cables (S-Video, Component) I even noticed it on a PAL disc I played on the Momitsu. Never saw this on my 500 w/ same cables / DVD players. Nothing new added - so definitely a problem w/ the new 700. One disc had only one flash. The next had two flashes. The next 3 flashes. The next had no flashes (!?). Any ideas???
Guess I'll keep watching for awhile - monitor it - and hope that it goes away on it's own. (Wishful thinking?)

anyone know any discrete IR codes for the ae700?

Originally posted by JamesAHall

I can't say how much was due to moving it to widescreen output from 4:3, but I suspect the big difference was moving it to progressive scan. I could be wrong. I can do some more tests here once I find out from Panasonic what I should do with this stuck pixel. :(

I'd appreciate it if you could do that test. I think that switching from zoomed 4:3 to true 16:9 was probably the big difference that you saw. I was running my DVD player on 4:3 first and switched to 16:9 and saw a huge difference in picture quality. Which makes sense--zoomed 4:3 is a pretty low-resolution image

I'm hoping that progressive will provide a little extra boost, though.

This is killing me. I received the projector last Thursday. I finished building my HT room yesterday (last night). I won't have any time tonight to hook it up and I leave for out of town on business tomorrow morning. Looks like I won't be able to even take it out of the box until Friday or Saturday. As this is my first PJ, I'm filled with anticipation that worsens with each day.



Stew

Milehigh
Thanks, and yes I could even see querterbacks eyes and his expression ...
close up PQ was unbelievabel .... I also watched Discovery HD and PQ was
also unbelievable ... I am very happy with this PJ so far.

JimP - Thanks for the information, I thought once they say HD everything
(including all cameras) will be HD.

Originally posted by funkapus
I'd appreciate it if you could do that test. I think that switching from zoomed 4:3 to true 16:9 was probably the big difference that you saw. I was running my DVD player on 4:3 first and switched to 16:9 and saw a huge difference in picture quality. Which makes sense--zoomed 4:3 is a pretty low-resolution image

I'm hoping that progressive will provide a little extra boost, though.

I just ran the test. You were right--a good deal of the shimmering was because the DVD player was orignially in 4:3 mode. Shifting it to 16:9 took away a bunch of the shimmering. However there was still some there, and adding back in progressive scan got rid of the rest of it. The progressive scan image is DEFINITELY better (IMO). And I'm pretty sure I have the Cinema Reality setting on.

You can pick up a budget progressive scan player for around $50. I picked up the Magnavox one last weekend. I think progressive scan is easily worth the $50.

Originally posted by TheFerret
RGB, it didn't even occur to me in this day and age that these projectors wouldn't do 3:2 pull-down. But, wouldn't there be a trade-off worth comparing whether or not the 3:2 pull down on the STB is better than on the projector?

Doing 3:2 pulldown and weave deinterlacing on 1080i signals is a new capability for projectors under $5000 in the past 12 months or so.

Most 720p projectors still do simple bob deinterlacing for 1080i signals, meaning you get only 540 lines of resolution, scaled to the 720p panels.

All cables and satellite boxes I'm aware of also do simple bob deinterlacing when converting 1080i to 720p.

This is why it's important to know if a projector and/or tuner box can do 3:2 pulldown and weave deinterlacing for 1080i signals.

I'm surprised I have not heard of this previously--but I guess not many gave a hoot in this forum.

Originally posted by John Ballentine

After watching 7 DVD’s perfectly on my new 700 - I now have the dreaded “White flashes” (Bummer!) several people have complained about.
--snip--
Anyway I’m not using HDMI (Yet)! And I’ve noticed it on two different DVD players using two different sets of cables (S-Video, Component)

OUCH! Is this the first report of the "White Flash" problem in a non-HDMI setup? Another potential factor for the fence-sitters club...
Trey

Originally posted by John Ballentine
If you run the projector in interlaced mode (which also may or may not cut down on VB) you MUST switch to "Cinema Reality" in the options menu to eliminate shimmering (moire, combing artifacts).



Since all video processing takes place before the signal ever hits the panels, and the signal that does hit the panels is always the same: scaled and processed for the panels, the type of intput signal will have no effect on VB, an artifact created by the way the cels in the LCD panels are controlled.

I've seen a lot of conjecture in this thread based on no or little understading of what happesn to the video as you feed it to the system.

VB: In my case there is a little but so little to be a non issue. I looked at the flciker adjust option and it was already set dead-center such that there was no flickering.

"Peekaboo Scanlines" looks to be the video processor falling over. If the deinterlacer does it's job you will never see scan lines. Since we see them on edits and in the middle of vertical motion I belive this to be caused by a video processor that easily looses cadence lock. I've never seen this feeding 480p to the 700U. Only with 480i and 1080i content.

FPN: there is some but again so little as to be insignificant. Maybe I'm lucky and got a really uber projector.

Screendoor: less than any HD2 DLP I've ever seen. Way less than my SE20HD.

The thing some people seem to loose sight of is that this is a $2K projector but when it fails to out-perform an $10K unit they freak out. Chill folks, you will not find a better projector for the money. I paid $5K for my SE20HD from AVS, a killer deal at the time and the AE700U crushes it like a bug.

Anyway, enjoy your purchases and stop watching test patterns. Test patterns are booring.

Is there any rhyme or reason to the flashes? Where are your projectors from?

Time to contact Panasonic. This sounds like a potential long term problem, however, it could also be something that is fixable without much work. A firmware upgrade for instance.

Has anyone contacted Panasonic about the white flashes?

Originally posted by Use R. Name
KongFan , to the contrary -- there are women lurking, reading, posting on this thread.

HEY!!! Who let a girl in the clubhouse?!!!:mad::) :) :)

Thanks for the info, Use R. Name

Well, guys & girl (KIDDING! KID-DING!!!), I'm disturbed to hear of the white flashing problem occurring with other than HDMI connections, only because it suggests a less localized, possibly system-wide problem. In any case, if it turns out to be the 700's fault, I don't think anyone should live with it, and it would certainly be grounds for demanding repair/replacement, in my book.

By the by: I forgot to mention that, just for grins, I put up a 100" sheet of white banner paper (like you can buy off the roll at many office or art supply stores) to compare with the coated side of the blackout cloth I'm using with my 700. Just a cheap, goofy experiment, mind you. Aside from a nearly indetectable color shift, the paper was just about an exact match for the BO cloth, seamlessly disappearing completely if laid flat.

More importantly, for the many of you who, like me, have started with a BO cloth screen for your 700: I placed a small, older high-gain screen in front of the 100" BO cloth just for comparison (light colored room, mostly light-controlled). At that size and brightness (or lack of), anyway, the difference shows me plainly what I'm missing. It looks to me like I would almost certainly benefit from a high-gain, contrast-enhancing screen, especially if the gain in brightness outweighed any crushing of the whites. Most significantly, it appears to me that the more punchy image on the high-gain screen does not detract from the VERY film-like, look of the Cinema 1,2&3 modes. Some of the other picture modes seem to be striving for essentially the same "punching-up' of the image, but, for my tastes, with severe consequences. I think this may have to be seen, at least in my environment, to be appreciated. Other than the brightness limitations, which do need to be overcome, the Cinema modes absolutely blow me away. If any of you using Normal, or especially the Dynamic mode have the latitude to reduce your image size, compare the smaller, brightened Cinema modes to your full size image in the other modes, and see for yourself if you agree. Be sure to take into account the boost that may be needed from a higher-contrast screen.

I'm really stunned by the difference, and I suspect many may be dismissing the Cinema modes out of hand due to the brightness issue. I almost did myself.

KongFan

Originally posted by TheFerret
And what color are the walls, ceiling, flooring in this room?

Off white walls/ceilings/blinds and a light colored carpet - These colors are working against the projector for sure.....

Originally posted by ianken
Since all video processing takes place before the signal ever hits the panels, and the signal that does hit the panels is always the same: scaled and processed for the panels, the type of intput signal will have no effect on VB, an artifact created by the way the cels in the LCD panels are controlled.

I've seen a lot of conjecture in this thread based on no or little understading of what happesn to the video as you feed it to the system.

VB: In my case there is a little but so little to be a non issue. I looked at the flciker adjust option and it was already set dead-center such that there was no flickering.


I agree with you 100% that it doesn't make since that feeding an interlaced signal to the 700 reduces VB. But in my case it does. I have no idea why. I happened upon this by accident. I can switch between interlaced and progressive output on the fly via my DVD player remote. Again - I tested this last night while watching a DVD, as I noticed a scene that will usually bring out VB - paused - switched from interlaced to progressive - and there was mild VB. Switched back - it was gone. VB is a non-issue with me now as well. Maybe it's the "aura" in my room - maybe trolls.

Here is what I am finding so far with my setup. Cheap Panny 55 DVD 480P over component, joann fabric blackout cloth with black felt borders, 18' throw, shelf mount, good light control, white walls and ceilings (turning brown as I paint them). This is my first projector so I may be a bit more wowed than others who have more experience.

* Far as I can tell I don't see VB or stuck pixels. I am not looking hard for VB since I have never seen and don't want to. No flashes yet, but I have only 4 hrs logged.

* I am finding Natural to be the best setting, then Cinema3, then Cinema1. Don't llike any of the others. Normal has punch but colors are off out of the box.

* Screen samples - Firehawk - wow, kicks the *%$((%* out of the HCCV on blacks and light. Introduce ambient light and the Firehawk square sample is like a window through the fog of the other samples and blackout cloth.

* In darkness, it is a tougher comparison against Gain 1 matte white or dropout. Blacks and whites are both better but there is this silvery sheen on light scenes that I find a little distracting. It is very hard to tell from the small sample. Any comments on this from Firehawk owners on this?

* First DVD was wife-pleasing Sea Biscuit. One issue we both really saw was on vertical pans of black and white photos that have horizontal detail, there were moire-like artifacts where horizontal lines were jiggling back and forth (best I can describe). Very noticable. From the DVD player because its cheap, 480P? Or should I expect these image-dependent artifacts? Or is there a projector concern?

Otherwise fantastic, very excited. Painting, buying window coverings, etc, etc.

Roy

First off I need to appologise I accidently posted this first to a new thread.

Long time reader first time poster. I received my ae700u last week and wanted to share some of my observations and variations of my installation, with the readers here.

First off this is my first projector. Previously I used a 61” 4:3 Toshiba tx61x81. While I had been very pleased with this TV I was ready for something bigger and native wide screen (I am going to push the old TV into the bedroom).

The room is 22’x18’ I project against the long wall from a shelf about 16’ back. The room has some sunlight that leaks in through some doorways (This will be corrected with a new wall. It is painted a sand color. Overall the room is fairly dark with a number of blackout shades but daytime is definitely brighter than nighttime. Sorry I don’t have actual numbers to quantify the light in the room.

I have a Motorola DCT6412 HD-DVR connected to the hdmi connector via a 15’ dvi to hdmi cable (I had some problems getting this connection to work for a long time then suddenly it just started working I can’t even guess what I did but now that it is working it's been working fine ever since.) I have a HTPC connected via the VGA connector. The HTPC uses an Nvidia Geforce FX5600 (more on this setup later). And an Xbox connected via the component connections.

I had purchased some screen material on Ebay to make a stretched screen but was going to wait for the projector to arrive to see what size would be best. After the initial tests I was pleasantly surprised just how big I could go. I saw no reason to go any smaller than the maximum size of my material. (screen material was 110x66) 108x61 or 124” diagonal after stretching on the frame. The screen material is a bright white and supposedly a 1.3 gain. While I suspect the gain is less than 1.3 it is definatly brighter than the sand colored wall behind it. Overall I am pleased with this screen material and seem to be a good match for the room and the projector. If I was doing it again I may even try a larger screen, but currently I am very comfortable with 124”. For the screen material and the wood, screws etc the screen was about $65.

One thing I have noticed is that there are big differences in lighting. The screen can tolerate plenty of light that is not hitting the screen directly. Direct sunlight is by far the worst. Forget watching it at all if direct sunlight hits the screen. Light that hits the audience is fine so if you can keep lights forward of the screen it’s not too bad. Again the dimmer the better. A completely dark room had the best results.

Truncation. The dreaded 1280x720 truncation, I was very afraid of this and low and behold with the HTPC It was there. Definitely lost regions of the screen top, bottom, left and right with the vga output. After fiddling with the video card timings I never got it corrected (I only used the controlls in the Nvidia driver, I did not use powerstrip). But then I played with the controls on the projector. Hmmm what’s that auto configure thing in the picture menu. (whoa! That’s the make everything right button!) This button cleared up all the truncation problems very quickly, manually I never got it any better than what the auto setup did.

XBOX (using component connector set for 720p)-I was also worried about Xbox since I heard the latency of LCD Panels would have a trailing effect on computer games, I assumed I would see the same kind of trailing with an Xbox on this lcd projector, especially blown up 10’. Wrong, It looked great! I first played Burnout 3. At first I though this showed latency problems but the game itself uses some blurring effects to add the sensation of speed. This game was very fast and at this size made my wife a little queasy in under a minute. It took me little getting used to but I never felt queasy. After playing DOA3 and Rally Challenge 2 it was clear that the projector would be an excellent display for an Xbox.

VB-I never noticed and VB I watched Master and Commander on DVD and never saw any. I watched a few other DVDs and HD programming off the DCT6412 but never experienced any VB. It may have been there but my wife and I never noticed it.

Screen door-I noticed it, my wife didn’t. However It didn’t bother me at all. A little defocus clears it up but I prefer the sharpness of the correct focus. Again the picture is simply so pleasing to look at I probably overlook many minute imperfections.

Sound- the projector is quiet. The HTPC makes way more noise. I have potentiometers on the cpu fan to slow it and no fan on the video card, the power supply fan by far the loudest noise in that room. Once the 5.1 comes on at all it drowns out all the fan noise.

Lens shift-The lens shift sucks if you don’t need to move the picture very far. It has a propensity to grab center. If it just needs a tap it’s a real pain to get it right. Again once it’s set your done. So really not that big of a deal. But with that little shift the keystone is so unnoticeable you can probably do adjustments at the feet instead.

There is so much to talk about with this projector it’s hard to squeeze it into this post. All I can really say is that I love it; it’s much better than I expected and it really makes the room feel very expensive.

Thanks to everyone here for all this valuable information for me to make what was apparently the right decisions, not only with this projector but the room configuration, screen and tuning.

hi everyone

i have just ordered the panny 700 and the panny dvd s97, does some one have these two running trough a hdmi-hdmi and how does that work (i have an older pioneer dvd with only scart and s-video) so i hope the purhase of the dvd-s97 wasnt a total waste.

when i read the projector centrals review of the panny 700 they said that the picture quality decreases when you Zoom to max, in my setup i have to Zoom max to fill the screen 88" from about 9" away. so all panny 700 owners do you see a decrease in picture quality when you use the maximum Zoom (is this noticable)

thanks in advance

Panasonic Canada finally listed the PT-AE700 (http://www.panasonic.ca/English/audiovideo/television/HomeCinema/ptae700.asp) on their web site. As I feared, they don't seem interested in selling any in Canada with a MSRP of $4,499.95 CAD ($3,370.00 USD). BTW, on the same page of Panasonic Cinema Projectors (http://www.panasonic.ca/English/audiovideo/television/HomeCinema/index.asp) ... they list the PT-AE500 at the SAME MSRP *sigh*

For those wondering about the Zoom vs. PQ question...

The AE-700 has a zoom lens with differing f-stop values at each end of the zoom range. Thus, for any fixed image size, that image will be dimmer at maximum zoom than it is at maximum wide angle.

Calculations...

The lens is rated at f1.9 (at max wide) to f3.1 (at max zoom). Dividing 3.1 by 1.9 gives 1.63. Squaring 1.63 gives 2.66. This is the amount the lens decreases in brightness between f1.9 and f3.1, equivalent to about 1.5 stops.

Putting this in concrete figures: the lens at f1.9 is 2.66 times brighter than it is at f3.1. Conversely, the light at f3.1 is 37.5% as bright as it is at f1.9.

Practical implications...

In my case, I found that I could achieve the image size I wanted (100 inches wide) by placing the projector at the back of my viewing room, 8 metres (~26 feet) from the screen. However, I had to use maximum zoom to do this. The image was just too dim at maximum zoom.

I moved the projector forward about 3 metres (~11 feet), resulting in a projection distance of 5 metres (~16 feet). Zooming the lens back, to once again achieve the 100 inch picture I wanted, gave me the extra stop of brightness I needed to make the picture more comfortable to view.

This has nothing to do with the "inverse square" law of optics related to point sources of light. It is a function of the limitations inherent in the zoom lens design. It doesn't mean it's a crappy lens. Many very expensive photographic zoom lenses have the same drop in brightness along their zoom range. A lens that had less drop-off would probably double the price of the projector.

On filtering...

I've found that I can use the Lee Filters "Pale Salmon" (filter #153, 1/2 stop) in place of the "Light Salmon" (filter #109, 1 stop). This means my projected image is 1.4 times brighter straightaway (the difference between the 1-stop and half-stop attenuation of brightness between the filters). Changing filters, coupled with the decrease in projection distance and consequent winding back of the zoom factor, my image is now probably 2 to 2.5 times brighter than it was yesterday, at the same 100 inch size.

Nice.

As I was going to use a projector trolley for my HT setup, wheeling it in and out of service as required (necessary to pass the Rolling Pin Test and actually live to enjoy my projector), the change of plan in projector-to-screen distance (placing it in the middle distance of the room instead of at the back) referred to above, doesn't affect me too much in a practical way.

Just goes to show that we can't all be George W. Bush: some of us do make mistakes. Another mistake I made was to get out of bed this morning, to a house full of screaming grandkids and a Stuart Little cartoon on the box, running in (what seems to be) an endless loop. While I am an agnostic, I have been looking lately for a religion that permits the execution of one grandson as an example to the other. If I find it, I'll be converting (fingers crossed that it doesn't class "watching movies" as a sin).

Originally posted by Rgb
Doing 3:2 pulldown and weave deinterlacing on 1080i signals is a new capability for projectors under $5000 in the past 12 months or so.

Most 720p projectors still do simple bob deinterlacing for 1080i signals, meaning you get only 540 lines of resolution, scaled to the 720p panels.

All cables and satellite boxes I'm aware of also do simple bob deinterlacing when converting 1080i to 720p.

This is why it's important to know if a projector and/or tuner box can do 3:2 pulldown and weave deinterlacing for 1080i signals.

So let me make sure I understand what is being said about this. I am using a Hughes HTL-HD HDTV receiver and I should set it to Native and let the PJ do all the scaling? I can see the point here and realize that the PJ is probably going to have a better scaler than a $199 set top box whether it does 3:2 Pulldown or not. But are we SURE the 700 has 3:2 pulldown?

While I am an agnostic, I have been looking lately for a religion that permits the execution of one grandson as an example to the other. If I find it, I'll be converting (fingers crossed that it doesn't class "watching movies" as a sin).

Thanks Aussie Bob, I just spit wine all over my computer desk laughing at this. I am not a grandfather, but I can see my dad making this exact statement. He calls all the grandkids Rugrats and they call him Mr. Wilson....

ianken,

"Peekaboo Scanlines" looks to be the video processor falling over. If the deinterlacer does it's job you will never see scan lines. Since we see them on edits and in the middle of vertical motion I belive this to be caused by a video processor that easily looses cadence lock. I've never seen this feeding 480p to the 700U. Only with 480i and 1080i content.

While even I suspect that there is a possible interaction between video processing/de-interlacing/scaling that worsens peak-a-boo's, it is not caused by it and it is doubtful to me that the de-interlacer is getting lost in the cadence. I use an iScan Ultra for de-interlacing and I've never seen any de-interlacing artifacts, apart from slightly less than perfect "video" de-interlacing, and yet my L200 shows peak-a-boo's when my flicker is out of adjustment.

When you see peak-a-boo's on an LCD projector, and then you adjust the flicker and it reduces it or eliminates it, that shows that the peak-a-boo's have more to do with the lcd panel and lcd pixels than the video processing.

I agree that peak-a-boo looks like a video processing artifact, but it can be affected by flicker tweaking.

About the Canadian release of the AE700. My comment is that I think the retailers are getting closer, but no cigar. I think the relative price difference for the AE700 is less between the US and Canada than it was for the 500, but not by much. When its all said and done, if you buy an AE700 here in Canada it will cost you roughly $600/700 to $1K more than importing it from the US or Japan. I think its less of a difference than the 500 pricing was, but still stupid. I almost suspect that the slightly better price comparison is only due to the US and Canadian dollar differences, since the Canadian $ has gone up quite a bit relative to the US $ over the last while.

Looks like between the white flashes of the AE700 and macro-blocking of the S97 dvd player, the Panasonic camp has issues.

Hello, how does the xbox look on this projector? Can you see vb while playing games? Does anyone happen to have any pics of the xbox on the 700. I am still on the fence between the 700 and the sony hs51 and am trying to decide if the 700 will fit my needs. THANKS

Originally posted by awtryau89
But are we SURE the 700 has 3:2 pulldown?

If you believe spec sheets it does. ;)

ted

Originally posted by 440forpower
Hello, how does the xbox look on this projector? Can you see vb while playing games? Does anyone happen to have any pics of the xbox on the 700. I am still on the fence between the 700 and the sony hs51 and am trying to decide if the 700 will fit my needs. THANKS

I played my XBox on it last night and it looked great! I only played Burnout 3, but it was prety awesome. I have not seen any VB playing that game, but I should check out football where there is a uniform background color (green).

The only VB I've seen is while watching basic TV. During the football games, the wide shots of the field had very slight VB in the green. But it was so slight that I had to really look to see if it was there. If I wasn't paying attention specifically for it, I wouldn't have seen it.

Does the AE700 utilize the centre of the panel to project 2.35:1 ratio films?
Does it allow you to move the image up or down the panel?
Are there DVD players that can do this or am I looking at an HTPC with TheatreTek?

If anyone cares, this is because I wish to mount my screen about 26 inches above the floor and would like to display a 2.35:1 on the lower portion of the screen.

ted

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
For those wondering about the Zoom vs. PQ question...

The AE-700 has a zoom lens with differing f-stop values at each end of the zoom range. Thus, for any fixed image size, that image will be dimmer at maximum zoom than it is at maximum wide angle.

Well, holy cow! If this is true, it's an absolute must-know. I'll go try it out right now. I almost hope it isn't, as I really dig having the PJ on a shelf behind me. Thanks also for the filter update. Sounds like you're wringing every last drop out of this thing.

KongFan

I have mine set up to be about 116" diagonally (16:9) from about 12 feet away, which means I have it zoomed pretty far. The image is plenty bright, and is even visible during the day with some ambient light on it, as long as the light is not shining directly on the screen.

So many folks are using Pirates of the Caribbean as a reference check and although I wasn't a big fan of the film, I'm watching it now for evaluating against all the dark, foggy scenes.

It's showing on Starz HD so I'm cheating. I know many folks are stuck with the limitations of DVD. I can say that the Panny is very impressive in all aspects, dark battle scenes, foggy overcast, you name it and it's all coming in quite nicely. Some of the pirates are quite hideous now with all the details.

I don't see any bad artifacts either. And that brunette, hmmmnnn.

:)

Well, I was able to hook up my projector this evening and play around with it for about 1 hour. I must say that it looked very good right out of the box and I saw no VB or screen door or anything else to take away from the picture (really only watched the pod race scene from SW I ). I do, however, have a question:

At first I had the projector hooked up to my Pioneer Elite 59avi DVD player via HDMI cable. The cable is brand new (from Blue Jeans cable) and is about 30 feet long. It's run through the walls and there's no way to remove it or replace it. Keep in mind also that the DVD player is brand new and I'm not very familiar with it either. When I initially hooked it up, the screen would display HDMI in the upper right corner (kind of flashed), but that's it. When I started a DVD the image would not display. I turned off the DVD player and turned it back on to see if it needed some type of handshake, but that didn't work either. Additionally, the HDMI light on my DVD player was on and the screen said HDMI 420. I hooked up component cables and a picture instantly appeared on the screen. The other weird thing is that if I tried to access the DVD menu (for settings, since it's also new), the menu screen would not stay on the projected image for more than a few seconds as long as I had the HDMI plugged in (to both units). As soon as I unplugged the HDMI from the DVD player, I could access the menu for as long as I wanted and make adjustments. It would not, however, let me make any adjustments to the HDMI setting. It said not available (even when it was connected). Any suggestions? The picture looks good using component, but I hate to think I wasted a bunch of money on an HDMI cable that's now stuck in my walls and I'll never be able to use.



Stew

PS. Sorry this is so long, I'll also post in the DVD area.

Stew4msu

I'm getting the same thing with my satellite box. My cable is DVI to HDMI(Blue Jeans Cable 30'). What's worked for me is to scroll throught the different resolutions on the satellite box. Then, for whatever reason, the picture shows up on the projector's output.

I'll have to read the manual again on the DVD player. I don't even know how to scroll through the resolutions yet. What sucks is that I'm going out of town tomorrow and may have to think about this every day until next weekend.




Stew

tbacos,
Thanks for replying to my post. Well I went down to my projector after seeing your post, and had the MNF game on, and tried adjusting the lens focus, and don't think I could see any difference to the blob. What would you have thought it to be or recommended to do if it changed/sharpened when I turned the lens focus? If it is a dust blob is it something I can just clean or is this something on the inside of the machine? Again thanks for all of your and anyone elses help.
Thanks,
Nick

Originally posted by JamesAHall
I have mine set up to be about 116" diagonally (16:9) from about 12 feet away, which means I have it zoomed pretty far. The image is plenty bright, and is even visible during the day with some ambient light on it, as long as the light is not shining directly on the screen.

wouldn't your setup have the projector lens at close to maximum wide angle, as opposed to max zoom? i'm still confused by the whole wide/zoom thing. the closer the projector is to the screen (while projecting the same screen size) the wider the lens needs to be, right?

thanks for the replies about the Zoom vs PQ question

the panny 700 is my first projector so my questions may be a little dum :) , so if i understand it right it is prefferable to move the projector little backwards so that i dont have to use the maximum ZOOM (2.0x). but i cant move it that much further back so i may just achive 1.77x on the lens (projector central), will there be a noticable diffrence.

and Aussie Bob where on the zoom scale 1-2.0x gives the lens best performance

thanks again for all the great information on this forum about the Panny.

Can someone from a magazine (like WSR) get in touch with Panasonic about this "white flash" issue? Also, what about pixel cropping when using the HDMI input?

If it is the projector, these issues have got to get fixed ASAP.

Dan

Upset with Hong Kong's dealer's service:
I bought the AE700 about three weeks ago. I bought an KR6 filter about a week before. It correct the colors and increase the contrast. And the problem become more obvious. The lower right corner (when I ceiling mount) is more red than the other place on the screen.
If I don't use the filter, the situation is better as the contrast is a little bit lower.
So, I contact them in last saturday and see what they can do (as my unit also get problem in alignment of the three color lcds -- the red and green color is lower / besides the blue one)
They told me a Japanese Technican will come to Hong Kong on monday and so they pick my own one and see what they can do.
Today, I phone the manager to see what's going on. What he do is just avoid to bear the responsibility and told me that the Japan technican said the error is within their standard. I'm so sad, I read a lot before I buy the pj but still get so much problem.

Has anyone used their old AE100-200-300-500 ceiling mounts on the 700? If these old ceiling mounts actually fit the 700, would you mind sharing the make and style? I've read on this thread that (according to a projector dealer) the Chief RPA series will work on the 700 but I'm interested in people who have actually ceiling mounted their AE700 -- whether with Chief or any other brand. (I'm particularly interested in Peerless but happy to here any other solutions.)

Use R. Name

i'm still confused by the whole wide/zoom thing. the closer the projector is to the screen (while projecting the same screen size) the wider the lens needs to be, right?That's correct. At the wide-angle end of its range, a zoom lens will disperse light as widely as it can, creating a larger picture. At the telephoto end of its range, the lens will disperse light as narrowly as it can, creating a smaller picture.

The confusion arises when people use the terms "minimum zoom" and "maximum zoom" to describe wide-angle and telephoto, because we usually think that increasing the zoom will create a larger picture.

yipchunyu

Sorry to hear about the problems you are experiencing with your projector.

I can not see how the dealer can say that Panasonic can claim that its within specs when they've not seen it. If I were to guess, I'd say that your dealer didn't buy it through normal channels, therefore can't extend the warranty. Otherwise, they would at least have you send it to Panasonic for examination.

Although misalignment of LCDs in most fixed pixel devices is not all that uncommon, do check to be sure that some of what you're seeing isn't caused by either extreme zoom of the lens or extreme lens shift. These will also cause the same effect. Also be sure that the projector is perpendicular to the screen. Improves sharpness.

Hi Joe Schwarz and Aussie Bob

thanks for your replies about the Zoom vs PQ, i have just ordered the panny 700 and it is my first projector so as i said before my questions may be a little dumb:p.


in my setup i have to put the projector about 9" away from my 88" screen, and the only way to obtain this by using projector centrals calulator is to move the Zoom lever to 2.0x, however i may be able to put the projector a little bit further back so that i can obtain the same picture size only by using about 1.77x on the zoom lever. so my questions is simply should i move the projector further back or is this diffrence not noticable in the PQ.

i have asked som dealers about this (in sweden) and they replied that there shouldnt be any diffrance beacuse its an optical zoom, and even if there is a diffrence that shouldnt be noticable.

thanks in advance

The major issue with zoom lenses at the extreme ends tend to be barrel or pin-cushion distortion, ie. straight lines at the 4 edges don't stay straight. Loss of resolution isn't usually a big deal.

After I have mine ceiling mounted tonight, I'll check for these.

My AE700 is here and it is fabulous! so far...
Quick question:
Does anybody here have a recommendation for a ceiling mount with an extension pole about 20-25"?
Thanks

dc

The 700 is pretty loud (fan) when ceiling mounted as compared to desk mount. Does anyone know why? It's actually pretty bad when compared to my previous 300 and 100.

I know its hard for everyone to be critical of the new toy they've just purchased, but this whole "no standby" thing sounds like its extremely serious to me.

My question for the board is: If you can't put your projector on standby because your projector will develop Vertical Banding overnight.... isn't this a deal breaker for anyone?

I ceiling mount my projectors and the remote is "how I turn off my projector"

Having to wait around for cooldown and then kill the power is a major issue, and looks like a *major* design flaw. (Especially for a projector that's designed for everyday home use.)

Automatic cooldown/shutdown and standby is a feature of this (and every other) projector. Are we saying that this feature is defective? Everyone here seems to be in post-purchase bliss and its hard to get a critical read on the severity of this issue.

(By the way -- I'm still waiting for my 700 to arrive, so 'yes' I've already pulled the trigger).

Has Panasonic addressed this flaw?

Thanks in advance.

Originally posted by RobZ
The 700 is pretty loud (fan) when ceiling mounted as compared to desk mount. Does anyone know why? It's actually pretty bad when compared to my previous 300 and 100.

Are you comparing low lamp to low lamp, or high lamp modes?

Originally posted by obio
I know its hard for everyone to be critical of the new toy they've just purchased, but this whole "no standby" thing sounds like its extremely serious to me.

Has Panasonic addressed this flaw?

Thanks in advance.

About 10 pages ago (yes, this thread is completely unmanageable), a current owner addressed this problem with his dealer, and the dealer was supposed to pass it along to Panasonic. I've not seen an answer, but it would have been easy to miss.