Originally posted by zxlr8
Lens shift in other projectors I have used does not really seem to affect picture quality very much if at all. Lets hope this one does just as good as the L500U. I was really impressed with it's quality and sharpness.

There were a couple reviews that commented on convergence errors created by lens shift -- one of them being cine4home. If I remember correctly they said that the more lens shift used, the more the errors become apparent. Now whether you would notice this from normal viewing distances is a totally different story.

I went and saw the projector last week in arizona. I was so amazed with it. It's clarity, contrast, and color surpased my DLP projector playing on the Bravo D2 DVD Player. That is the same DVD player I have and my DLP don't look that good! Anybody know why? I thought DLP was supposed to be better.

Which DLP model?

How much of a difference will I notice compared to my L200 in terms of black level and contrast improvement? I imagine it will be better, but for DVD's, how much better? Has anyone else upgraded from an AE100 or L200 to the AE700? Have you bothered to really tweak it with Colorfacts or Smart? Are you using the AI AND Dynamic iris?

About the lens shift concerns....

Ok. Using my Panasonic L200 I have an approximately 92" diagonal screen (91.76") and so my screen height is approx 45.00". The screen is mounted on the wall and ends up being flush mounted right against the ceiling. The screen frame and material is actually a little bigger, and I project about 1 inch down from the ceiling. My Panny L200 is ceiling mounted at about 3.25 inches below the ceiling at about 104" away from the screen. The ceiling is level. If I put the AE700 there on the ceiling mount I have now, how much lens shift will I need? I'd need to lower the PJ quite a bit to reduce lens shift? (I could shelf mount it back on the rear wall in the present location but that would require moving it back approximately 3 feet. I would prefer not doing this.)

thanx for any feedback :)

I have mine on order with Projector Point also. Funny, I wonder how many have jumped ship and switched so they can get theirs a couple days earlier?

Personally, I waited this long so a few more days won't kill me.

I live in the same city as Projector point, and I'm going to pick my 700 up on Friday, so unless the truck gets lost coming to the upper midwest, a Friday ship date should be good.

Originally posted by cpc
How much of a difference will I notice compared to my L200 in terms of black level and contrast improvement? I imagine it will be better, but for DVD's, how much better? Has anyone else upgraded from an AE100 or L200 to the AE700? Have you bothered to really tweak it with Colorfacts or Smart? Are you using the AI AND Dynamic iris?

About the lens shift concerns....

Ok. Using my Panasonic L200 I have an approximately 92" diagonal screen (91.76") and so my screen height is approx 45.00". The screen is mounted on the wall and ends up being flush mounted right against the ceiling. The screen frame and material is actually a little bigger, and I project about 1 inch down from the ceiling. My Panny L200 is ceiling mounted at about 3.25 inches below the ceiling at about 104" away from the screen. The ceiling is level. If I put the AE700 there on the ceiling mount I have now, how much lens shift will I need? I'd need to lower the PJ quite a bit to reduce lens shift? (I could shelf mount it back on the rear wall in the present location but that would require moving it back approximately 3 feet. I would prefer not doing this.)

thanx for any feedback :)

So, cpc, it sounds like the top of your screen is 1" down from the ceiling. That puts the center of your screen 45/2" + 1" down from the ceiling. That is 23.5". Your L200 is 3.25" below the ceiling. I will have to assume that you are speaking about the center of the lens. So, that means, with 0 lens shift, you will be shooting an image centered at 3.25" below your ceiling. You really want the center to be 23.5" below the ceiling. So, you need to shift the image down by 23.5"-3.25" = 20.25". If you divide the required shift by the height of your screen, you can see the amount of lens shift required. 20.25/45 = 45% lens shift. So, you would be using 71% (45/63) of the max lens shift. I asked earlier if this was too much (well I asked about 75%). Would it cause convergence issues or excessive decrease in lumens. No one answered.

Come to think of it, no one answered my question about measured lumens in cinema1 mode either. :( I am shunned.

Well, I hope that helped and was error free.

reap

Why would there be much if any difference in lens offset between the 700 and 200. Is it substantially different now due to the new zoom lens? What is the offset for the 700, and no, I'm not going back through 88 pages to find out. ;)

Older AE models had built in offset.
So, AE200 may be ~50% and AE700 is 0%.

reap

I was wondering if there was any how I can get a demo in the Washington DC / MD /VA. I have called all the dealers in the area and have not found one which has heard of this projector. All the authorized dealers are basically integrators and I have no clue how can I have a look at one of these babies.

Personally I was waiting for this to come out so that I can see and compare against the Infocus 5000..

Any help on where could i find a demo or something .. would be nice

Let me make sure that I understand. Are you saying, for example, that a 200 may have required that the center of the lens be 3" below the top of the screen (ceiling mount), where the 700 would have to be centered on the screen (same screen, same distance) because it has no built in offset?

Not really, the 700 has adjustable offset, called lens shift, allowing the user to use as much or as little offset as he needs. I think that's the case about the 200. But what do I know... some owners should chime in here.

reap

I know about the mechanical lens shift. My example assumed using no lens shift in the 700. I should have made that more clear.

I'm still trying to understand why a 100, 200, 300 or 500 would be mounted within a few inches of the top of a screen, again in a ceiling mount configuration, and the 700 would be any different without having to employ the mechanical lens shift. Otherwise, that would imply the the lens offset in the 700 is significantly different than virtually all of its predecessors. Man, I wish that I could draw a picture. I think that I understand the concept of having a "built-in offset," but I want to be sure.

Zits, I'll second that call for either an AE700 shootout or viewing session in Metro DC. There really isn't anywhere around that displays many affordable PJ's. There's a place in Columbia and some of the Myer-Emco shops I think that have some on display. Of course they seem to only throw Qualia and Runco class machines. It's about time we have somewhere to go local that understands not everyone will spend $5000+ on a projector.

I'm a member of the elite organization founded by reap, known as the "AE700/HS51 fence-sitters club".

Reap, have you been swayed one way or the other yet? I'm a little scared of the SDE reports on the HS51, but the Swedish review/shootout sure gave it kudos overall. On the AE700, we have potential for VB (apparently fixable) and no SDE, but lower contrast. Oh, and you can BUY the AE700 now. Arrgh.

I must admit, this rivalry consumes more time on my part than the upcoming election... ;)

Best regards,
Trey

treyhsmith
You forgot one thing... Th HS51 is anywhere from $500.00 to $1000.00 more than the 700

Bubbawilly

700 - When no lense shift is used the lense intersects the picture right in the middle of the screen. Vertical lense shift can move the intersection point 63% of screen height in either direction.

500 - Fixed offset. The lense would intersect the screen 12% of screen height above the bottom of the image (table mount) or 12% below the top of the image (ceiling mount)

I don't know about the other models.

I saw the 700 in arizona. projector packages dot com. The lens shift worked great. They moved the projector around and still had a square image. It didn't do as much as the Sanyo PLV-Z2, but it was good. The best thing about the projector was the Zoom Ratio!

Well darn.. I guess I paid extra money to be one of the first to have this projector....ahhh well.. Can't wait until 11am tomorrow... BTW i don't know if i can say this but I ordered it from ProjectorPeople.com

Can you tell me how much you paid for your projector? I want to know what I should pay.

hey reaper, honestly I don't think Cinema1 mode looks that good. Maybe the colors are "accurate" but things seem a bit too dull for my liking. I tweaked up Cinema2 a bit and I'm very happy with it for viewing movies.

The tweaked up the "video" mode for playing video games. Can't comment on the lumens output of Cinema1, but it's definitley not as bright as the other modes.

Originally posted by seenalot
Can you tell me how much you paid for your projector? I want to know what I should pay.

as per forum rules he's not allowed to tell you and you aren't allowed to ask. check out some of the forum sponsors above...or do a google search.

ok, I am new here! Sorry! I will check out the others!

Originally posted by bapenguin
hey reaper, honestly I don't think Cinema1 mode looks that good. Maybe the colors are "accurate" but things seem a bit too dull for my liking. I tweaked up Cinema2 a bit and I'm very happy with it for viewing movies.

The tweaked up the "video" mode for playing video games. Can't comment on the lumens output of Cinema1, but it's definitley not as bright as the other modes.

Thanks for the response...

reap

Originally posted by SMP01
Bubbawilly

700 - When no lense shift is used the lense intersects the picture right in the middle of the screen. Vertical lense shift can move the intersection point 63% of screen height in either direction.

500 - Fixed offset. The lense would intersect the screen 12% of screen height above the bottom of the image (table mount) or 12% below the top of the image (ceiling mount)

I don't know about the other models.

Thanks! So the lens shift wasn't as much a 'nice-to-have' feature as it was a necessity. Interesting that the pjcentral review doesn't mention this since the offset is pretty unusual when compared to virtually all recent 16:9 machines.

Originally posted by treyhsmith
I'm a member of the elite organization founded by reap, known as the "AE700/HS51 fence-sitters club".

Reap, have you been swayed one way or the other yet? I'm a little scared of the SDE reports on the HS51, but the Swedish review/shootout sure gave it kudos overall. On the AE700, we have potential for VB (apparently fixable) and no SDE, but lower contrast. Oh, and you can BUY the AE700 now. Arrgh.

I must admit, this rivalry consumes more time on my part than the upcoming election... ;)

Best regards,
Trey

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 towards 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 expereience 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

The variable offset is a very nice feature and adds a lot of flexibility to the mounting location. I would much rather be able to set the off-set and lock it down than be constrained to some predetermined %.

I'm reap and I'm a fence-aholic.

Originally posted by bakpakva
The variable offset is a very nice feature and adds a lot of flexibility to the mounting location. I would much rather be able to set the off-set and lock it down than be constrained to some predetermined %.

I agree that it is a nice feature. It just happens to be a necessity for typical mounting scenarios as well.

It makes sense to start in the middle when there is an adjustable offset, otherwise the flexibility would be limited in one direction or another. I just hadn't considered this before now.

Reaper,

Carefull on that fence, you'll cut your toes...lol...and thanx for the feedback. Weird about the new design of the AE700. If using zero lens shift with the centred lens results in any noticable increase of picture sharpness all around, then thats good, but its going to make some people's mounting compromised.

The Sony HS51 sounds ok, but I couldn't afford it at this time.

The AE700 has great colour decoding. From my experience, the Panasonic projectors do very good colour wise.

Smooth picture is nice, but if "smooth screen" makes it look at all soft or if there are highly visible peak-a-boo's, then thats a bad tradeoff. I personally could care less about screen door. On my L200 its a non-issue with a defocus. Of course its not as sharp, but with the higher resolution projectors, the smaller amount of defocus should more than make up for it.

So how much better will the contrast and black levels of the AE700 be compared to my L200? A large noticable difference or a mere improvement?

Beats me... I never saw a 200. I've seena 300 and some other LCDs at CEDIA and around. I'd classify the HS51 as a large noticable difference and the 700 as an improvement... but not smack you in the face WOWee Wow WOW type thing.

Pretty scientific eh? Man, a couple more posts and I pass into 4 digits. Maybe it's time for me to shaddup.

Just recieved my AE700 by UPS. Box not opened yet.

I have 4 lamp hours to test it for any defect/issues and return w/o restocking fee. Please help me here.

How do I look for dead pixels? What other tests can be done in 4 hours?
I plan to spend 2 hours today testing and another 2 hours tomorrow after buying AVIA from BestBuy.

Thanks for the help.

Well you might find that trying to test up your unit for four hours takes out some of the pleasure.
I think that the AVIA testing will allow you to view the screen in multiple colors. If there is a dead pixel it should reveal itself easily.

Now I've done it.

I am 1000.

I've seen a lot of dealers selling an RPA ceiling mount for the AE700. I called Chief, the manufacturer of the mount, because I wanted to get details on how to lower the projector down 34 inches. The sales person at Chief told me that they did not have a mount for the 700 and they themselves were waiting to get a sample projector. He also told me that dealers may be "jumping-the-gun" be recommending the RPA. Is anyone using this mount sucessfully with the projector? If not, what are you using?

Originally posted by keyman
I've seen a lot of dealers selling an RPA ceiling mount for the AE700. I called Chief, the manufacturer of the mount, because I wanted to get details on how to lower the projector down 34 inches. The sales person at Chief told me that they did not have a mount for the 700 and they themselves were waiting to get a sample projector. He also told me that dealers may be "jumping-the-gun" be recommending the RPA. Is anyone using this mount sucessfully with the projector? If not, what are you using?

According to Panasonic, the RPA mount in question will work for the AE700.

Originally posted by reaper

So, I have not decided but it's obvious where my heart lies.
reap

Great post. I agree that a $650 difference isn't the primary concern here (for me). I just wish I could SEE the darn things. The one I liked better would be the one I would get, price aside. I'm not a rich man, but this is an important purchase, and I'd be willing to pay the difference.

Thanks,
Trey

Originally posted by Kilav
Just recieved my AE700 by UPS. Box not opened yet.

I have 4 lamp hours to test it for any defect/issues and return w/o restocking fee. Please help me here.

How do I look for dead pixels? What other tests can be done in 4 hours?
I plan to spend 2 hours today testing and another 2 hours tomorrow after buying AVIA from BestBuy.

Thanks for the help.

Look for dead pixels on each color panel by viewing the individual panels in the "Service Mode" section under the Extended Options menu. Scroll through red, green, blue (and grey) by pressing the L/R arrows on the remote once in "Service Mode." Dead pixels will show as black on any of the primary color panels. Stuck pixels may show up as anomolies on the grey screen.

Originally posted by bubbawilly
Look for dead pixels on each color panel by viewing the individual panels in the "Service Mode" section under the Extended Options menu. Scroll through red, green, blue (and grey) by pressing the L/R arrows on the remote once in "Service Mode." Dead pixels will show as black on any of the primary color panels. Stuck pixels may show up as anomolies on the grey screen.


Thanks for that tip... That will come in handy tomorrow as i only have 4 hours to test it out also

Reaper,
Got an update for you. I received my AVIA DVD today and I ran cinema 1 mode through the calibrations. Its looks A TON better now. So, for me at least Cinema1 is a good starting block for the Avia calibrations. I really only had to adjust everything +/- 3 or 4 clicks for it to look good. And tone down the reds a bit.

I'm in the club, but leaning 700 and here's why: I'm treating this technology like I did when buying a digital camera last year. I bought a 3 MP camera even though 5MP were out, because I'd probably replace it anyway in a few years. So, I'm buying one of the cheaper PJs that gives me quality hi-def now - and I'll replace in 3-4 years.

Each year you get better performance for a reduced price. If we're thinking we'll see 3-panel DLP for this price in 4 years or so, then why not spend as little as possible to get an adequate picture now, planning on spending more later to upgrade? Put the difference into a dot-com stock and it'll pay for that upgrade by itself ;) oh, wait, having 90s flashback...

However, that can be a vicious cycle, since 4 years from now, the next, great technology will be "just around the corner"!

E

after being pumped full of VA's promises that they'd be the first to get them. Now Projector People has shipped their SECOND round out? I hate to be a whiner, but that really wasn't cool. If any VA folks are reading, you really shouldn't tell people stuff like that. It just seems hokey, and makes people afraid to order from you in the future. To be fair, they were very friendly, helpful & informative, but I really hope that 'next week' business isn't true.

It's not just VA. I preordered from another forum sponsor and they do not have the projectors either.

From what I understand, ProjectorPeople pulled some sort of special deal with Panasonic to get ALL of the first US allotment of the 700's. Not sure how they did this, but the rumor was they bought up a lot of the leftover 500 stock to get this preferential treatment.

I'm a little annoyed waiting too, especially since my dealer is still claiming that no one else has them yet (which is clearly BS). But it won't kill me to wait a few more days, as long as I get it soon.

Originally posted by Kilav
Just recieved my AE700 by UPS. Box not opened yet.

I have 4 lamp hours to test it for any defect/issues and return w/o restocking fee. Please help me here.

How do I look for dead pixels? What other tests can be done in 4 hours?
I plan to spend 2 hours today testing and another 2 hours tomorrow after buying AVIA from BestBuy.

Thanks for the help.

I would like to know what vendors offer the return policy on defects/issues. If it's not possible to post the name here, please PM me.

Projector Point told me they are the largest dealer for Panasonic and have ordered quite a few. I would have thought the 'largest dealer' would have gotten the first shipment. Then again, my local dealer ordered 10 of them and said 5 were already sold. I think they must have been pre-orders. When I told him my internet price he said there was no way he could touch it for that as it was less than their cost. He even called Projector Point to see if I was blowing smoke. Had to laugh :)

Originally posted by dusk
Zits, I'll second that call for either an AE700 shootout or viewing session in Metro DC. There really isn't anywhere around that displays many affordable PJ's. There's a place in Columbia and some of the Myer-Emco shops I think that have some on display. Of course they seem to only throw Qualia and Runco class machines. It's about time we have somewhere to go local that understands not everyone will spend $5000+ on a projector.


I have a myer emco across the street from my office, I will try and go to them tommorow and talk to them, see what they have to say about the same. I did do a check on the panasonmic website and it did not say that myeremco is their authorized retailer.
But I am willing to go anyplace just to look at the damn thing, rather than going through the hassle of buying / returnng it, its better this way. ANd it would be wonderful if I could somehow try and look it side by side with a 4805 or 5000 ( wow that would be just nice )

Just my 200 cents :)

Originally posted by bapenguin
Reaper,
Got an update for you. I received my AVIA DVD today and I ran cinema 1 mode through the calibrations. Its looks A TON better now. So, for me at least Cinema1 is a good starting block for the Avia calibrations. I really only had to adjust everything +/- 3 or 4 clicks for it to look good. And tone down the reds a bit.

Sounds good. Still curious how brightness compares to the HS51, though.

reaper

I just purchased the 700 as my first pj. Thanks for all the info and help.

I have some some low quality methods for setting the pj up and will be building my theater in the coming days. I could use any advise any of you might have on cables, dvd players, mounts.... Please send a pm if you have any information that would help me get the best gear the first time around.

Thanks again

DSL

P.S. I was on the preorder list at VA and found that projector people had them in stock and ordered one. It seems they may have received the first shipment and they also seem to have a few 500's in there aswell. Sounds like the may have struck a deal of some sorts with Panasonic.

Personally, I'm in the "pulled-the-trigger-for-the-AE700-but-wondering-if-I-should-hop-back-on-the-AE700/HS51-fence" club. The price difference in Europe is $650ish. The HS50/HS51 seemed to toast the AE700 in that shoot-out, but what exactly was the comparison? It sounds like it was 576p DVD through DVI. But that is irrelevant to me. I want to know how "720p DVD" looks (i.e., 480p or 576p scaled to 720p before the projector via HTPC.) These shoot-outs are frustrating for me, because they are "scaler shoot-outs", not projector shoot-outs. The same was true back in the old days when I bought an RPTV.

Additionally, for the shoot-outs the projectors weren't even in the same room or on the same screen. But it's hard to ignore the raves for the HS50/51.

The lens shift may keep me here in AE700 land. In my room, the HS50 would probably have to take the sweet spot in the middle, floor CRT style, because of a window.

Originally posted by bubbawilly
Look for dead pixels on each color panel by viewing the individual panels in the "Service Mode" section under the Extended Options menu. Scroll through red, green, blue (and grey) by pressing the L/R arrows on the remote once in "Service Mode." Dead pixels will show as black on any of the primary color panels. Stuck pixels may show up as anomolies on the grey screen.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. It is very helpful to know the exact procedure to do this.

Originally posted by Abdul Jalib
Personally, I'm in the "pulled-the-trigger-for-the-AE700-but-wondering-if-I-should-hop-back-on-the-AE700/HS51-fence" club.

For me it's a matter of light output. The HS51 is 800 lumen full tilt and around 400 when doing it's 6000:1 thing according to the various reviews.

I currently have a SE20HD. Measured 1600 lumen when the bulb is broken in. I've added more light control to my room, but stiil 400 is too dim so I'm aiming for better contrast but still getting decent light. The 700 seems to fit this bill.

Alos, low noise is a nice added bonus.

Originally posted by reaper

2. The HS51 is based off of brand new LCD chips that hopefully leverage TODAY what the D5 chips will leverage tomorrow.

From all accounts with the iris wide open the contrast is just as weak as any other LCD unit. IMHO it's all in the iris and the fact that the HS51 has a low light output to begin with.

Below is a complain for AE700 by a Hong Kong User, anyone faced the same problem?

<content>I project with about 94 inches. I found the bottom line is not straight but curve. The middle of the bottom line turn about 0.5cm toward to the screen.
I used AE100 and AE300 before but did not have the same problem in both top / bottom lines.
I phoned Shun Hing repair centre and Mr YEUNG told me that it is normal for both AE500 and AE700 and the sales department (show room) also know that. I then phoned sales department but Mr LIU told that he had to confirm with Mr YEUNG. Mr LIU later return call to me and stated that it is normal.
Any AE700 /AE500 user comment on it???</content>

Originally posted by yipchunyu
Below is a complain for AE700 by a Hong Kong User, anyone faced the same problem?

<content>I project with about 94 inches. I found the bottom line is not straight but curve. The middle of the bottom line turn about 0.5cm toward to the screen.
I used AE100 and AE300 before but did not have the same problem in both top / bottom lines.
I phoned Shun Hing repair centre and Mr YEUNG told me that it is normal for both AE500 and AE700 and the sales department (show room) also know that. I then phoned sales department but Mr LIU told that he had to confirm with Mr YEUNG. Mr LIU later return call to me and stated that it is normal.
Any AE700 /AE500 user comment on it???</content>

A half of a centimeter on a 94" image?! That's not much of a curve! I'm actually encouraged by complaints of such phenomenally hair-splitting issues. These are truly great times for non-millionaire AV enthusiasts. I wonder if the curve at only that edge is due to some lens shift? Anyone?

KongFan

It's amazing to me that the person can even *detect* .5cm of "curve" on a 240cm (converted from 94") image.

Maybe he just has something really, really heavy on the floor under the middle of his screen, and its gravitational force is bending the projector's beam of light before it reaches the screen. :)

Originally posted by BMoreE
I'm in the club, but leaning 700 and here's why: I'm treating this technology like I did when buying a digital camera last year. I bought a 3 MP camera even though 5MP were out, because I'd probably replace it anyway in a few years. So, I'm buying one of the cheaper PJs that gives me quality hi-def now - and I'll replace in 3-4 years.

Each year you get better performance for a reduced price. If we're thinking we'll see 3-panel DLP for this price in 4 years or so, then why not spend as little as possible to get an adequate picture now, planning on spending more later to upgrade? Put the difference into a dot-com stock and it'll pay for that upgrade by itself ;) oh, wait, having 90s flashback...

However, that can be a vicious cycle, since 4 years from now, the next, great technology will be "just around the corner"!

E

With this strategy, you'll be getting really good technology without having to buy the most expensive toy. This is what I'm thinking I'll do, too. In fact, I'm thinking that instead of getting the HS51, I'll get the 700, then keep the difference and use it to jumpstart a Sony blackscreen fund. It's been suggested that some people can keep their screens longer than their PJ's. If this is true, then the sony screen might be a good investment, especially if it works as advertised.

Aren't LCD projectors subject to the same sort of screen burn issues as rear projection CRT's and LCD's?

If so. What can be done to mitigate the effects of screen burn when watching sports and such that have static score boxes and news tickers on the bottom of the screen?

Originally posted by tbacos
It's amazing to me that the person can even *detect* .5cm of "curve" on a 240cm (converted from 94") image.

Maybe he just has something really, really heavy on the floor under the middle of his screen, and its gravitational force is bending the projector's beam of light before it reaches the screen. :)

It's not hard to detect if you set up the image to match the bottom of the screen, at least if you have masking... For some it is OK, for others it matters. I wonder if he is using the lens shift?

"IMHO it's all in the iris and the fact that the HS51 has a low light output to begin with."

What does low light output have to do with it?

----------

"Aren't LCD projectors subject to the same sort of screen burn issues as rear projection CRT's and LCD's? "

Well, RP LCDs and front projection LCDs use the same microdisplays. And while there exists some modicum of risk of some obscure kinds of burn in, the answer is: Not these can't -- for all intents and purposes -- be burned in. And certainly the risk isn't remotely comparable to CRTs.

another stupid question:
I tired the ficker menu and still see some vertical lines across the screen (every xx pixels). Is it VB or FPN? How can I fix these besides the use of ficker menu?

Oh lord, this thread is too long!

Anyone had an Infocus 4805 and seen the AE700 - which is the winner, if we talk sharpness, colors, contrast and blackness?

Originally posted by ianken
For me it's a matter of light output. The HS51 is 800 lumen full tilt and around 400 when doing it's 6000:1 thing according to the various reviews.

I currently have a SE20HD. Measured 1600 lumen when the bulb is broken in. I've added more light control to my room, but stiil 400 is too dim so I'm aiming for better contrast but still getting decent light. The 700 seems to fit this bill.

Alos, low noise is a nice added bonus.

How do you know that the 700 fits the bill? Have you seen any MEASURED lumen numbers or are you just going by spec?

reap

Originally posted by DB2
According to Panasonic, the RPA mount in question will work for the AE700.

Sure, but will Panasonic flip the bill to repair it if it falls?

I know this came off sounding sarcastic ... it isn't intentional.
This should be important. I've seen the same thing happen with some of the Sanyo/Christie/Eiki installation models that all use the same chassis. There can be differences in lens, power supply or component weight internally that can make the mount less stable.

Might be something to consider until Chief puts their stamp of approval on the mount. Or, maybe a universal mount might be a better choice?

*** Edit - wanted to throw in a comment on the .5 CM "curve as well and didn't want to make a new post (gotta let Reap pass me in post counts).
You guys also need to realize that 1 CM can EASILY be the result of a screen that is not perfectly flat. For the bottom edge of your light path (image) to line up perfectly with the black masking on your screen ... the lens needs to not only be perfectly centered (or pointed perfectly straight via lens shift) on the screen, but the distance from the left side of the lens to the left side of the screen needs to be the exact same distance as the right side of the lens to the right side of the screen. I can't even begin to count the amount of calls I took while working in Tech Support on this same issue that were dismissed thanks to a screen that wasn't flat.

Originally posted by Kilav
Just received my AE700 by UPS. Box not opened yet.

I have 4 lamp hours to test it for any defect/issues and return w/o restocking fee. Please help me here.

How do I look for dead pixels? What other tests can be done in 4 hours?
I plan to spend 2 hours today testing and another 2 hours tomorrow after buying AVIA from BestBuy.

Thanks for the help.

This has been discussed ad nauseam over the years here ... but I will say it again.
There are many who will argue successfully that it is just as productive to put a movie in and actually WATCH your new projector rather than dissecting it with demo disks and calibration screens.
As, it can be equally counter-productive to spend your opening hours with calibration screens and the such.

Just a couple points:
1. Who's to say that pixel you happen to notice when you are running through your calibration screens will even show up while watching a movie? As I have mentioned before, I had a training session with an Engineer from Infocus who claimed he could find a "pixel defect" on ANY LCD projector I put in front of him. Sure enough ... he did using test pattern screens. But 90% of what he turned up NEVER could have been seen during normal movie viewing. More than likely, the casual user won't even know how to productively and properly test for dead/stuck pixels anyway.
2. Even if you go through all the screens and have testing everything you want to test for ... you have just spent hours on this projector and don't even know if you like what it looks like while watching a movie! Hours have passed and you haven't even enjoyed one minute of your favorite movie in big screen.
3. And most importantly .... Do you even realize that most dead/stuck pixels that DO show up while watching a movie will actually be covered under warranty!!! Panasonic has a 30 day DOA period ... which means, if after a few days of enjoying your new projector you notice a big dead stuck pixel in the middle of your screen ... you will be able to swap it out for a new unit JUST AS FAST as if you swapped it out the first day you received it!!! Actually ... maybe FASTER because by then these will be in wide supply.

Anyhow ... just food for thought. This isn't the place to debate the subject. If you would like to discuss where I come up with all this ... or anything for that matter ... my PM is always open. I hate to see people not enjoy their new toy ... especially when they are obsessing over some (mostly) fictional problem that has been inflamed on a message board.

Cine4Home,

Do you have any lumen measurements of the AE700, specifically in Cinema1 mode since you say that it is the most color accurate? If not, could you possibly measure them?

reap

Originally posted by BMoreE

Each year you get better performance for a reduced price. If we're thinking we'll see 3-panel DLP for this price in 4 years or so, then why not spend as little as possible to get an adequate picture now, planning on spending more later to upgrade? Put the difference into a dot-com stock and it'll pay for that upgrade by itself ;) oh, wait, having 90s flashback...

E

I agree. This is also how I'm handling the situation.

I have the panny on order and expect delivery in the next few weeks. The 700 is my first projector and the first one that pushes my price/performance button. My budget doesn't give the Sony a look in, it might be better but for me, there's no way its gonna be worth $500-$1000 more........like you say, the 3-panel DLP is a little way off yet. Adequate picture? I'm sure it will be very good.

Originally posted by tbacos
It's amazing to me that the person can even *detect* .5cm of "curve" on a 240cm (converted from 94") image.

Hmmm, 0.21% error.

My AE700U arrived yesterday afternoon and by 9:00pm I had my old 32" SDTV removed, my 90" BOC screen up, and my CC speaker installed on its bracket under the screen, ready to fire the PJ up for the first time. I'm running a Pioneer DV-563A DVD player at 480p over a 25' component run. DVD player output set to 16:9 mode. The PJ is set up 13.5' from the screen almost perfectly centered horizontally and vertically. My basement HT room is 10.5' wide by 14.5 long and 100% light controlled. Walls are dark olive green and ceiling is flat white. Carpet is light beige.

I set the PJ up on low lamp setting in Cinema1 mode. Aspect ratio set to Auto. PJ is operating on a Dynex battery UPS (to protect the lamp from power failure). No other tweaks.

First impression: POW! Super clarity, great color, highly satisfactory contrast, very little to no SDE (must intentionally look hard to see it), no VB that was apparent to me.

Movies tested:
T2
Fast & Furious
Monsters Inc.
Toy Story 2
Master & Commander

Other impressions-

Remote: The remote is very powerful. I can point it anywhere in the room and it will activate the PJ. It's cool because you can point it at the screen and it operates the PJ even though it is behind you.

Lens shift: With my nearly centered PJ position, I did not need to use much lens shift at all. I am not too impressed with the mechanism. It has high static friction. When you try to nudge it a bit, it suddenly jerks free and overshoots your intended position. I really had expected it to be very smooth but this is not the case.

Late breaking news this morning: Vertical banding has appeared. When I shut off the PJ at 1:00am last night, there was no VB. This morning when I turned it back on at 6:30am, there was VB galore. I had to go to work so I did not try the service menu Flicker Adjustment tweak yet. However this situation makes me wonder if there is merit to the European tweaker theory that leaving the unit plugged in overnight causes it to develop VB. I had left it powered (red LED standby mode) all night. So when I left for work I hit the power button on the UPS to kill standby power to the PJ. When I get home tonight I will have a look and see if the VB has gone away.

I agree and that's the same reason I'm getting a 700. As you say the next big step is either 3 panel DLP or true HDTV 1080 LCD/DLP panels. It will most likely be 3-4 years before you get this technology at today's 700 price, so that seems way too long to wait. And how much better will the picture actually be than today's 700? Probably better but it's not going to be night and day.

Also remember once they get to native resolution panels it's not clear what the next step is after that, so I think the technology curve will drastically slow after that happens. It's kind of where digital cameras are getting today. Once you have 6-10 Mpixel cameras, do we really need 12-20M pixels? No, since the eye can't tell the difference so the only thing that can really happen is these high end camera follow the price curve down. Same thing will happen with projectors in my opinion.

So if you're on the fence regarding a projector go buy a Z3, 700 or HS51 now and enjoy it for the next 3-4 years, and then you can upgrade :)

John

Originally posted by BMoreE
I'm in the club, but leaning 700 and here's why: I'm treating this technology like I did when buying a digital camera last year. I bought a 3 MP camera even though 5MP were out, because I'd probably replace it anyway in a few years. So, I'm buying one of the cheaper PJs that gives me quality hi-def now - and I'll replace in 3-4 years.

Each year you get better performance for a reduced price. If we're thinking we'll see 3-panel DLP for this price in 4 years or so, then why not spend as little as possible to get an adequate picture now, planning on spending more later to upgrade? Put the difference into a dot-com stock and it'll pay for that upgrade by itself ;) oh, wait, having 90s flashback...

However, that can be a vicious cycle, since 4 years from now, the next, great technology will be "just around the corner"!

E

Very interesting. Let us know if the VB goes away if you turn off the main power to the unit after each use.
Why are you not using the high lamp/Dynamic Iris setting?

Offset adjustment

I've been reading a few posts about a the offset adjustment knob being tight or jerky. I thought I read somewhere that the adjustment knob could be loosened by turning knob counter clockwise then when you get your image properly placed you then tighten the knob again.

Can someone confirm this, or is this just plain wrong?

What exactly is the benefit of Standby mode?

Interesting to see lots of first time Projector buyers going with the AE700. Should be a really good bang for the buck "starter" projector..heh heh.

As far as standby goes, I guess its like the rest of your equipment in that you can turn it on by remote instead of having to flip the switch. In my setup, my Projector and iScan line doubler are both on their own power bar which I flick on with my toe [ foot switch :) ] ...the rest of my equipment each have their own separate wall light switches, one for the TV, one for the receiver/dvd player, one for my subwoofer and one for my cd player. To each their own. My equipment uses zero power on standby and is less likely to get zapped by power surges etc.

Originally posted by rogo
"IMHO it's all in the iris and the fact that the HS51 has a low light output to begin with."

What does low light output have to do with it?



That why there's an "O" in IMHO. I could be wrong. It just seems to me that controlling light is a lot easier when you don't have as much of it to contend with.

Thank you for your detailed explanations. I didn't know panasonic has a 30 day DOA. That itself leave me relaxed for a while.

I did watch some dvd samples on AE700 like Finding Nemo, Spiderman, Waynes World, Fifth element, Gladiator etc. Everything looks great. The colors are awesome. Its more richer and vibrant than what I have seen from Infocus 4805. I am projecting it on my white wall. Have not calibrated the pj yet. But I like the NORMAL and DYNAMIC more better than CINEMA1 series.

Thanks.

Originally posted by Ericbres
This has been discussed ad nauseam over the years here ... but I will say it again.
There are many who will argue successfully that it is just as productive to put a movie in and actually WATCH your new projector rather than dissecting it with demo disks and calibration screens.
As, it can be equally counter-productive to spend your opening hours with calibration screens and the such.

Just a couple points:
1. Who's to say that pixel you happen to notice when you are running through your calibration screens will even show up while watching a movie? As I have mentioned before, I had a training session with an Engineer from Infocus who claimed he could find a "pixel defect" on ANY LCD projector I put in front of him. Sure enough ... he did using test pattern screens. But 90% of what he turned up NEVER could have been seen during normal movie viewing. More than likely, the casual user won't even know how to productively and properly test for dead/stuck pixels anyway.
2. Even if you go through all the screens and have testing everything you want to test for ... you have just spent hours on this projector and don't even know if you like what it looks like while watching a movie! Hours have passed and you haven't even enjoyed one minute of your favorite movie in big screen.
3. And most importantly .... Do you even realize that most dead/stuck pixels that DO show up while watching a movie will actually be covered under warranty!!! Panasonic has a 30 day DOA period ... which means, if after a few days of enjoying your new projector you notice a big dead stuck pixel in the middle of your screen ... you will be able to swap it out for a new unit JUST AS FAST as if you swapped it out the first day you received it!!! Actually ... maybe FASTER because by then these will be in wide supply.

Anyhow ... just food for thought. This isn't the place to debate the subject. If you would like to discuss where I come up with all this ... or anything for that matter ... my PM is always open. I hate to see people not enjoy their new toy ... especially when they are obsessing over some (mostly) fictional problem that has been inflamed on a message board.

Originally posted by jcg
Also remember once they get to native resolution panels it's not clear what the next step is after that, so I think the technology curve will drastically slow after that happens.

What they do after hitting native resolutions is start working exclusivly on visual qualities. Just imagine optimised color saturation, lumens, contrast, etc. I expect the level of DIY tweaks to drop drastically because these machines will be better tuned straight from the factory.

Are you sure that Panasonic will swap a unit for a dead pixel or two? That is contrary to everything I have heard.

DOA means does not turn on, or some other substantial failure or fault, not a handful or even perhaps 2 handfuls of dead pixels unless they are adjacent and smack dab in the middle of the image.

I don't disagree with your assessment that a few dead/stuck pixels probably aren't even detectable under normal viewing, but I'm not sure about the 30-day policy statement.

Originally posted by cpc
Interesting to see lots of first time Projector buyers going with the AE700. Should be a really good bang for the buck "starter" projector..heh heh.

As far as standby goes, I guess its like the rest of your equipment in that you can turn it on by remote instead of having to flip the switch. In my setup, my Projector and iScan line doubler are both on their own power bar which I flick on with my toe [ foot switch :) ] ...the rest of my equipment each have their own separate wall light switches, one for the TV, one for the receiver/dvd player, one for my subwoofer and one for my cd player. To each their own. My equipment uses zero power on standby and is less likely to get zapped by power surges etc.
Unfortunately, I do not think its simply a means for trickle power for remote activation, because there is obviously some implying that shutting the unit off (beyond standby) has an effect on the panels or other video components, too. This implies that the Panasonic implementation of 'Standby' has more of an effect than convenience (remote), no?

I can confirm that the Japanese AE-700's service menu is mostly in English (except for the on-off option). Flicker tweak is there.

Well I don't know what other benefits there are to standby mode. My L200 doesn't lose settings when left completely un-powered.

Originally posted by SMP01
Offset adjustment

I've been reading a few posts about a the offset adjustment knob being tight or jerky. I thought I read somewhere that the adjustment knob could be loosened by turning knob counter clockwise then when you get your image properly placed you then tighten the knob again.

Can someone confirm this, or is this just plain wrong?

I have mine sitting on my desk here at work, fresh off the UPS truck. I can confirm the twist to tighten and loosen. Even when set all the way loose, there is definitely some static friction to overcome,but I think it just means a little more finagaling to do. Can I go home now?

Nate

I wonder how it might be lubricated so as to overcome the static friction more easliy. A drop of teflon/dry lubricant in the mechanism?

Radsman

Originally posted by VornHune
I have mine sitting on my desk here at work, fresh off the UPS truck. I can confirm the twist to tighten and loosen. Even when set all the way loose, there is definitely some static friction to overcome,but I think it just means a little more finagaling to do. Can I go home now?

Of course you can! :-) Go home, setup. watch movies, report!

I can't stand to watch movies on a wall. Movies like starwars when they are flying through space look horrible. I like a real high contrast screen from Severtson or Stewart. Those screens make your whites white and your blacks black. The other companies make your blacks black and your whites gray.

Originally posted by weapon_x11
I can confirm that the Japanese AE-700's service menu is mostly in English (except for the on-off option). Flicker tweak is there.

I wonder if Panasonic ever does a firmware update? I can't recall, and I don't know if the HDMI inputs could be used for this.

What I'm wondering is if the Japanese menus could be overwritten with an English firmware update.

But given that people are not complaining to hard on the menus, it might not be worth the effort or risk.

VA find their boat yet?

No one from VA has called me yet.

Originally posted by bubbawilly
Are you sure that Panasonic will swap a unit for a dead pixel or two? That is contrary to everything I have heard.

DOA means does not turn on, or some other substantial failure or fault, not a handful or even perhaps 2 handfuls of dead pixels unless they are adjacent and smack dab in the middle of the image.

I don't disagree with your assessment that a few dead/stuck pixels probably aren't even detectable under normal viewing, but I'm not sure about the 30-day policy statement.

Yes, I am sure.
I just checked my folder ... before I left Customer Service last year I exchanged (4) PT-L300U's that were DOA failures. I was gone before the L500U was released.
And no ... in our world (front projection) a DOA can be anything from a broken lens, no power, bad input board, dead pixel, etc.
The only thing that WOULDN'T represent a DOA in Panasonic's eye would be a dead lamp. In that case they would simply swap out the lamp.
But yes, 1 dead pixel within the "A" zone of the projected image would constitute a DOA. I believe Panasonic allows up to 2 in the "B" zone unless they are adjacent, if they are adjacent they do not allow 2.

I'll attach a picture of what would constitute the "A" zone and "B" zone.
Obviously I don't want to get too far off topic here ... so as always, if you do have questions or issues with a defective projector, feel free to send me a PM. I spent 3 years in Customer Service/Tech Support on these ... which could be a good thing and a bad thing :D

** Edit - Let me clarify, I performed these exchanges on the DEALER side. Meaning the end-user calls the dealer with the problem, the dealer exchanges the unit for the end user via a new projector in stock, the dealer then requests an RMA for credit to send the defective unit back to Panasonic.
I just wanted to clarify that before people assumed you could simply call Panasonic and they would swap out a dead unit. They will send you back to your dealer.
Note: Reason #17 why you should feel very comfortable with the support from your dealer, you may need them post-sale!
Which bleeds into reason #12 why I personally never deal with overseas unless the savings is REALLY significant ... you lose the ability for a quick easy DOA if the thing arrives dead. (Note - again, I am stressing MY opinion)

Well, the big brown truck just dropped off the medium brown box. Hooray!!! And kudos to ProjectorPeople for delivering on time as promised.
Now to maximize the 4 hours and make sure everything is A-OK. But first, off to the store to get proper blackout drapes to seal off every last lumen of stray light from the windows and pick up a copy of 'Master And Commander' so I hopefully WON'T see any VB in the notorious fog scenes.

Will be sure to post an end-user/owner review after setup, calibration and probably watching The Fifth Element Superbit DVD. I'll also test input/output options between my Denon 2910 and the 700U (D-sub, HDMI, YPbPr) and give my opinions on any differences there might be.

I will be comparing my L300u with my new AE700 tonight for those who are debating an upgrade. Also, it seems like most people do not like the Cinema 1 mode. I have not seen it yet but I do believe that there is less "punch" to the picture because Panasonic worked with Hollywood to matche the mode with the intended "cinema" look. By the way, this is a cool looking PJ compared to the 100,300,500!

Good info Ericbres. Thanks for the picture. I missed the UPS man, DRATS! Of all day for them to come early, did it have to be today? Now I will have to head down there and pick it up when the truck gets back to HQ. No way can I wait until Monday with it this close to me.

Originally posted by John Ballentine
Very interesting. Let us know if the VB goes away if you turn off the main power to the unit after each use.
Why are you not using the high lamp/Dynamic Iris setting?

I haven't completely determined if there is an appeciable improvement in the contrast ratio or color rendition with high lamp when weighed against the improved lamp life with low lamp. Do you know if the dynamic iris also functions on low lamp? Also I theorized that the lamp would tend to have less red deficit / less blue excess at a lower operating temperature (hotter bodies tending to be more blue/less red). I don't know if this is accurate thinking or not.

Originally posted by djbluemax1
Well, the big brown truck just dropped off the medium brown box. Hooray!!! And kudos to ProjectorPeople for delivering on time as promised.


At least someone has them.

I called Visual Apex and got the line "panasonic has them but has not released them to us yet. They probably ship next Monday. Or Tuesday. Or maybe Wednesday." Translation: thye have no clue.

So the "shipping late October" line on their web site is complete bunk.

Just got the call!! My very first PJ is coming home. I placed the order on Tuesday w/pj point and now, just 3 days later I get the call. I was really worried that it would be a long time. Now, hopefully the guys in the brown uniforms will be just as quick:)

djbluemax1, Pirates of the Caribbean works well for spotting VB as well. The opening scene. M&C will 'test' your audio system big-time.

RobZ, I'm looking forward to your review. I'm in the 300 to 700 camp. For once I was able to fight upgraditis and skip a generation of product, thanks to folks comparing the 500 to the 300. I'm hoping this time the difference isn't so subtle. I'm particularly interested in whatever mode that employs the dynamic iris. How well does it work, and is the fan noise in that mode (I'm assuming high lamp mode) actually quieter than the 300's fan on low lamp mode.

Why are all of these folks talking about cinema modes? Unless the dynamic iris works in these modes, why'd they get the 700 to begin with?

Originally posted by Ericbres

** Edit - Let me clarify, I performed these exchanges on the DEALER side. Meaning the end-user calls the dealer with the problem, the dealer exchanges the unit for the end user via a new projector in stock, the dealer then requests an RMA for credit to send the defective unit back to Panasonic.
I just wanted to clarify that before people assumed you could simply call Panasonic and they would swap out a dead unit. They will send you back to your dealer.
Note: Reason #17 why you should feel very comfortable with the support from your dealer, you may need them post-sale!
Which bleeds into reason #12 why I personally never deal with overseas unless the savings is REALLY significant ... you lose the ability for a quick easy DOA if the thing arrives dead. (Note - again, I am stressing MY opinion)

Well, we're not off-topic as long as we're talking anything about the 700, since this is the only thread the mods are allowing right now.

So, you are really quoting a specific dealer's policy, because I know of at least one dealer who stated that they will not exchange a unit for a few dead pixels anywhere on the image. Can you clarify?

Originally posted by bakpakva
Good info Ericbres. Thanks for the picture. I missed the UPS man, DRATS! Of all day for them to come early, did it have to be today? Now I will have to head down there and pick it up when the truck gets back to HQ. No way can I wait until Monday with it this close to me.

SO you're offering to have all us Metro DC'ers over for a looksee right?

Woohoo! I can pick it up at 7 pm. That is a relief. Just how many metro DC guys are we talking about, dusk, and what brand of beer are you bringing? Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will have everything set up. Comcast arrives on Monday for HDTV hookup with the Explorer 8000HD DVR. They said the DVI output functions on their DVR, but I am not at all convinced. They offered me a good deal with free HBO, and I need some sort of HD programs. Will be a week or so until the HTPC is ready. I guess I just mill around in CostCo now buying DVD's until 7 pm.

yeah we poor MD/VA/DC folks need a small demo some day, if possible ..
or else i have to just take the plunge without even considering how it looks like :(

Originally posted by bubbawilly
Well, we're not off-topic as long as we're talking anything about the 700, since this is the only thread the mods are allowing right now.

So, you are really quoting a specific dealer's policy, because I know of at least one dealer who stated that they will not exchange a unit for a few dead pixels anywhere on the image. Can you clarify?

Do I really need to clarify or are you making an attempt to call BS on my post?
If you would like copies of the RMA forms to Panasonic , copies of the email correspondence, copies of Panasonics DOA policy, copies of Panasonic's warranty, etc etc etc ... let me know via PM. Like I said, I did it for a living for 3 years and have a good habit of never throwing anything away (especially when it can be saved electronically).

Just because one dealer states something doesn't mean it is Panasonic's way of doing business.

If this is another case of someone (incorrectly) calling BS on one of my posts because it does not jive with what THEIR dealer says ... it is getting tiresome.
If you are generally concerned about your warranty, I apologize for over-exaggerating. Send me a PM, and as I have done countless times before, I will do my best to help you get your projector taken care of.

Dynamic iris does work in cinema1 mode. We are talking about it because cine4home reports that cinema1 mode is almost perfectly color accurate out of the box.

reap

Hmm, a movie night might not be a bad idea. I don't think I could get into throwing test patterns up to play "find the dead pixels" or "who sees VB". Would be sort of like my introduction to RBE with the DLP projectors. Once I saw them, I could not watch movies anymore without being distracted by them. Maybe ignorance is bliss....

AE700 is here. And today was a twofer. Had anticipated receiving the Panny AE700 via overnight UPS. I also ordered a screen and it was due Monday but it showed up today as well. How lucky. I'm using Da-Lite's Matte White Model B and it's quite good but I don't have any experience if you don't count a week on an off white wall with a HP vp6121.

My initial impressions are very positive. First the flexibility of the zoom is great but this thing is begging to be placed on a rear shelf. I have mine set up on a multi-shelf unit about 18 feet back viewing a 86" diagnol screen. I'm viewing from 11 feet back. There is no vb, sde, or any artifacts that I can see. You should be careful in initial setup. The two lens adjustments, one for focus the other for zoom are right in line with each other. I didn't realize how much the zoom was active and it was showing some vb and sde. With my setup now about 18 feet back, I'm using the zoom about 15% and there is no issue at all. Setting up the unit as far back as possible and keeping the focus at normal shows a very sharp picture.

I also don't care for the Cinema 1 mode, nor most of them in fact. They seem to dull for my taste. In my limited viewing of things, plasmas are a corrupting influence. But although I've enjoyed my friends 42" plasma and the HD was great, it's SD is pretty awful to look at. Not so with the AE700. With Cablevision in New Jersey, it's a very, very good picture. You can watch movies on HBO stations and really enjoy it. I still need to look into calibration will try to learn more. Digital stations adjust quite well but the lower analog stations can be mixed. But overall even those are pretty good with my cable access.

HD is of course a great view on any capable set and the Panny color scheme takes it to another level. I think their work here combines well with the smoothing technology. It's still a sharp clear picture.

INHD is showing some music and scenery and it is pretty spectacular five minute clip from Sony. Beautiful. INHD is showing Raising Arizona this week. Cool.

Connections. I'm using a 6 foot DVI to HDMI cable I got from PC Cables and it works very well. I tried out my Denon 1500 DVD via component and it was pretty good. I may not get another DVD player right away.

The big question was which would be better, this or the Sony. Well the Sony HS51 ain't here yet so what can you do? My only criticism is I think I would like a little more brightness overall, but I'm still learning how to handle this. I am impressed with the contrast and the overall look and feel of the unit. Blacks look very good as well.

This thing even produces its own new car type smell. It vents heat not only in the front but some on the side smaller vents.

Only 86" diagonal and not bright enough? That doesn't bode well for this projector.

My Pan 700 still in the hands of VA.
Another subject
Might as well get prepared for the cables while I wait , my cable box has a DVI out and I understand the 700 has HDMI in. So the question is for a 20 foot run which is the best way to go HDMI-DVI cable or a HDMI and an adapter. Not sure if I have that the right way around but I do believe the straight DVI is more length limited than the HDMI.
Any help clarification on the subject would be appreciated.
TIA
Peter

Originally posted by PAP
Only 86" diagonal and not bright enough? That doesn't bode well for this projector.

Let me qualify this a bit. It's hitting dusk in the northeast here and I have good shades 30 feet behind on some windows but also a skylight. I think this automatic iris is dusking as well.

Now that the light is almost gone, I've had a chance to see this in different ambient lights as well as almost night. there's no issue with the brightness. It's just adjusting with the daylight, I need to do.

The colors are rich, diverse and sharpness is quite good. I would say my only experience is to say this is better than most movie house experiences for overall quality. Watching "Bringing Down the House" the Steve Martin moive in SD it's like watching a movie in a theater only better.

That's amazing. Beating movie house quality with a SD flick. Unreal.

Originally posted by Ericbres
Do I really need to clarify or are you making an attempt to call BS on my post?

Just because one dealer states something doesn't mean it is Panasonic's way of doing business.

If this is another case of someone (incorrectly) calling BS on one of my posts because it does not jive with what THEIR dealer says ... it is getting tiresome.


Wow! Did I miss something in this ridiculously long thread :confused:

If anyone has to return a unit over dead pixels, just let us (me) know how your dealer handled it.

Originally posted by reaper
Dynamic iris does work in cinema1 mode. We are talking about it because cine4home reports that cinema1 mode is almost perfectly color accurate out of the box.

reap

Thank you.

So, is this a high lamp mode, or is the dynamic iris indepent of lamp mode maybe?

From my previous post I mentioned that severe VB appeared the morning after the night I first set up my new PJ. The artifact looked like alternating light and dark bands about 1" wide all the way across the screen from left to right visible on any program material - horrible!

Suspecting it might be related to leaving the unit in standby (lamp off, AC power applied) all night, I switched off the power at my UPS (can also be switched off with rear panel switch on PJ).

I just got home from work about 4:00pm after leaving the PJ unpowered since 6:30am. Upon powering it on, the VB was significantly diminished but not entirely gone. At this stage the VB resembled a window with dried rain streaks.

For anyone setting up a new PJ in the next few days - I would recommend turning off the power when not in use and you may be able to avoid this issue altogether.

I went into the SM and performed the flicker tweak. Here were the factory settings in hexadecimal:

(blue) 24
(red) 24
(green) 26

I was a little surprised that you can't view the program material during the flicker adjust procedure, just a blue, red, or green field. Therefore you can't see the effects of making adjustments in realtime. Having no idea of the effect of making adjustments, I ran each color all the way up and down to the extremes to see what happens to the solid color fields. As you increase the setting, at some point the color field begins to flicker imperceptibly and then more and more the higher you go. Also VB begins to appear distinctly in the solid field.

When you run the setting down, at some point the the color again begins to flicker, but you have to go quite low to get the VB to appear. I decided the optimum setting would be the lowest number that does not flicker on each color. Is this right? Or should the setting be centered between the upper and lower "flicker points"?

Anyway, after adjustment I have these settings:

(blue) 1D
(red) 20
(green) 24

VB is much improved although not completely absent as it was the first night I turned it on. Still some faint streaking in light colored solid picture areas.

Wondering what to do next. I have 3 lamp hours used on 4 hour trial period with my vendor. If I can't get rid of the VB, would that represent a valid warranty claim for PJ exchange? I'm willing to try another unit if it might solve the issue.

Ah.... here lies the problem with only having 4 hours to check a projector!

If I recall, it's best to let the projector warm up for about 30 minutes before doing the flicker tweak. My guess is that if it had been warmed the VB would have been gone. Somewhere in this vastness of notes there have been others that have talked about it.

Me, I'm going to enjoy the projector no matter what. Sure I'll check to see if the unit is really screwed up, but if that's the case the it's not just a "let me try this out and see what I think", it's "something is REALLY wrong here..."

Of course, the guy in the brown truck has to show up first!!!!

It seems as though VB is present on all LCD projectors. Apparently the new Sony HS51 is free of it, but we will have to see it to be sure. Their LCD RPTVs have it from what I have seen.

So I doubt it would be a warranty claim. To me it is the biggest drawback to LCD technology.

Most definitely let the projector warm up for at least 20 minutes before you perform the flicker tweak.

This probably belongs in the Screen section of this forum but there are hardly any replies over there and then this is part of my AE700 package.

I don't have my projector yet (VA) but I have installed my Da-Lite Cosmo Electrol (80" x 45"). It's fun to watch it go up and down while my dog, Joey, cocks his head in awe. He reminds me of Nipper the RCA dog.

Now that I've been staring at a blank screen for too long, I've noticed an imperfection and was wondering if this was normal or if I should return it. The bottom left quarter section of the screen has a subtle wave (ripple) to it that is somewhat visible. The middle to top half of the screen looks fine. Before I purchased the screen, I spoke to Da-Lite and they told me that for this screen size there would be no flatness issues and I would not need to get one of the stretcher screens.

Is this normal for this type of screen or should I go through the trouble of returning it?

This was a common issue with Da-Lites manual screens. I would ask your dealer whether they consider this acceptable on an expensive electric screen, but I don't. I will say that Da-Lite is very good to work with when it comes to problems with their products.

Originally posted by reaper
Dynamic iris does work in cinema1 mode. We are talking about it because cine4home reports that cinema1 mode is almost perfectly color accurate out of the box.

reap

Actually, cine4home's site says that the cinema1 mode is very good but natural -1 is even better. The graph for natural -1 correlation to D65 is impressive. and now that I've got all my supplies, it's time to set everything up and do a full evaluation.:D

Well, here I am sitting in my basement, looking at AVS seven feet wide, and it was good.

To all you pre-1st timers, still sitting on the fence... jump on in, the water is fine. I was worried about contrast, I was worried about pixels, I was worried about verticle banding.... well I don't worry anymore.

Blacks look black (stop obsessing about "where are my CRT blacks?" you think your lcd monitor with 400:1 contrast looks good...this is better.).

Pixels ? I'm watching movies from 1x screen width... pixels are not noticeable (wanna be a stickler about it?, o.k. sit at 1.3x.. I dare you to complain)

VB? I popped in Pirates of the Carribean, ship in fog... oh that's what they mean by VB, they're complaing about that?!? It barely rose to the level of minor annoyance.. a little flicker tweak later, and it wasn't even that. (Caveat-see note below)

The even better news... I'm watching an un-calibrated projector on a white painted wall in a room with white walls, ceiling and light carpet, using an old JVC DVD player. Things can only get better! Whoo-hoo!

That's it for my sales pitch, on a more technical note.

I was able to recrete the color shading on the gray scale screen. Reddish in the lower left, bluish in the upper right. This was slight, I don't think I would have noticed unless told to look for it. It seems to me to be related to zoom. This was zoomed all the way in. Zoom to the middle, and it is gone, zoom all the way out, and it is reversed, blue lower left, red upper right. Maybe this makes no sense, and I am on crack. Just calling em like I see them.

VB- Using the computer and looking at black text on a grey background, I can still detect some VB, especially if I slide the text back and forth. I have tweaked my flickers as far as I can go, the green still flickers a little bit in one corner. That said.... If sliding text back and forth on a grey screen is your idea of a good time, then you may have a problem with this projector. If you like watching movies, surfing, playing games... well see top paragraphs.

Thanks for your patience with this long post, I don't think you will hear from me for a bit :)

Nate

I called VA today as I wanted to upgrade my shipping, and was told that they got a shipment in today, and will start shipping Monday.

AE700 owners can you do me a favor?

Can you go into the menu and change setup form desk to ceiling and visa versa. And listen for the fan speed changing. Does it speed up when set to ceiling?

I hope not, but some people says it makes more noise when ceiling mounted.

Thanks!

Originally posted by muadib
I called VA today as I wanted to upgrade my shipping, and was told that they got a shipment in today, and will start shipping Monday.
They told me the same thing. Also of note is that if there are any problems with your credit-card processing, you get immediately bumped to the back of the line. The department that deals with back-orders is separate from the normal sales office, so they can't even charge your card while you are on the phone to ensure everything is okay, unless you want to lose your place in the queue. (The reason I found all of this out was because I wanted my projector shipped to my work, and they informed me that I needed to have the shipping address be listed with the credit card company...standard procedure for large purchases, but good to remember). While I have been antzy to get my hands on my projector, I don't hold it against VA. They gave me the best information they had, and have been very helpful on the phone when I've talked with them. Also of note it sounds like they have more projectors than pre-orders, so while it may take them several days to fill all of the orders they have, everyone with an order should get their projector shipped next week. Lastly, unless you've already authorized, they'll call before shipping to get the thumbs-up.

And completely irrelevantly, this is my first post here despite monitoring the board on and off for years. Woo Hoo.

Originally posted by bubbawilly
Wow! Did I miss something in this ridiculously long thread :confused:

If anyone has to return a unit over dead pixels, just let us (me) know how your dealer handled it.

Perhaps someone has PM'd you by now, but, yes, you did miss our only knock-down-drag-out. We have certain very valuable members who are wonderful sources of experience & information, but should, perhaps, switch to decaffeinated. Just be very, very careful how you word your questions, & you'll be OK.

I too have had at least one merchant make it sound like they're allergic to returns other than outright DOA's. Perhaps if pressed, however, they'd have to follow a particular manufacturer's policies. It would be nice to be sure of this, though, before placing an order.

KongFan

I, too, was just told by VA, somewhat reluctantly, that they'd be shipping SOME 700's on Monday.

I'm on board.

I had fully decided on the Sony HS51 until yesterday. That's when I received the call from projectorpeople that they couldn't even guarantee the 51 would be in my hands before xmas. Since I've been planning on having a grand opening party for my theater on November 19th (been planning it for over 1 year), I decided to change gears. I spent almost 4 hours last night reading this whole thread as well as any other thread on any other forum and/or message board that I could find relating to the 700. While I feel that perhaps the Sony will provide better blacks, since this is to be my first projector of any kind I don't think I will notice it. So, today I ordered it. It's also a bonus that I was able to save about $800 which will make it easier to justify an upgrade in the future if I so decide. After ordering, they checked it for dead pixels, certified that it was perfect and shipped it this afternoon. It should be in my hands by Wednesday. I'll try and play with it a bit next weekend, but unfortunately my room won't be totally done for two more weeks. In the meantime, I'll be paying particular attention to this thread.




Stew

Stew4msu,

Congrats on your decision. I speak as a newbie when I say that I think you will be pleased. I like yourself and many others was divided about this and ready to dive first with the Sony when some good bandwidth on it showed up, but I heard several days ago as well that getting them by Christmas was something you could only hope for.

And I was also a pre-order with VA, but when Projector People turned up with a bunch of them, I went ahead and put the order in yesterday.

Now I'm sitting hear with 86" heaven connected to my audiophile system. If there is any satisfaction in your purchase the Sony has not gotten unanimous reviews over the Panny. In fact, there has been early reports mentioned earlier in this thread that HD is better on the Panny. As HD is in fact spectacular, you probably won't be missing much, if I dare say so.

Thanks to Projector People and folks here on this thread, I'm sitting here with a weekend to take it all in.

Originally posted by glennzippy
Ah.... here lies the problem with only having 4 hours to check a projector!

If I recall, it's best to let the projector warm up for about 30 minutes before doing the flicker tweak. My guess is that if it had been warmed the VB would have been gone. Somewhere in this vastness of notes there have been others that have talked about it.

Me, I'm going to enjoy the projector no matter what. Sure I'll check to see if the unit is really screwed up, but if that's the case the it's not just a "let me try this out and see what I think", it's "something is REALLY wrong here..."

Of course, the guy in the brown truck has to show up first!!!!

Yep, 4 hours ain't much. I decided what the hey, I have never had a PJ before so this is a learning experience! I agree, this thing is here to be enjoyed! So I have just blown past the 4 hour limit.

You were right, the flicker tweak didn't really get the job done until the unit was fully warmed up. I re-adjusted and I did manage to completely eliminate VB. The family and I just watched Shrek in beautiful living color and incredibly rich, fine detail! I only hope that the "flicker tweak" doesn't become an annoying crutch that needs to be revisited every viewing session. Time will tell.

My only "complaint" at this point is a vertical ghost edge that occurs on the right side of light objects where they transition to dark, or a horizontal ghost edge where light objects are directly below dark areas above them. I think this is an analog component video artifact and not a PJ fault. Has anyone tried A-B between 480i and 480p component to see which is better?

The high resolution on the AE700U is very unforgiving to poor sources! Low resolution in DVD menus, opening logos, and special features are very apparent. Whereas the actual feature films look almost "hi-def," many of the support materials look sort of "standard-def".

My lens shift mechanism is "breaking in". I decided to just move it around a lot randomly and it got rid of a lot of the stickiness in its action.

I paused a frame of video from the new Planet of the Apes and changed the lamp setting back and forth between High and Low. The only difference I noticed was the fan speed increased on High. I saw no visible effect on the picture at all. So Low mode is where I am now. The exhaust air is noticeably cooler in this mode as well.

Someone asked about fan speed if inverted: I tried flipping between "Desk" and "Ceiling" and I did not detect any change in fan speed.

I imagine the ghosting is occuring due to scaling, but it may be limited to component input. Your best picture will come from a progressive input through either the HDMI (DVI) port (the best) or the VGA port and ideally at a resolution of pixel perfect wide 720p.

So, like so many people that considered CRT's a bad option because they needed warm-up time, now we find the Panasonic LCD in the same boat. LOL

Here's another 300u owner anxiously awaiting RobZ's thoughts..... :)

Originally posted by HMenke
Someone asked about fan speed if inverted: I tried flipping between "Desk" and "Ceiling" and I did not detect any change in fan speed.

I was incorrect on this matter. I just checked again and the fan speed DOES increase in Ceiling mode. I am running Low lamp; the fan speed might remain constant in High lamp - needs to be checked further.

Originally posted by HMenke
I was incorrect on this matter. I just checked again and the fan speed DOES increase in Ceiling mode. I am running Low lamp; the fan speed might remain constant in High lamp - needs to be checked further.

Thanks for checking. If this is right, its too bad. My projector is hangin 24 inches from the ceiling. And i know the air is hotter up there but when its not totally up in the ceiling maybe i can hang the 700 the right way(desk mode) instead. Then the fan will be quiet and i have to rebuild my ceiling mount.

I am looking forward to your further checking in this matter.

Decisions, decisions....

Well, here are my thoughts and observations of my experiences with the 700U.

First off, let me describe my setup and how I went about the calibrations etc. since differences in how people calibrate and WHEN (before/after the projector has completely warmed up) seem to make a difference.

I hooked up the projector to my Denon 2910 using a 6m/20ft Monster (yeah, yeah whatever) 400 series HDMI to HDMI cable. Till I decide what screen and size to get, I'm currently projecting on blackout cloth 54" high and about 110" wide. even on the blackout cloth, images looked quite good and were fairly sharp at 1.3x away. Most of my viewing and calibration ended up being from about 1x away though. Even at this distance, SDE is hardly noticeable to my eyes except in particularly bright scenes.

Since all AV equipment should be allowed approx 30 mins to warm up to full operating temp before any calibration is even attempted and I didn't feel like staring at a blue screen for 30 mins, I popped in my Superbit 'The Fifth Element' DVD and flipped through a few chapters. The Normal mode which it was set to out of the box is one of the brighter modes but also exhibits green push, so I tried following cine4home's recommendation of natural and -1 color temp. Using that as a simple setting, the colour fidelity was already very good, and quite close to my CRT TV calibrated with Avia, but this setting is darker than Normal or Video modes.

For those who've never calibrated their current displays, both cinema1 and natural mode might tend to look less vibrant and 'punchy' and maybe too subdued, mostly because left to their own devices, people tend to oversaturate images when there is nothing to standardize calibration with. Natural mode on '0' color temp was a little cold though. The '-1' setting introduced more accurate warmth to the colors.

I wasn't too terribly impressed with the contrast out of the box either, with the overall image having a milky look to it and yes, the iris feature was set to auto. While previewing the unit, I also stuck in 'Master And Commander' to see how noticeable VB was if any. Yup, VB and FPN are both present. Initially, I thought I was seeing textural striping on the blackout cloth but jiggling the projector slightly proved that the stripes are from the projector and not on the screen material itself. After about 1/2 hour of looking at various scenes and chapters in 'The Fifth Element' I finally popped in the Avia disc.

Started with Natural mode as the default and started tweaking from there. The only setting that was unchanged from default was color. Contrast, Brightness(Black Level), Tint and Sharpness all had some tweaking to various degrees.

A few things that I noted while going through the calibration screens, no dead/stuck pixels in the unit I received, but there is a minor convergence problem between the different color LCD panels evident in the screen with white dots on a black background. There was also a color uniformity issue with the unit I received. In completely gray or white monotone fields, the left side of the screen was a little bluish, and the right side of the screen was a little pinkish. Not from a corner to a diagonal corner but from one entire side to another. In general viewing, I only noticed it when there was a uniform light colour across the screen but for the most part, it wasn't particularly obvious. I believe this might have to do with how the LCD panels are arranged within the projector because when holding my hand up in front of the projector, the shadow cast on the screen has a blue fringe on the left edges and a pinkish magenta fringe on the right edges. Grey field screens between 30IRE and 60IRE were also extremely adept at showing VB and FPN.

After calibrating for Contrast, Black Level, Tint and Sharpness I went into the service menu to see if the flicker tweak would eliminate/reduce the VB and FPN. Out of the box, it seemed the flicker settings were already fairly close. I still haven't heard any definitive opinions on the best way to set the flicker adjustments so what I did was went into the individual screens and increased and decreased the settings till I found the upper and lower edges where I could just begin to see flicker, and then I set the value as close to the median point between them as possible. After tweaking the flicker settings, I tried the gray fields again and noted that I could still see VB/FPN although reduced somewhat from before. I should also be clear to point out the fact that although the VB/FPN can be seen occasionally in some fairly bright uniform background scenes, even straight out of the box, it wasn't as bad as VB I've seen on some other LCD projectors. as previously stated, it could be mistaken for texture on the blackout cloth.

Another thing to note is that after all the calibrations with Avia, I was able to get colour fidelity far better than I could on my CRT TV. Contrast also improved and the image was bright enough for me although as a caveat, I must mention that my night vision is better than normal. With most images, although the blacks were never truely black, they were sufficiently dark to create a nice image for me and after calibration, the blacks and shadow detail were improved a fair bit over the default Natural mode settings. The default settings showed no improvement in contrast over a HS20 set up and calibrated at a local high end AV store but after the calibration with Avia, showed notably better contrast.

But, the VB and FPN is still there. I guess it's a matter of personal sensitivity to it. Some might not really notice it seeing how it just appears as very faint vertical streaking/striping and might be mistaken for screen texture but in the unit I got, the stripes are definitely from the projector, since they move with a single image if the projector is jiggled/moved and they are in the same place as scenes change (i.e. not a DVD compression artifact)

Also a few other interesting observations from my particular setup. While previewing 'The Fifth Element' as I waited for the projector to warm up, I toggled between the scaled outputs from the 2910 which in this case alternated bewteen 480p, 720p and 1080i. After switching back a few times, it became evident that the 480p setting had the lowest PQ, and after switching between 720p and 1080i many times, I felt that the Denon's 1080i output had an edge over 720p. It was only when I was in Avia's calibration screens that I checked for Y/C delay with the different settings and found out that there was significant delay at 480p and although much less at 720p, it was still more than the 1080i setting. The projector's native scaler working on the 480p input also showed less detail and more artifacts than when it received the Denon scaled 720p or 1080i. Not sure if these problems are from the player or projector end.

One other odd thing I noted. With the unit I received, the projector box had been opened and resealed with tape that had the printed message "This box has been opened and passed quality assurance". On examining the projector, I found a smudge on the INSIDE of the lens. Can't really see that the smudge has any large effect on the projected image but I thought it was odd since it is right in the middle of the lens and as I said, on the inside. Also, being subject to the 4 hour preview condition, I made careful note of the exact time I turned the projector on in order to keep exact track of how long I could take to evaluate the projector without overshooting the mark. 20 minutes before the 4 hour mark, I checked the lamp usage counter and found that it already showed 4 hours. (Counts in 1 hour increments)

Well, hope this gives people a little more info that they might be interested in.

I recieved this projector this morning from projectorpeople.com and set it up this evening....OMG if looks awesome... i too have blown by the 4 hour mark....watched shrek 2 and finding nemo they both look better than on any other tv i have seen except for one plasma i saw at a custom audio and video store..... i have also played xbox and that may be the biggest downside so far.... every game that is not at least 480p looks somewhat jagged.... i am using the out of box settings however......

I do have one question however... for 1080 i sources the signal mode on my projector says 1125/60 i does that make sense??

Also let it be know that i am using a da-lite screen form the early 80's until my ordered one comes in friday.... but even with this old ass screen i am in heaven.... Thank you everyone for all the info that i got from this thread...

One so-so review and one OMG! review. This has been the pattern as the units come to their new homes.

So... is the cup half-full? Or half-empty?

Originally posted by Pultzar
It seems as though VB is present on all LCD projectors. Apparently the new Sony HS51 is free of it, but we will have to see it to be sure. Their LCD RPTVs have it from what I have seen.

So I doubt it would be a warranty claim. To me it is the biggest drawback to LCD technology.

For whatever it's worth, I've lived with an ancient Sony VPL-W400Q LCD projector for the last four of it's six year 7,000 hour life. Until I started reading this thread I had never seen VB (and still haven't), nor had I ever seen a report of it in connection with a 400Q. Then again, I'm not that unhappy with the blacks on the 400Q, either. (-8

Jeff

I think it really depends on a LOT of variables that can produce the seemingly rollercoaster of reviews coming in. Some have stated this is their first projector, but you and I already know, Aussie Bob, how the 'wow' factor can be at play here.

For those of us that are not coming from the 1st-timers club the thrill is muted to the extent that the results have to more greatly exceed the current setup for there to be an OMG situation to chat about.

Originally posted by exsodius
Thanks for checking. If this is right, its too bad. My projector is hangin 24 inches from the ceiling. And i know the air is hotter up there but when its not totally up in the ceiling maybe i can hang the 700 the right way(desk mode) instead. Then the fan will be quiet and i have to rebuild my ceiling mount.

I am looking forward to your further checking in this matter.

I changed the PJ from Low to High lamp mode and the fan speed increased one notch. Then I switched from Desk to Ceiling mode and the fan speed increased another notch. So there appears to be four fan speeds during program viewing:

Lowest - Low Lamp, Desk
Next Lowest - Low Lamp, Ceiling
Next Highest - High Lamp, Desk
Highest - High Lamp, Ceiling

Then there is also a "Super High Speed" when you shut down to cool the lamp quickly.

One thing I read in the manual was that if you were above 1400 meters in altitude, they recommend running the fan in the high setting. So in Denver, I will be forced to run the fan on high all the time.

What is the "4 hour" mark everyone is talking about? Is it a number you don't want to reach if you are sending it back?

MDF and Liquid Nails, Milehigh.

Originally posted by Milehigh

What is the "4 hour" mark everyone is talking about? Is it a number you don't want to reach if you are sending it back?


Some dealers allow you to return the unit within 7 days or 4 hours of lamp life. This could vary depending upon who it was purchased from.





Stew

HMenke, over on another forum this just posted:

"Got my 700 yesterday and spent all last night setting it up and testing. Did the flicker tweak after it had been on for about 3 hours and all was fine. Got up this morning turned it on and VB was huge, went into flicker tweak and it was a mile off, read that someone had this prob after he turned it off at mains but mine was in standby all night. Have re-adjusted flicker and it seems ok, how long does it take for a 700 to settle down after first using it."

Guess we should not leave it in standby mode all night then? This seems weird.

I'm now thinking of the panny and I have a question. What is the difference between the AE700 and the PTL700u? Is is marketing for different areas? Sorry for the question.

I've searched and I'm guessing it was a misprint. Some places are saying they have the L700U, then when you get ot their site it's the AE700u.
Thanks anyway.

Originally posted by HMenke
I changed the PJ from Low to High lamp mode and the fan speed increased one notch. Then I switched from Desk to Ceiling mode and the fan speed increased another notch. So there appears to be four fan speeds during program viewing:

Lowest - Low Lamp, Desk
Next Lowest - Low Lamp, Ceiling
Next Highest - High Lamp, Desk
Highest - High Lamp, Ceiling

Then there is also a "Super High Speed" when you shut down to cool the lamp quickly.

Very interesting. The 500's fan does not work this way. I was a bit disappointed at how loud the 700 fan was (high lamp/ceiling). Anyway - I just inverted my 700 to desk (on a shelf vs. upside down hanging on a pole) and put the fan on low. The fan is now dead silent (well almost). Much much better. I never knew it could be this silent. This is good news as I watch a lot of old movies at low volume - and prefer not hearing the fan.

Originally posted by Jcam9
HMenke, over on another forum this just posted:

"Got my 700 yesterday and spent all last night setting it up and testing. Did the flicker tweak after it had been on for about 3 hours and all was fine. Got up this morning turned it on and VB was huge, went into flicker tweak and it was a mile off, read that someone had this prob after he turned it off at mains but mine was in standby all night. Have re-adjusted flicker and it seems ok, how long does it take for a 700 to settle down after first using it."

Guess we should not leave it in standby mode all night then? This seems weird.

Too weird. I tried this last night (turning off main power switch) and it did nothing. I had tried it before months ago w/my 500 and it did nothing then either. Wishfull thinking I guess. And while the flicker tweak may reduce VB a little - don't expect it to eliminate it entirely. You simply are going to have to live with a little VB. I do. And don't go looking for it. My friends/wife never notice it. At least it's only visible on about 5% of the DVD's I 've watched recently (over 60). I plan on upgrading (again) in a couple years when the new D-5 panel (or whatever) is available. And hopefully VB will then be a thing of the past.
p.s. Remember Laser disc. And all it's defects (snits, tears, color dots, lock-ups/bad side breaks/etc.) I (we) lived with all those defects for 15+ years before the advent of DVD. So I can live with a little VB for the next year or two.

Okay.......I've had it, now's the time. I've went from the h56a,etc,etc, etc, to the AE700U. The throw is great, true 720p, 16x9, and HDMI. I've been behind the DLP from the start but I want a pj NOW and the H76 is too expensive. Is there anything else I should know about the AE700U before I buy on Monday? I've only owned a DLP Sharp that was a presentation pj and the image was "acceptable", but now I want a GOOD picture.

Is the VB a MAJOR issue?

What's the warranty? I haven't had luck with panny in the past.

I will be using the pj for DVD 80%, HDTV 10%, PS2 & TV 10%.
I have a 110" 16x9 screen, 17' away ceiling mounted and a totally light controlled room.
THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP!
:D :D :D

Originally posted by wiredman


Is the VB a MAJOR issue?

:D :D :D


I'll take VB over SDE or rainbows any day. At least VB doesn't affect every disc you watch.

I researched projectors for about three months and settled in on the AE700 after reading reviews and this thread. Saw the Sony HS20 in several places as well as several $8-$12k DLP projectors (Sanyo, Yamaha, Optoma).

Finally called on Thursday to order my AE700 while out of town and paid for overnight delivery. I got back home at 9:55am Friday and UPS delivered the projector before 10:30. Woohoo!

I now have about 5 hours on it and I don't see how I could be more pleased. I'm using a 98" diag DIY screen of blackout cloth for now in front of a window, so that needs some work for daytime viewing. The room will be very light-controlled with the addition of drapes across a patio door. Ceiling is white, but walls are a dark green and carpet is taupe. Furniture is burgundy leather.

First thing I noticed is how bright the picture is at night. I was concerned about the brightness because the projectors I had seen were all on Stewart screens and very dim except for the top of the line Yamaha. The AE700 is possibly too bright, even in low lamp mode, so I know I can put CC filters on it and still have enough lumens, especially when I replace the screen with Dalite material. I can tell today that the blackout cloth is actually transmitting quite a bit of light, so a lot of my photons were going out the window. Literally.

HD from DirecTV is absolutely outstanding -- truly incredible. I believe it's the equal of my 55" Mits RPTV, just with four times as much screen area and much more brightness. I'm pretty sure it's close to, if not equal to, the HD I saw from the Optoma H77 on a Stewart screen. (Can't be true, right? Must be my memory and perception, right? Can't possibly spend $2200 and get the performance of $10,000, right? RIGHT??)

The only DVD we watched last night was a terrible 4:3 letterboxed version of Speed. Crappy movie, crappy transfer, but still looked great for the most part. Pixels were visible during long shots with motion. I had used the Aspect feature to get it to fit my screen, so there was a lot of conversion going on -- probably should have just used the optical zoom. I can't wait to watch a better movie tonight. My son had borrowed my Superbit version of Fifth Element, but returned it today, so it's high on my list of DVDs to check out.

I did watch a few minutes of Life As A House and it was much, much better. However, it may be time to upgrade my four year old Mits DVD player. I used the 480p output, but spent a couple minutes with the 480i and couldn't immediately tell much difference.

All the settings were default. Most of the viewing was in Cinema2 mode. That seemed to be the most effective combination of natural-looking colors, contrast and brightness. I didn't notice any vertical banding and zero screen-door on HD. I realize now that what I first thought was screen-door on DVD was really just the crappy DVD. What I was seeing was very intermittent -- if it was the projector, it would have been permanent.

So most everyone is getting this PJ from Projector People? Hmmm...?

Dan

Well when I spoke to Projector People Thursday morning here on the East Coast, they said they had 90 units and had sold two already to AVS Forum members. Also was told they got the units because they paid a couple of million to Panasonic for a bunch of the units.

So, when I saw other folks here getting them, I said why not. Switched from the wait list at VA and asked for overnight delivery.

Had the unit in my hands Friday morning.

Originally posted by John Ballentine
Very interesting. The 500's fan does not work this way. I was a bit disappointed at how loud the 700 fan was (high lamp/ceiling). Anyway - I just inverted my 700 to desk (on a shelf vs. upside down hanging on a pole) and put the fan on low. The fan is now dead silent (well almost). Much much better. I never knew it could be this silent. This is good news as I watch a lot of old movies at low volume - and prefer not hearing the fan.

So weird. My 700 is sitting right next to me on a table for now running in high lamp mode. It's literally 2 feet from my ear and I don't hear it unless I go right next to it. Even during silent scenes in movies I don't hear it....I haven't tried ceiling mode yet....I"ll have to do that in a little bit when I fire the projector up.

Originally posted by Milehigh
One thing I read in the manual was that if you were above 1400 meters in altitude, they recommend running the fan in the high setting. So in Denver, I will be forced to run the fan on high all the time.


That will depend a great deal on the ambient temp and ventilation in your viewing area. At least one other Colorado member and I have the 300U. Its manual stated the same, that at above 4500 feet, the fan had to be set to high. He's at about 6500', and I'm at 6000'. He contacted Panasonic's NJ engineers to be sure, and they confirmed that he shouldn't have any problems running the fan on low. Now, that's in a basement theater (same with me), where the average temp in the winter is about 67, and 74 in the summer. I found that I can run my 300 in low fan mode all year long in my basement theater, and that has included some 5 hour sessions. My "Temp" light flashed once, but that was with my theater room door closed, cutting down the ventilation, and increasing the temp to about 80 in the room. Opening the door to the room solved the problem.

Don't assume that you'll have to run in high mode. Give it a try first. The pj has plenty of built-in protection, and you won't do any harm. If the red light never flashes, then you're home free!

Do any Canadians in the Greater Toronto Area have the AE700 or are planning to get one? I am very interested in viewing the AE700 in action myself.

As far as flicker tweaking after warm-up equating to the need to warm-up a CRT front projector, thats not quite right. While the lcd projector does change its flicker while it is warming up, that doesn't mean the pj is useless until it warms up. Simply make sure you do your flicker tweak after the projector has warmed up, and on average, most of your viewing, from start to finish will be free of vb and peak-a-boo's. In extreme cases, in the summer or for whatever reason your projector warms up, the conditions may change.

So most everyone feels they made the right decision with the AE700? Is there anything else close to performance and price?

Thanks Bubba, I'll definitely that in mind, thanks :)

Originally posted by bubbawilly
Don't assume that you'll have to run in high mode. Give it a try first. The pj has plenty of built-in protection, and you won't do any harm. If the red light never flashes, then you're home free!

I'm guilty of lurking on this forum for the past week or so. I've read the entire thing. I had my heart set on an Optoma H56a and then a buddy convinced me that I needed true 720p to be happy.

I dove into the Projector People pool shortly after and my Panasonic AE700 should be here monday. Many many thanks to everyone who has posted any information regarding this projector. It will be my first projector and I'm really looking forward to seeing it in action.

I will post my thoughts about the projector, but I'm 99% sure that I'll be eccstatic just because my screen size is 120" and I really can't imagine the "wow factor" that will have on me regardless of the image quality.

I'm currently upgrading from a 50" Mitsu standard def TV and this projector and screen combo is costing me less than that did 5 years ago.

To be honest - I'm just really happy that my wife let me pull the trigger on this.

Slicksnail,
Thanks for your input. I'm going to order mine Monday. I don't know if we can say this but Proj people?, or Proj point?, or who?
I too wanted the H56a but the HDMI, etc is perfect! I was waiting on the H57 but it's not 720p. Let us know!

I got mine through Projector People and I saw that other people had said the same thing, so I think that's "legal".

When I talked to the people at Projector People they told me that they were getting the first AE700's because they had purchased all of the remaining AE500's. That's why they were the first to receive shipment.

After reading experiences from other people in this thread I am VERY happy that I chose the P-People. I think they were honest and so far they have deliverred on everything they told me. The only sticky part is the 4 hour bulb time limit to be able to return it w/o a restocking fee. At least they told me that up front. I've had really bad exchange/return experiences with the department stores.

I once returned a subwoofer that had blown under warranty. They tried to have it repaired by JBL and JBL told them to just give me a new one. I got there, they told me to pick out the same model. I did. Then when I brought it up front they told me to pay an extra $100. "Why?" Because this one is $100 more. "It's the same thing!"... sorry sir, that's our policy. "Can I have my old speaker back?"... Nope, we sent it back to JBL.

That's the kind of service I'm trying to avoid. :)

Slicksnail

I understand that. I ordered mine throught projector packages dot com and got a bad ceiling mount. They gave me a better universal adj. extension ceiling mount in exchange. Was I happy! These companies are pretty good. I haven't had any bad deals with projector people dot com. I have purchased two projectors from them and had no bad deals either.

I got my 700 set up last night, and I have blown past the 4 hr lamp time. Couldn't be happier about this purchase. No apparent dead pixels, VB, or any other issues. Fan is very quiet, you can not hear it at all from the back of the room even in total movie silence. I didn't really notice much difference in picture brightness between hi and low lamp, but I left it in hi anyhow. The first dvd I watched had a slight red tint to it (Day After Tomorrow), but T2 and LotR seem dead on. Probably has more to do with the transfer than the projector. Blacks are plenty dark enough for me, and I see no SDE at 1.3x seating. I viewed short clips from a FOX demo disk I had and they all looked amazing, even the black and white scenes. So either I am very easy to please, or this is a great projector for the money. Either way, I am very happy I didn't wait for something 'better'. The lens shift is a great feature, made installation a snap. To top it off, the projector case has a nice look to it compared to others I have seen. The only bad thing is I can see myself buying a lot more dvds now and my cable bill is going to go up with the addition of the HD DVR rental box. ;-) Anyone using ComCast and the SA Explorer 8000 HD? I can't wait to see what this baby looks like with a higher res feed. I just hope the DVI connector works, as some have said that it doesn't with ComCast in my area. I will know Monday for sure.

My newbie review isn't going to impress or inform the real techies, but here goes.

Set Up: Shelf mounted, 11 feet lens to screen, slightly right of center next to couch, viewing distance also 11 feet, typically about 18" to nearest listener, no vertical lens shift, some horizontal lens shift but not to it's extreme, all sources on same shelf next to projector, component connection (6 feet) from Sony SVP-CX875P megachanger, S-Video from sd/digital cable box (non-HD), both passing through a Pioneer VSX-D912 receiver, 100" diagonal 1.78:1 Carada Brilliant White Criterion screen, lots of ambient light at times but controllable, light walls, ceiling and carpet.

Suppliers: Projector People and Carada service was honest, responsive and top notch.

I've had the AE700 for more than a week (projecting on wall) and just set up the screen yesterday.

Fantastic! Plenty of brightness (low lamp) for satisfying daytime viewing with indirect sunlight streaming into the room. At night, fine with 60 watt lamp on in room for reading. Naturally, much better after dark with lights off. Beautiful colors. Different shades of red seem as accurate as I remember them in the theatrical screenings. Knowing that red is a tricky color for video, my simple tests for this are Grandmama's living room in GIGI and the seat covers in the taxi at the beginning of NORTH BY NORTHWEST, since I'm a little more familiar with how they looked in the cinema than other films. Both looked dead on.

Sharpness is totally there for me.

Near silent fan, slightly louder but not intrusive after an hour or so.

Already looking into HD providers to add that to the fun.

Set up and placement is so unobtrusive without altering the arrangement of my normal living room and the fan is so low, I feel like I'm the only one on the block with a 100" diagonal wall hanging plasma screen for half the price of a decent 42" one.

I have the Avia calibration disc but haven't used it yet. I probably will soon, but detailed calibration hasn't been a pressing issue for me so far. Minimal tweaking on main menu to get some of the green out and I prefer Normal or Dynamic setting. That's about it. If there is VB present, I haven't noticed it yet and neither has anyone else. Got about 60 hours on it so far.

I have seen demos of other projector/screen set ups in retail stores and A/V boutiques in and around Los Angeles and, although I realize this isn't necessarily saying much, my simple newbie set up, calibration and results are, to my eyes, at least as good as the best of them and FAR better than most of the ones I've seen out there and nowhere NEAR the cost quoted by any of them.

Panasonic deserves all the sales records they can rack up with this one. They won't be the only ones getting it this right going forward and I'm sure other manufacturers are and will be snapping at their heels to best them in several details...which is great for all of us.

Meanwhile, Panasonic got there "firstest and bestest" in the important issues of set-up flexibility (V+H lens shift, super zoom), very low fan noise, lamp life (presumably), future-proof inputs, reasonable cost AND the PQ wow factor.

Therefore, I'm glad to have jumped into the FP world with this one and to have contributed to the rewards that a manufacturer should reap for putting a package together this good. No regrets whatsoever and truly excited about the hours of movie pleasures ahead.

Would I have liked another component input, a wider range of horizontal lens shift, easier access to any potential dust blob removal (a la Sanyo's new model)? Sure. But what I did get is so much more than I ever thought I would two years ago for less than 1/3 the cost.

As a side note: As far as my set up goes and regarding any recommendations I'd make, I'm really glad I spent a day before the projector arrived moving all my video gear to the BACK of the room so it would all be close to the projector, even my cable box. The only wires I needed to run from the back of the room to the front were the three speaker wires for the front left, right and center speakers. Makes life much easier, I think. And I'll be looking into painting the walls a darker color or at least framing the screen with a foot or two all around with a darker, flat color.

This is my first FP system and I love it!

(Small edit: Checked my settings and I had it on Normal as a preference, not Natural as originally posted. Now corrected. Dynamic on a couple DVDs)

In case anyone was wondering, I'm the guy who posted what I think someone else called the 'so-so' review of the 700U. I'd like to clarify that I do think this a very nice projector for this price point. Also although the VB and FPN is there and can't be completely removed from my PJ even with the flicker tweak, it REALLY depends on individual sensitivity to it. People who have no idea what VB/FPN looks like shouldn't try to find out since most of them won't notice or be bothered by it. With regards to AV flaws and artifacts, sometimes ignorance IS bliss. Most of the time in most viewing material, it's not noticeable, and even the times it is noticeable, it is quite slight but I CAN see it. If this is a person's first PJ, they will probably not have too much of a problem with it, if they even know what they're looking for in the first place. Mentioning that VB and FPN were present even after the flicker adjustments were simply for people who've had experience with projectors and are curious to know if THIS projector has it or not and to what extent.

SDE is very minimal and even at 1x it doesn't bother me. But yes, as another member mentioned, there is some 'ghosting' visible on the right edge of a dark subject on a light background. This I think might also have something to do with convergence that causes a shadow from an object (my hand) close to the projector to have a bluish left edge and a pinkish right edge and for the projected image to be slightly blue on the left side and slightly pink on the right side. If I'm correct, it has to do with the difference of convergence as light passes from the differently positioned LCD panels through the lens. In the center of the image, the 3 panels have the best convergence but at the edges, the panel to the left is refracted just a little more through the lens at that angle and diverges enough so the color difference can be seen a little and the panel to the right diverges slightly as it is refracted through the lens across the screen to the left side. Of course, I might be completely off track here.

I wonder how the HS51 really looks in terms of VB and FPN though, since some reviewers claim that they see NO VB and FPN in comparison to the 700U where they do see it. Even if SDE is a little more obvious than it is on the 700U, there is always the option of a slight defocus. Wonder how they will do with convergence too since the HS20 did show similar problems with the slight convergence issues I observed in the 700U. In my opinion, it makes the image a tad softer than it could be.

Well, for now, I'm keeping the 700U and if after viewing the HS51 at the local AV shop (when they finally receive it and set it up), I feel that the HS51 is as significant a step up from the 700U as some have claimed, I might have to bite the bullet and look for a buyer for the 700U:)

BTW for further clarification of my setup, I mounted the projector so it has 0 lens shift, projecting right at the center of my BOC screen, but due to the distance, I had to use the maximum zoom to obtain the 92" wide image. I tried setting the zoom to the center so it was neither zoomed in or out but the convergence and color issues were still there.

The next thing I will be trying (when I get around to it) will be using different cables to hook up the PJ and at different lengths to see if there are any issues caused or alleviated by variances in those. I'll also be trying it out with different types of power conditioners, line filters and constant voltage sine wave transformers. I'll try to keep everyone posted on the results of those experiments.

Anyone using their 700 with a Carada High-Contrast screen????

Can someone explain the differences in these 2 images I found. Both are supposed to be the back of the 700. I know one is turned off and other on.
:p
I know SCART is for European models. What is the input on the other model?

http://pic4.videogon.com/i/c/f/1097307656.jpg

And


http://www.ausmedia.com.au/Panasonic/ptae700_bak.jpg

Originally posted by Jcam9
HMenke, over on another forum this just posted:

"Got my 700 yesterday and spent all last night setting it up and testing. Did the flicker tweak after it had been on for about 3 hours and all was fine. Got up this morning turned it on and VB was huge, went into flicker tweak and it was a mile off, read that someone had this prob after he turned it off at mains but mine was in standby all night. Have re-adjusted flicker and it seems ok, how long does it take for a 700 to settle down after first using it."

Guess we should not leave it in standby mode all night then? This seems weird.

Thanks for the info, Jcam9. It is startlingly close to my experience! After the massive VB incident, I performed the flicker tweak (after a suitable warm up period) to remove as much VB as possible, and ever since then I have been dutifully cutting the AC power after the auto fan shutoff. At this point I can report that I do not have any disturbing VB. It is so minimal that I have to actively hunt for it to see a trace.

I would have to say that the only purpose for the "standby" mode is to allow you to fire up the PJ using the remote control when you need to have "quick on" (for example in a presentation environment). I do not think the machine is intended to be left in standby for extended periods day after day in the home. I think this warrants a call to Panasonic tech support for clarification.

But I must say that I AM LOVING THIS PJ! Attack of the Clones is nothing short of spectacular! This PJ gives first-timers like me the thrill of having a real honest-to-goodness movie theater right in my own home! In fact I think it looks better than a real movie theater (at least until they get up to date with digital PJ technology!)

Originally posted by bakpakva
I didn't really notice much difference in picture brightness between hi and low lamp, but I left it in hi anyhow.

I noticed that High Lamp has the most effect in bright scenes, such as outdoor sunlight. Switching between High-Low Lamp in dark scenes is almost imperceptible.

Originally posted by John Ballentine
Too weird. I tried this last night (turning off main power switch) and it did nothing.

Might try this sequence:

1. Fully warm up PJ
2. Flicker tweak
3. View full movie
4. Shut down, auto fan off, then cut main power
5. 18 hours elapsed time with no main power
6. Fully warm up PJ
7. Final flicker tweak
8. View full movie
9. Shut down, auto fan off, then cut main power
10. Never leave in standby again

Originally posted by Dan Hitchman
So most everyone is getting this PJ from Projector People? Hmmm...?

At the time I ordered they claimed to have a lock on 60% of the first wave of stock coming in, which has apparently proven to be accurate.

I'm interested in hearing from anyone else who has or is considering upgrading from the AE500 / L500U.

One of the nice things about going from the AE300 to the AE500 was that the ceiling mount holes were the same, no need for a new or adjusted ceiling mount. The AE700 looks a bit different, or at least moreso than the difference between the 300 and 500 was. Anyone know if the 700 mount holes are the same as the 500?

And has anyone done any measurement of contrast ration or brightness using SMART or another calibration tool? Any comments on comparing the 500 to the 700?

And finally can anyone compare the 500 to the 700 on FPN/VB. the VB problem on the 500 model has bothered me since I got it, and I was actually thinking of the BenQ 8700 as my next projector in hopes of getting rid of VB and getting to better contrast. Now I am thinking of the 700 as a good upgrade for contrast while still keeping the low fan noise, which is a major consideration for me. So I am particularly interested in hearing if anyone has compared the 500 to the 700 on VB.

-Pat

Last night and today I spent approximately four hours comparing these two models. First, the set-up. I am projecting the image onto a Carada 110" 1.0 gain screen from a distance of 13.5' (L300u was ceining mounted there). The components used were a Zenith DB318 @ 1080i via component and a Motorolla HDTV box (DiscoveryHD).

The projetors were also compared to my Toshiba 65" RPTV (CRT) with Panny Zenith DB318 & HDTV. Also, I compared the images to my Sony 34" Tube (probably the best PQ available but a big 200lb monster) fed ny Panny RP82 and also HDTV.

First, I checked in the Flicker menu (green, red, blue) and with Avia for dead pixels. There were none. Next I used the lens shift to place the image correctly. This alone is a great addition. However, the manual control really does stick and is frustrating to say the least. The zoom is great. What a flexible piece of equip! I had it at too close a throw in my opinion.

After a thorough warm up, I went immediately into the flicker adjustment and lowered the settings to their optimum level (around 21-23 on each color). The factory settings were pretty far off. I watched, before using Avia, The opening scene of Master And Commander, and a few other scenes in various movies to look for VB. Let me put it this way, If I had never read comments on AVS forum, I would not have noticed VB. The 700 had less VB than the 300 (which had minimal in my opinion). My wife could not detect anything odd about the scenes or image. There is a little FPN. Well, nothing is perfect. My 65" RPTV has a lenticular screen with horizontal ridges that are sometimes visible. The TV also has reflexion problems inside the set during dark scenes. My 34" Sony has annoying white shadow trails during dark scenes.

Screen door. None. I could not detect pixelation or "peekaboo scan lines" as in the 300. Also, I only had to use very minimal defocus. This is likely because I have a pretty large screen combined with above average vision acuity. I am sensitive to screen door and was very turned off to the Sony HS51 because of reports of screen door.

Balck level. The 700 is much superior to the 300. I was using a Hoya filter on the 300. The filter improved the black level. The 700's black is not ink black (as is my 34" Sony). But, the black is likely as close to CRT as LCD will ever get. I watched scenes from Se7en, and others. Much better than the 300.

Light output. The 700 throw much more light onto the screen. The 300 was pretty dim even without the Hoya filter. I have a complete light controlled, dark walled dedicated theater room. I would like a little more light output, but I definitely cant complain.

Fan. I think the 700 is a bit louder than the 300. Maybe! Not an issue in low mode. Also, it is right on top of my head (about 4' away).

Picture Quality. I compared scenes from Star Wars movies, Monsters Inc, The Cooler, Spider Man, and Discovery HD. Much sharper, punchier, and higher contrast than the 300. Now HD looks like it has more dimension to it. Comparible to the 65" CRT. It looks very good compared to the 300. That stupid show, Trading Spaces, looks very detailed like my 34" Sony. Excellent colors.

I prefered Normal as opposed to the Cinema 1. I think Cinema 1 is much to dim. Also, Loq quality sources such a bad DVD transfers stand out. This projector needs a good DVD player. The Zenith DB318 doe not do this projector justice. I would pair it with a Denon 2910/3910 or Panasonic DVD-S97. These players have the FLI-2310 Faroudja chip. Jaggies and bad deinterlacing stand out because of the sharper image.

Overall, I am surprised how great this machine is for the price. I can't see myself upgrading for several years. So is it worth the upgrade. Definitely. The 300 is a great projector for it's recent street price (used). The 700 is in a diferent league. Better contrast, better black. Higher light output. Sharper PQ. No screen door. Excellent color. Extremely flexible.

Thanks RobZ. I appreciate the comparison, as I'm debating the same upgrade myself right now.

Is the improvement big enough that your wife (who I assume is not as videophile nitpicky as we AVS'ers are) thinks it's a worthwhile upgrade?

-tony

I like home theater. My wife likes shoes. Interestingly, she now thinks the PQ of the 700 is better than our new 34" Sony (XBR tube).

"she now thinks the PQ of the 700 is better than our new 34" Sony (XBR tube)"

Wow - that's saying a lot.

She is giving an opinion of what most non-videophile or HT lovers would say. The black level of the XBR rules though.

RobZ
jeez, ssssshhhhhhh! Don't say that too loud!
You know how there hearing is?

SMP01,

If I'm not mistaken, that looks like a "D4" port from a Japanese model. For us in North America, its like a Scart port, and of no use to us.

Rob Z,

Could you clarify:
Screen door. None. I could not detect pixelation or "peekaboo scan lines" as in the 300. Also, I only had to use very minimal defocus. BOLD MINE.

So was the "None" comment about screendoor and the "could not detect pixelation" or "peak-a-boo scanlines" BEFORE or AFTER your slight defocus. I'm not sure here. Why did you defocus at all? What were you trying to reduce?

thanx people...watching DVD's with my L200 but I'm thinking of taking the leap to the AE700. My only concern is scaling of 480p over VGA or HDMI port. Anyone have clarification on that? How is it?

:)

Originally posted by bakpakva
I didn't really notice much difference in picture brightness between hi and low lamp, but I left it in hi anyhow.

If you end up not being able to notice the difference, you would probably want to default to low to save lamp life.

reap

Originally posted by John Ballentine
I'll take VB over SDE or rainbows any day. At least VB doesn't affect every disc you watch.

I want to chime in now that I've had my new AE700 for a few days.

First -- let me say that I am happy with this projector and the picture is fantastic. I've had neighbors over, and as you might expect, they were amazed and are talking about buying one themselves. None noticed any defects; they made comments about how amazing the picture was and how it was better than a movie theater. The lack of screen door is truly remarkable on this projector (and I've got it focused as sharply as I can make it). Screendoor was always the most irritating aspect of the projector world for me, and I've demo'ed many at the high end theater stores. I've never seen any like the AE700 -- there is no screendoor. The flexibility as far as mounting goes with this projector (due to zoom and shift) is also a breakthough, simple shelf mounting at the back of my room is ONLY possible with the AE700 and NOT the sony or any other projector I've looked at. These two features alone are what would make me recommend this model to friends, neighbors, and family more than anything else.

It is clear however that VB is still a major issue. Many have already posted about it on this forum, and the problem even made the projectorcentral review. I didn't notice VB on the first day that I had it. I left it on standby overnight, and noticed VB on day two. I can confirm as others have reported, that powering the unit off instead of leaving it in standby, absolutely DOES reduce VB, there is no question. On day two, I went into the flicker service menu to try to improve VB, but it seemed to me that it was already optimally set. However after reading a post from someone here, I thought I would try reducing the numbers a little in the flicker menu today. That DID seem to help reduce VB also.

I do not notice VB under most normal viewing conditions -- I can only notice it in large solid colors. I'm using a HTPC -- setting my windows desktop to the solid bluish-gray that I'm used to (RGB=58/110/165) shows the VB problem probably at its worst. Change the desktop to say, a high resolution "spiderman" image (which is what it is now) and I can't see any VB. Link to spiderman wallpaper (http://spiderman.sonypictures.com/downloads/wallpapers/)

I have no idea how much this issue varies unit to unit. There are some actions you can take to improve VB, but its probably going to irritate a picky person. Personally I think its much better than living with rainbow effects (I had a DLP projector for about a week, and the rainbow effects drove me mad). I will not be sending the unit back unless for some reason the VB gets worse over the next 3-weeks. And honestly, I don't know that an exchange would do me any good, I suspect a replacement would be about the same. Also, I've looked hard, and my unit has NO dead or stuck pixels whatsoever, and no off colors in any corners or other problems.

When all is said and done, I still think this model is the best buy for the money in home theater today and I will recommend it to everyone until the new D5 models come out a year or so from now.

By the way, I'm using VGA. Maybe the HDMI input would exhibit different characteristics (? not sure ?).

If anyone in the Philly area would like a demo, you are more than welcome, and if you have a DVI->HDMI cable you'd like to try, bring it over.

p.s. High definition football is INSANE on this thing. My neighbor was freaking out when he saw the clips I had saved of last weekend's games.

Originally posted by HMenke
Might try this sequence:

1. Fully warm up PJ
2. Flicker tweak
3. View full movie
4. Shut down, auto fan off, then cut main power
5. 18 hours elapsed time with no main power
6. Fully warm up PJ
7. Final flicker tweak
8. View full movie
9. Shut down, auto fan off, then cut main power
10. Never leave in standby again

OK. I'll try it. if it works - I'll be the happiest guy on earth.

Originally posted by RobZ
I like home theater. My wife likes shoes. Interestingly, she now thinks the PQ of the 700 is better than our new 34" Sony (XBR tube).

My wife likes shoes too.

My wife likes boots.




Stew

TraderGordo, I am glad you are happy with your purchase! Mine should be here tuesday. It will be interesting to see if the HDMI cable helps improve things on the VB front or not. I just ordered one for $15+ shipping. I know, dirt cheap which kinda worries me. I will be using a JVC DVD player via component initially and then adding a HD receiver via DVI-HDMI later. HTPC is in the works though. I already have most of the components to build it. My newbie review will be forthcoming mid next week.

By the way, what screen and size did you go with?

Originally posted by TraderGordo
I want to chime in now that I've had my new AE700 for a few days.

First -- let me say that I am happy with this projector and the picture is fantastic. I've had neighbors over, and as you might expect, they were amazed and are talking about buying one themselves. None noticed any defects; they made comments about how amazing the picture was and how it was better than a movie theater. The lack of screen door is truly remarkable on this projector (and I've got it focused as sharply as I can make it). Screendoor was always the most irritating aspect of the projector world for me, and I've demo'ed many at the high end theater stores. I've never seen any like the AE700 -- there is no screendoor. The flexibility as far as mounting goes with this projector (due to zoom and shift) is also a breakthough, simple shelf mounting at the back of my room is ONLY possible with the AE700 and NOT the sony or any other projector I've looked at. These two features alone are what would make me recommend this model to friends, neighbors, and family more than anything else.

.

Agreed with all of the above - no screendoor or pixels visible. VB, never seen it and don't want to go looking hehe

Just did a comparo on HDTV loop , (channel 7 Australia) of AE700 vs Hitachi TX100. Sorry very subjective - both PJs untweaked out of box ...
12' away, 84" screen, component, daytime with curtains drawn (not ideal)

Both were stunning on HD
TX100 is certainly brighter, more colourful, quieter, more pixelated
Both show major moire on panning across seats of Telstardome stadium
TX100 showed shimmering of background forests etc on panning
Both showed jags on solid red ribbons - deinterlacing effect?
'Combing' was also visible on both when boats moving across screen - worse on the ae700 (comes up as horizontal lines- v ugly). The faster the movement the worse it was - eg a merrygoround was bad on AE700.
Vertical straight lines eg power poles were a little jaggy on TX100, AE700 was OK


Overall
I will keep the AE700 at this stage, and please note I've only mentioned the bad points on a very challenging source. I am very happy with both PJ's and they are way way better than any of the XGA DLP data projectors I've had home from work.

PS I am not sure but because the source feed material may have been the cause of many of these problems. I will try again with a progressive source soon (Denon 3910) via HDMI/DVI when I get some time OK?

Edited by Norpus to remove errors (1080i vs 576p)- thanks guys

[i]Originally posted by norpus
Both show major moire on panning across seats of Telstardome stadium
TX100 showed shimmering of background forests etc on panning
Both showed jags on solid red ribbons - deinterlacing effect?
'Combing' was also visible on both when boats moving across screen - worse on the ae700 (comes up as horizontal lines- v ugly). The faster the movement the worse it was - eg a merrygoround was bad on AE700.
Vertical straight lines eg power poles were a little jaggy on TX100, AE700 was OK

Sorry Norpus but 7 HD loop is 576p not 1080i. Only 9 has a 1080i loop.

10, 2 and SBS have 1080i, but ALL upconvert SD to HD, EXCEPT 10's live programs, which are 1080i.

So in the end EVERYTHING you see is converted one way or another to 720p for the AE700.
Thats why I'm going for a htpc that can take care of the conversion for me and pass a 720p signal to the pj.

see this doco - http://www.dba.org.au/uploads/documents/DMF_Mel_Bris.pdf

BTW that moire in the 7 loop of the Telstradome can be seen on any display, it's a bad source.

Agreed on the Telstradome HD material. Much else of Australian "HD" is extremely, badly pixelated: too much compression.

norpus

I think what you need to do to eliminate these problems is feed the projector a 720P signal not 1080i or 576P. That way multiple scaling steps will be minimised and the artefacts diminished/eliminated. You do not necessarily need an HTPC to do this. The Denon 3910 is able to output an HDMI signal at 720P. Many HDTV receivers can also do the same thing (maybe not commonly yet with HDMI, but at least with DVI & component signals).
Criticism of the fantastic AE700 without doing this first may not be justified.

For those of you with the VB problem, how many "lines" or bands do you see?

Originally posted by nilsp
For those of you with the VB problem, how many "lines" or bands do you see?

When I had "the morning after" problem from leaving in standby mode all night, the bands were about 1" wide - very distinct - alternating light and dark. My screen is 79" wide so that would be about 79 VBs!

Originally posted by TraderGordo
I want to chime in now that I've had my new AE700 for a few days.


I left it on standby overnight, and noticed VB on day two. I can confirm as others have reported, that powering the unit off instead of leaving it in standby, absolutely DOES reduce VB, there is no question.

Hmm. Wasn't it you that laughed at me when i told you this
;)

You know, you could grab a kitchen ladder and go measure the number of pixels, but then that would make you a real nerd. LOL

Originally posted by TraderGordo
The lack of screen door is truly remarkable on this projector (and I've got it focused as sharply as I can make it). Screendoor was always the most irritating aspect of the projector world for me, and I've demo'ed many at the high end theater stores. I've never seen any like the AE700 -- there is no screendoor.

I would have to say that I do see slight SDE on my unit. It is extremely fine pitched and mainly appears in lighter, more solid areas. It is mainly visible when the object is moving on the screen. If I freeze the picture, it becomes invisible. I am sitting 10' away from 90" diagonal picture so I am definitely on the close side to the image. However, the small amount of SDE that I do see is not offensive or distracting to me. In a way it gives one a sense of digital precision and sharpness when looking at the image. It shows up most clearly on SWE2 Attack of the Clones, maybe because the original source material was shot digitally. My wife and kids do not even notice it and I do not point it out to them.

I'm using 480p component which might be contributing to it. I would like to try an upconverting DVD player at 720p via HDMI but it seems that the ones out now are not ready for prime time. The upcoming Panasonic DVD-S97S looks promising however. Also HD via HDMI will be interesting when my new cable box arrives.

TraderGordo,

I am unsure how you can make these 2 statements in the same post:

"It is clear however that VB is still a major issue."
"I do not notice VB under most normal viewing conditions"

Why would you say it is a major issue if you do not usually even notice it?

Just trying to understand your thoughts on the matter.

reap

A bit back in this thread we were talking about MonoPrices (http://www.monoprices.com) and their cheap cables prices. I picked up a 15 foot DVI->HDMI cable and an optical cable from them. Both cables are good quality cables and I do no notice any image degradation using the DVI cable. So for anyone interested in a cheap cable solution, I'd reccommend them.

As to the VB on this projector, I've still had none in the 3 weeks I've had it. I will say that since I've had it I've always been turning the power off on the back of the projector too. So it seems to fit with what everyone is saying.

Originally posted by HMenke
When I had "the morning after" problem from leaving in standby mode all night, the bands were about 1" wide - very distinct - alternating light and dark. My screen is 79" wide so that would be about 79 VBs!

I've heard of a lot worse "morning after" problems than that! ;)

OK, thanks for the info. Very strange. (So for a windows desktop, you could make a wallpaper with alternating dark an light bands, and the problem would disappear! :D Kinda hard to do for a movie, though...) Hopefully the power off trick will negate the problem.

I own a Davis DL450 clone. A couple of years back, I called a service center (in Georgia I think) to have my projector cleaned. I dropped that idea because of the price, but he was very helpful in answering my questions. I inquired about the "stand-by mode on my model. He recommended I keep the projector in stand-by mode because the boards are very sensitive to a cold start. This will increase the reliability of the projector. The only time I power off the unit is when I am going out of town for several days. I have not had any problems with this projector other than the usual blobs it collects over time.

Hope this helps.

Robert_W.

PS. I also am on the fence regarding the purchase of the Panny 700.

I'll chime in on this, as I agree with everything traderGordo said. About the machine - and VB. Yes it still is a major issue - but only on some DVD's. Other DVD's - VB is not noticeable at all. I'll watch 10 - 12 movies in a row and no problem. Then one comes along and I'll see VB. I notice it mostly on underwater scenes (Das Boot, U-571, 20,000 Leagues, Enemy Below). Wierd thing is I notice it on some fog scenes (AOTC ship landing) but not on others (Pirates Of Carribean/ Master And Commander). So under most conditions (normal or otherwise) I don't see it. I've noticed it on a Black and White film only once (out of about 30). Something else I've noticed - the brighter the image - the more I notice it. If you run the 700 on like Cinema 1 mode - the VB is reduced. But so is overall picture brightness. Another "weird" thing is at Daniel's house a month ago (previewing the 700) I brought Das Boot to show everyone a worst case of VB - and there wasn't any! However the Star Wars (Tatoonie scene) was showing some VB (most thought it wasn't a big deal) - but when I got home and played the same scene on my 500 - you had to really look hard and play the scene several times to see VB. It's the only bug a boo I have w/ the 700. Once this is worked out - and the contrast is improved further - I'll be a happy camper.

I also really love the new features of the 700. Lens shift and 2X lens are great. It's really nice to have the projector at the back of the room (21' from the screen) and located high up near the ceiling.

As was mentioned before you shouldn't use the lens shift to it's maximum - or convergence errors creep in.

The fan in desk mode and low bulb is virtually silent. I haven't heard it cycle yet - but my room stays rather cool right now due to the cooler Fall weather.

No pixel problems with my unit either. Sounds like dead pixel problems are becoming a thing of the past. That's good - as a dead pixel (to me) is a hundred times more bothersome than VB - because you notice it on every single thing you watch every single day.

Originally posted by Robert_W
I own a Davis DL450 clone. A couple of years back, I called a service center (in Georgia I think) to have my projector cleaned. I dropped that idea because of the price, but he was very helpful in answering my questions. I inquired about the "stand-by mode on my model. He recommended I keep the projector in stand-by mode because the boards are very sensitive to a cold start. This will increase the reliability of the projector. The only time I power off the unit is when I am going out of town for several days. I have not had any problems with this projector other than the usual blobs it collects over time.

Deleterious effects from a cold start are possible, I suppose, but I would have to say if that occurs with the 700 it would be a serious design flaw. I would have to think that the modern surface mount technology boards are very rugged and have been thoroughly temperature cycle-tested in the development and prototype stages. After all, when talking digital projectors, we should remember that they started out in the market for commercial presentations. There have been many a salesperson who pulls an ice-cold projector out of their car trunk and fires it up at a customer's location, then puts the hot unit back in the cold trunk again, doing it day after day. Compare that to an HT projector living a stationary life in a temperature-controlled home environment.

So I'm not worried about cold starting the unit. For me, eliminating the appearance of severe VB by shutting off the main power is the way to go with the AE700.

I'm very interested in the AE700, so this vertical banding issue has gotten my attention.

What you guys have figured out is a work around to the vertical banding problem, not a fix.

Doesn't reason ask "why have a standby feature if it wasn't intended to be used"?

So, what happens when you leave it in standby for a couple of days, then do the flicker adjustment. Does it stay corrected or does it require further adjustments the next day?

Something else too. Don't most circuits require a certain amount of burnin before they stabilize?? Maybe that's what is happening and Panny wanted to get a projector out that would look good when you first turn it on out of the box and a way to adjust it later after its had time to be burned in.

So I guess upgrading from the Panasonic L200 would result in a very noticable improvement in contrast?

Vertical banding, and possible 480p scaling softness and/or smooth screen softness remain my concerns.

I agree w/ JimP. If the pj is on the ceiling I don't want to go and cut it "off" everytime I'm done with a movie,etc. What if you have a "smart" remote with macros that turns everything on with a push of a button? The lights come on to dim, the receiver, DVD, etc, turns on..........and...oh...wait a minute......let me go over to the table or get a chair and press the "on" button on my pj. Yeah.......that's impressive. Receiver's,amps,DVD's,cable boxes,TV's,etc all have "stand-by" modes. When's the last time anyone manually turned off (or un-plugged) their DLP or LCD TV when they were done watching?
I could see the general public buying a pj @ a BB,CC or wherever and right before they purchase the salesman says, "Oh, by the way, always turn the pj off when your done watching it or it won't look right the next time you use it."
Just my thoughts.............

Originally posted by cpc
So I guess upgrading from the Panasonic L200 would result in a very noticeable improvement in contrast?


RE: Contrast improvement. In a direct comparison between the 500 and the 700:
I notice when I'm watching very dark scenes on the 700 (Dark City/The Thing/Castaway) - the "contrast" is slightly improved over the 500 (but not night and day). A bit more shadow detail is present. And of course this will vary from set-up to set-up and room to room. But the best improvement is - the "black" level. Dark scenes don't have as much of that "milky" look to them. Which is caused by too much light passing through the panel. So yes the "dynamic iris" definitely works, by blocking some of this unneeded light. If I freeze frame a very dark scene, and switch the dynamic iris off (you can hear this happen in the projector as it makes a clicking noise) the scene brightens - and has that "milky" look again. So yes you would want to keep it on all the time. In fact I can't imaging watching movies without it now. Again - it's not night and day - but a definite improvement. And evidently the Sony HS-51 has taken this to the next level. Another note - I run my unit on low bulb so the fan is as quiet as possible. And I guess this defeats the AI portion of the projector(correct me if I'm wrong). Which I never really cared for anyway. My "bright" scenes are plenty bright without it.

But as far as the 700 being an upgrade to the 200 - well it's an upgrade to the 500 - so yes it would have to be.

Originally posted by HMenke
Might try this sequence:

1. Fully warm up PJ
2. Flicker tweak
3. View full movie
4. Shut down, auto fan off, then cut main power
5. 18 hours elapsed time with no main power
6. Fully warm up PJ
7. Final flicker tweak
8. View full movie
9. Shut down, auto fan off, then cut main power
10. Never leave in standby again

I've tried this sequence - and so far no luck. But I'll give it a couple more days.:confused:

Louisville Slugger works in one swipe. :D But I don't recommend it.

Vertical Banding could be worse. Martha Stewart has to look at it every day!! :)

Originally posted by cpc
Vertical banding, and possible 480p scaling softness and/or smooth screen softness remain my concerns.

Vertical banding may or may not be a long term problem - we're all working on it to see how pervasive / persistent it turns out to be. After some initial problems with VB, at the moment it is not any issue at all for me.

This projector is fully capable of revealing any limitations in source material, devices, or cabling. There is no softness associated with scaling the 480p input or with the smooth screen technology. When softness appears, it is the source material or source device (I think that's what happened to the pjcentral reviewer initially; the PJ simply revealed softness he hadn't seen before from his reference material / equipment and he inadvertently fingered the PJ as the problem).

Originally posted by John Ballentine
I've tried this sequence - and so far no luck. But I'll give it a couple more days.:confused:

John, what's your flicker tweak methodology?

Originally posted by HMenke

9. Shut down, auto fan off, then cut main power
10. Never leave in standby again

How about using the trigger output of the PJ to fire off a 10min timer linked to a relay that automatically drops out the mains to the PJ. Now all thats needed is a second contact to pull the mains contactor back in to power the PJ up - a trigger from your receiver?...........

I need to build a shelf to hold my 700U (not yet received), what dimensions should I be looking at for Front to Back, assuming I cut a hole next to the wall for cable routing? I couldn't find size dimensions in the manual...

Thanx for the responses to my questions. Good comments. I realize the 700 is an upgrade from my 200, I just wondered how much. Since its such a reasonable price, it makes sense to upgrade now and I'm glad I didn't grab a 500. Since I noticed that the 300 had slightly better contrast than the 200, and the 500 a little more, then I guess the jump from 200 to 700 will be fairly decent.

Can anyone comment on how the contrast looks for scenes with a mix of brightly lit areas and darker areas? How does the 700 do compared to the 500,300,200 etc etc?

I realize the 700 is doing better in dark scenes, and the iris makes sense, but I am curious about scenes which are a mix. You know, backlit characters, or just brightly lit subjects in a dark background, like people in front of headlights at night. I can't think of any other examples. Its just that not all scenes are BRIGHT or DARK, and some have a mix. How does the 700 do with those?

As far as vertical banding goes, it may vary from unit to unit, but since I see it on my L200, and many have seen it on the 300, 500 and 700, while some haven't, I guess its a crap shoot. You pay your money and you take your chance, all the while tweaking to be sure you get the best results. I guess unless its worse than my L200, then it should be ok.

Vertical Banding?
I know what vertical banding looks like, as I have seen it on other projectors. Either there are some production differences in the AE700 , cabling and source material are contributing, or some people are just more susceptible to it. I have only watched about 10 hours so far, and frankly I just do not see it on mine. I am using 4 ft component cables and an older Sony 5 disc non-interlaced changer. The projector is mounted on a shelf in the back of the room (19 ft). I have not changed any of the factory flicker adjustments. I let the projector cool down, and then I turn off the main power after each night of viewing . I can see the screen door effect if I get too close to the screen, but at normal viewing distances it is not an issue for me or those that have watched it with me. I easily see RBE on DLP projectors (including the 4805) so perhaps some people are more sensitive to certain visual characteristics than others. As others have said many times on here, the best way to know if a projector is right for you (or if you are going to see things that you would consider a major issue) is to use your own eyes. I do not doubt that some people are seeing things I don't on mine. YMMV.

I have downloaded a couple of WMV demos and I will try those tonight on my HTPC. I will check out the two underwater demo's (dolphins and the living sea) to see if VB shows up in either of those. I picked one in 720p and the other in 1080p. I have a DVI-I to component cable so hopefully that will work. I have never tried it before and the cable is from another DLP projector I have.

Hello guys...I realize this may be a "late" question! Have any of you had problems with the dc-trigger output? I am trying to install an eletrical sreen...everything works fine until about 4-5 seconds after turning the -700 on...then the screen shudders to a halt with its motor running!!!

any thoughts welcome................................

AAAHHHH...the screen works fine with an up-down switch!

I realize tweaking is ultimately a matter of personal preference and dependent on a lot of variables, but I'm curious what owners have experienced and preferred on the 700 when it comes to the following settings:

- Noise reduction (NR): on or off?
- Dynamic Iris: on or off?
- Cinema Reality: on or off?

Also, has anyone else experienced the "white flash" I reported about a week ago? I was watching a DVD yesterday, and saw it about 5 times within an hour. It basically looks like a screen of 'snow' you'd see from poor OTA antenna reception, and only appears for a fraction of a second. This has happened on a couple DVDs now. It only takes-up the area of the image, not the entire display. Perhaps it is related to my DVI->HDMI cable or Denon 1910 player and not the projector. Interestingly, I haven't seen it with material I'm passing from my cable box, so I'm thinking it's the DVD player, but if others have experienced it with their 700, that would be interesting.

Originally posted by John Ballentine
RE: Another note - I run my unit on low bulb so the fan is as quiet as possible. And I guess this defeats the AI portion of the projector(correct me if I'm wrong). Which I never really cared for anyway. My "bright" scenes are plenty bright without it.

Are you referring to the 500 or the 700. I don't believe that in 90 some pages anyone has stated/confirmed whether the dynamic iris works in low lamp mode, and I'm dying to know. Sorry if I just missed it.

I think I may have some kind of color convergence issue with my new AE700. I'm very happy with the overall performance of this PJ, but I noticed that white letters appear to have a slight green fringe at the top and slight blue fringe near the bottom (This was most easily seen with the white letters in the AE700's menu). The PJ is mounted on a rear wall 21 feet away from a 52 x 92 screen. I am using the HDMI connection and I am not using any lens shift.

When I ran the AVIA white crosshatch pattern, horizontal white lines have noticeable green fringe on the top and blue fringe on the bottom. Vertical white lines have noticeable green fringe on the right and a slight red fringe on the left.

Don't get me wrong, I still love the overall image and features of this projector. I just don't know if this misconvergence is unusual or if it's fairly normal for a projector in this class. Has anyone else seen this color fringing, and if so, is it something that could be reasonably adjusted if I send it in for repair?

--- John

Originally posted by Birchwood
How about using the trigger output of the PJ to fire off a 10min timer linked to a relay that automatically drops out the mains to the PJ. Now all thats needed is a second contact to pull the mains contactor back in to power the PJ up - a trigger from your receiver?...........

Good idea! I also wonder if there are any IR-triggerable remote relays on the market. The relay coil and IR receiver could be DC powered from a wall wart; only the contacts would need to carry the AC mains power.

I have also thought about wiring a wall power outlet through a conventional wall light switch. Walk into the room, flip it on. After the movie, let the PJ cool down and then flip it off. This would work for ceiling mounts if you wire the local outlet to a wall switch.

Originally posted by bubbawilly
Are you referring to the 500 or the 700. I don't believe that in 90 some pages anyone has stated/confirmed whether the dynamic iris works in low lamp mode, and I'm dying to know. Sorry if I just missed it.

Dynamic iris is user-selectable On-Off in Low lamp mode.

Originally posted by bubbawilly
Are you referring to the 500 or the 700. I don't believe that in 90 some pages anyone has stated/confirmed whether the dynamic iris works in low lamp mode, and I'm dying to know. Sorry if I just missed it.

Yes - the dynamic iris works in low-lamp mode. In low-lamp mode you can switch it on and off - and see the results on screen. believe me you will always want it on.

Originally posted by NavinJohnson
- Noise reduction (NR): on or off?
- Dynamic Iris: on or off?
- Cinema Reality: on or off?

NR "on" (improvement depends on source)
Dynamic iris "on" (no question!)
Cinema Reality - haven't played with it. Where is it in the menu? Maybe I missed it.

No white flashes.

Originally posted by NavinJohnson
I realize tweaking is ultimately a matter of personal preference and dependent on a lot of variables, but I'm curious what owners have experienced and preferred on the 700 when it comes to the following settings:

- Noise reduction (NR): on or off?
- Dynamic Iris: on or off?
- Cinema Reality: on or off?

Also, has anyone else experienced the "white flash" I reported about a week ago?

Noise reduction : Off
Dynamic Iris: On (No doubt about it)
Cinema Reality: Haven't tested this yet

No white flashes so far

Thanks gents!

Now to get to the bottom of this power-off with the hard switch to avoid VB thing. I agree with another poster who mentioned that this isn't practical in many ceiling-mount situations.

Originally posted by HMenke
John, what's your flicker tweak methodology?

I start watching a movie. After 30 minutes, I pause it. Go into flicker tweek. My green needed to be reduced from 29 to 27. Red and Blue looked OK. After each movie (after the fan stops), I turn off the main power switch.

I've checked flicker tweek several times and it didn't need any further adjustments. So at least the setting doesn't seem to drift.

What else can I do?

Can someone explain to me how leaving a projector in standby mode creates VB..? because I don't understand this...

My AE100 as been in standby mode for the past 3 years and it's not raining VB.

Thanks for your time.
lpr

Originally posted by lpr
Can someone explain to me how leaving a projector in standby mode creates VB..? because I don't understand this...

My AE100 as been in standby mode for the past 3 years and it's not raining VB.

Thanks for your time.
lpr
Is that the goofiest thing that you've ever heard, or what?

Is the NR thing useable via the VGA and/or HDMI port? On the 200/300 and I think the 500 to, NR is not usable on the VGA and/or DVI ports.

I wonder if anyone can give the impression of whether AI is worth having on. Most people are finding the dynamic iris is the way to go, and some are using it in low lamp mode. AI requires high lamp mode. Low is a good way to save bulb hours, so any feedback on this?

Wiredman,

Its not hard to make your projectors main power switchable. How is your pj connected now anyways? Where ever your PJ's AC cord goes to, somewhere along the line you can insert a power bar, or if its an AC outlet on the ceiling, just wire it to a light switch. Mine is connected to a power bar that I flick on with my toe. Believe me, its no hassle.

Originally posted by John Ballentine
I start watching a movie. After 30 minutes, I pause it. Go into flicker tweek. My green needed to be reduced from 29 to 27. Red and Blue looked OK. After each movie (after the fan stops), I turn off the main power switch.

I've checked flicker tweek several times and it didn't need any further adjustments. So at least the setting doesn't seem to drift.

What else can I do?

My theory is that the flicker value should be at the low end. Your green setting seems high compared to mine, maybe 7 to 9 steps higher. On my machine the red and blue like to have the same value and the green likes to be two steps higher than the other two.

I would run the flicker down on each color until you see severe flicker. Then bring it back up to the first step where you don't see any flicker. Then go about one or two steps higher.

This is what I did and I have no more VB. I don't know if it will work on your unit.

Originally posted by cpc
Is the NR thing useable via the VGA and/or HDMI port? On the 200/300 and I think the 500 to, NR is not usable on the VGA and/or DVI ports.

From the manual: " 'NR' cannot be set when HDMI signals are being input."

So it looks like NR only applies to the analog inputs (makes sense). That would mean component, composite, and VGA (which is analog, correct?)

This projector is just terrific. I'm into my third day here in the Northeast. Today was a good test because it was not cloudy or completely overcast with fog like it has been. Today is a beautfiul autumn day with bright sunshine. I have three large windows on the other side of a 35 foot room with vertical blinds. Completely covering two and part of the third shows excellent results as I sit about 12 feet from an 86" screen.

Got back from Circuit City returning a HP VP6121. That was my initial introduction to this technology. It was an unknown DLP chip and pretty good overall with nice results with HD signals.

This unit is running great. I've seen very fractional SDE on some action sequences on a very small portion of the whole screen and it is very fast to disappear. NFL/MLB on Fox is just out of this world.
Caught a Comcast broadcast on INHD of a MLS game and it was intoxicating.

Having just gotten back from CC, I took a quick spin around looking at all the big DLP, LCD and plasma displays. This is no question the best decision I've made. And the cost factor is half of the other smaller alternatives when you consider the expensive coverage needed for extended warranties.

I've seen a couple of white flashes in about 29 hours of use, but I can't see any more problems.

Does anyone have any ideas on DVD? I have an old Denon that I can run component, and I've heard quite a bit bad ink on the DVI capable upscaling players.

Also, I have a Motorola HD cable box set at 1080i output. Does it make sense to add the 720p output to its list or will the results in HD be the same? I have no complaints right now.

cpc,
Thanx for the input. I know they're are ways to get around this but what about people w/o a clue? Let's say I program a remote for someone to do the "one-button-press" and the "WOW" system comes on. Now they have to go over and still flip a switch? Whether it's a switch or a button, the pj will still lose memory (I'm guessing) and have to re-start?
All I'm saying is that "stand-by" mode should be that........STAND-BY. We shouldn't have to turn off the machine. We don't turn off our other equipment in stand-by mode.
Hopefully Panny knows about this..................I still want to get a 700.......just wish there was non-vb, non-rb, non-sd pj............one day?

Here's a thread on Panasonic's latest DVD player. (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=463025&perpage=20&pagenumber=1) I have one on order.

A question for the electrical engineers (or other smart people) in the crowd:

What is it about leaving some juice flowing overnight to the LCD panels that would cause such an apparently dramatic increase in VB?

An objective explanation which indicates that this current-enduced VB is reversible would go a long way toward alleving some fear and trepidation over purchasing the 700...

Thanks.

-tony

jammin25 or anyone else, what kind of HDMI cable (brand and length) are you using with your 700? i'm planning on purchasing the panny in a couple weeks and want to run HDMI for it...but have had a hard time figuring what brand to get. i'm considering the Lindy 10m. thanks.

Originally posted by broadwayblue
jammin25 or anyone else, what kind of HDMI cable (brand and length) are you using with your 700? i'm planning on purchasing the panny in a couple weeks and want to run HDMI for it...but have had a hard time figuring what brand to get. i'm considering the Lindy 10m. thanks.

I'm using a Monster DVI to HDMI cable (2 meter) from my Denon 2910 to the 700.

-- John

Originally posted by broadwayblue
jammin25 or anyone else, what kind of HDMI cable (brand and length) are you using with your 700? i'm planning on purchasing the panny in a couple weeks and want to run HDMI for it...but have had a hard time figuring what brand to get. i'm considering the Lindy 10m. thanks.

I got a six foot DVI to HDMI cable from pc cables for $30. I've also heard good things about Ram Electronics too.

On my Panny, I think the digital cable is great running from a Cablevison Motorola HD box.

Originally posted by romanesq
Also, I have a Motorola HD cable box set at 1080i output. Does it make sense to add the 720p output to its list or will the results in HD be the same? I have no complaints right now.

I would be very interested to hear about 1080i vs 720p from a Motorola HD cable box. Is it this one: http://broadband.motorola.com/dvr/dct6208.asp
with the built-in HD DVR? This is the one being implemented in my area. I am scheduled to have it installed next Saturday but since the PJ has arrived early I may move it up to Monday or Tuesday.

wiredman,

Not to worry about the pj losing settings. The PJ won't lose its memory. For 1 year I treated my AE100 like this and now I've been treating my L200 like this for 6 months. Every day I cut power to it 100%. Sometimes its left off for weeks, and each time I power back on, all settings are the same :)

As a side note, I watched Runaway Jury last night on my trusty L200 :) I watched and looked hard for peak-a-boo's and saw none. I saw the tiniest hint of vertical banding at one part of the movie and a quick flicker tweak of one notch made it vanish. I hope the AE700 is no different than this.

Originally posted by HMenke
I would be very interested to hear about 1080i vs 720p from a Motorola HD cable box. Is it this one: http://broadband.motorola.com/dvr/dct6208.asp
with the built-in HD DVR? This is the one being implemented in my area. I am scheduled to have it installed next Saturday but since the PJ has arrived early I may move it up to Monday or Tuesday.

I'm sorry this was my mistake based on the Cablevision website. They actually must have recently changed this as mine is a Scientific American. The model is Explorer 4200HD. On the website, they cited two boxes, one Motorola and one Sony.

I can tell you one thing, this box is a killer. Watching the Patriots-Steelers on CBS in HD now.
It's completely out of control. Just an incredible way to watch an event. You can actually count the strands of grass. Sick.

I was scheduled a week out for the cable upgrade myself. I called them to ask about the schedule as I did it via their website. They didn't know about a schedule so they said they could send someone the next afternoon. If I were you I'd give them a jingle.

Please try to keep this thread on topic. It's huge enough without OT discussion.

Originally posted by tbacos
What is it about leaving some juice flowing overnight to the LCD panels that would cause such an apparently dramatic increase in VB?

An objective explanation which indicates that this current-enduced VB is reversible would go a long way toward alleving some fear and trepidation over purchasing the 700...

When electronic components such as resistors heat up, their value tends to
drift a little bit. Most likely, what is going on is that the 1st column of pixels is
controlled by one driver circuit, the 2nd column of pixels is controlled by a
second driver circuit, the 3rd column of pixels is controlled by the third driver,
etc. At some point, the cycle repeats and the Nth column is controlled by the 1st
driver, the N+1th column is controlled by the second driver, etc. On my D-ILA
projector, which also suffers form vertical banding (but can be adjusted using
Dilard), every 8th column is controlled by the same driver, and there are 8 drivers
in all. VB on the D-ILA is know as "8 bar problem" for this reason.

So, anyways, the circuits drift a little when they heat, but different circuits drift
by different amounts. The sad truth is that a 220 ohm resistor isn't really
220 ohms, and doesn't stay at the same value as it heats. Minor variations
in these values cause some drivers to be slightly more powerful then others, so
some columns are slightly brighter than others. There's an effect known as
"Mach Banding" where the human visual system is particularly keen at detecting
edges between fields of color that are almost but not quite exactly the same
color or intensity, and this artifact of the human visual system tends to emphasize
the effect of differences across vertical bands.

Leaving the projector on but in standby must trickle some power through the
driver circuits, or causes some other parts of the projector to be warmer than
ambient, so the component "drift" due to heat never goes away or becomes
worse. Turning the projector completely off lets everything cool down and settle
to its ground state, there to repeat the heating and drifting cycle on the next
power on.

Hope this helps...

I wonder if Panasonic is aware of the problem? Would it be possible to
use better quality resistors or to make other changes that would help with
the VB problem. I had a similar problem with a Sanyo Z2. VB was bad
for the first thirty minutes and decreased after that. The standby mode
did not change the VB on the Z2.

Originally posted by reaper
TraderGordo,

I am unsure how you can make these 2 statements in the same post:

"It is clear however that VB is still a major issue."
"I do not notice VB under most normal viewing conditions"

Why would you say it is a major issue if you do not usually even notice it?

Just trying to understand your thoughts on the matter.

reap

reap, I can see how those statements might be confusing. I guess "major" is relative. It could certainly be worse. I consider it a major issue because it is there, period. Having to power the unit off to reduce VB is a pain in the butt, and as someone else pointed out, "cold starts" are generally not very good for electronics. Only time will tell the effects all this power cycling. I only notice VB in solid fields of certain colors, so my second statement is true, most normal viewing conditions do not exhibit this flaw in the projector. It comes out in fog/smoke scenes of movies for one example. I see no VB right now, but if I minimize all windows to a solid desktop, I certainly see it as would anyone who looked at the image.

I guess I understand what you're saying. You paid X amount of money for this thing and it chapps your arse to see a flaw like this... ever. However, in all reality, you rarely notice it when watching a movie. I can see that. I think I'd feel the same way.

I guess I am a bit surprised that so many people were hoping for no VB on this unit. My understanding was that the issue originated at the LCD panel. This unit uses the same panel as did the 500 and it seems to me that the issue is largely the same. I guess I just assumed it'd be there.

Another thing that bugs me about VB is when I read a review based on a single AE700 that does not exhibit the issue and they make a blanket statement about it. Seems I often hear reviewers say, "The AE700 does not have any VB... none". But what they really should say is, "THIS AE700 does not have any VB... YMMV, good luck." OK, maybe not that sarcastically... but you get the point.

Anyways, none of this is really commentary that evokes a response, just my personal ramblings.

Do you think it'd be a good idea to capture a trick-or-treater and hold him ransom for the extra $600 I need for the HS51!? Hahahaha :)

reap

Originally posted by reaper
My understanding was that the issue originated at the LCD panel. This unit uses the same panel as did the 500 and it seems to me that the issue is largely the same. I guess I just assumed it'd be there.

...Do you think it'd be a good idea to capture a trick-or-treater and hold him ransom for the extra $600 I need for the HS51!? Hahahaha :)

reap

How do the other manufacturers deal with it? For example, doesn't the HS51 use the same D4 LCD panel too? I wonder how (or if) they defeated VB issues.

I think Sony develops there own LCD panels. All the others use the same.

Its probably an epson panel as its 720. The Sony panels are 788.

CKL & Yingyang - I am using a DVI to HDMI adapter with my 700, and find that the top section of my windows top taskbar is cropped, like half the X in the top right corner is missing, is this what you are refering to? Is there an answer to this?

Thanks everyone who is reviewing and reporting their results with the 700.
Based on your results I ordered the 700 and expect a ups delivery tomorrow!

Forgive the newbie perspective but need to decide what to feed this thing....I will have a Motorola HD cable box from Comcast, don't know yet if it has dvi out.

But for DVD's - should I rely on the deinterlacing and scaling in the AE700 and use a lower end dvd player (ie, < $150) and feed the projector 480i via component (edited typo orig said composite but meant component),

OR, would I get a better result spending more on the dvd player (ie, < $300) and feeding the projector 720p via DVI (HDMI adapter)?

Priorities are on film-like viewing experience. Not an audiophile or videophile, but I want a high enough quality so that in 6 months when I know more about what I'm doing, I won't be disappointed in what I bought!

Thanks!

I am almost convinced that vertical banding and peak-a-boo's are both related to the fact that each LCD pixel is energized in a way that the polarity is constantly flipped. Apparantly, if you keep them energized the same polarity, you will damage them. Just something I read on here. Its a technical idiosyncracy of the technology :) but there should be a cure :)

I've seen it on my L200, I never recall seeing it on the AE100. I've seen it on an AE300. Its varies from one projector to another, depending on the setup, and depending on the temperature etc etc.

I would -greatly- appreciate it if those of you lucky enough to have one of these projectors would sit up a chair at about 1.2-1.3 screen -widths- back and give me a report on image quality from standard DVD source.

Originally posted by stevenl241
But for DVD's - should I rely on the deinterlacing and scaling in the AE700 and use a lower end dvd player (ie, < $150) and feed the projector 480i via composite,
OR, would I get a better result spending more on the dvd player (ie, < $300) and feeding the projector 720p via DVI (HDMI adapter)?

In no circumstance would I input 480i composite to this PJ unless I had no other choice from a given source (for example a standard VCR). It will look really bad.

480i or 480p component however will both look very good and will certainly be satisfying to most viewers. However this PJ is equipped to handle the most up-to-date digital input signals, so it makes sense to pair it with a 720p or 1080i DVI or HDMI upconverting player (but good luck finding one that is good + affordable at this time).

Thanks for the reply Hmenke but sorry for the typo - I meant COMPONENT not composite video.....

That's what I'm trying to understand with the AE700
Either 480(i or p) via component video,
OR upconverting to 720p in the dvd player.

Will there be noticeable differences (to the average viewer)?

Thanks

Has anyone who owns one of these taken a look at how difficult it might be to open it up for the inevitable compressed-air blast across the panels to remove dust blobs?

-tony

Originally posted by tbacos
What is it about leaving some juice flowing overnight to the LCD panels that would cause such an apparently dramatic increase in VB?

I was graduated as an electrical engineer but never practiced solid state electronics (I went into power systems). However, I believe this VB issue has something to do with poor regulation of the bias voltage that is applied to the panels, or else some sort of drift of the panels in response desite a regulated bias voltage.

Electronic elements (whether they be vacuum tubes or transistors) need to have what is called a "bias voltage" applied that puts them into the center of their active region so that they are ready to respond instantly to the control voltage when it swings in either direction.

An everyday example would be a light dimmer. If you set the dimmer so that the light is half on, that would be like a bias. You can control the light by turning it up or down rapidly. Without a bias, it would be like the dimmer was at the extreme off position. Now you could only control the light in one direction - higher. So, you need a bias to make it work.

Now, if the bias does not remain where it was set for some reason, then the controlled device will not be in the center of its active region, and there will be some non-linearity in the response to the control voltage.