My current pj has a focus buttonthat brings up a cross hatch grid for focusing. I don't think that the Z4 has this.

What's the best screen image to use for focusing?

Shelly

I most common way shelly, is to just bring up any On Screen Display menu, and use that to focus, because its coming directly from the projector, with no interference from source material. This will be your best solution if it doesnt have a cross hatch to bring up.

I am undecided between the Z4 and AE900. I intend to place the projector 4 feet from middle of the screen, on table stand. Expect little to no vertical shift.
Will the Z4 handle this with no picture degradation?
Also anyone know if the AE900 is capable of handling this degree of shift?

Guys quick question. The Z4 manual says you have to have a 1.5' clearance for the top of the projector. Is this really important sicne the pj doesnt have any blow hoels on the top? Is it okay to violate it? I am thinking of mounting it 7" from the ceiling, any1 know if I will have a problem with doing that?

I realized that this thread me be a more appropriate place to post this:


I received my Z4 this evening and spent some time verifying that everything was OK before reaching the 2 hour limit that I have for returning this unit.

I used ROne's Creative Cinema settings and the colors looked really good. Everything seemed to check out OK until I started to look at some of the AVIA patterns. Whenever I had a solid white or light gray image or pattern, I could notice that the left 1/4 of the screen had a reddish/pinkish cast to it and the right side had a Greenish cast (less noticeable, but there). The red tint is quite obvious on a white projected image. The white is still white, just an obvious tone of red to it.

I then went back to some DVD Movie scenes and I can notice that light blue sky's have a slightly different color to them when displayed on the left 1/4 than the rest of the screen. It is not offensive in contrast, however, it is noticeable. The reddish tint gadually transitions, it is not a hard line.

For my quick test today, the image was slightly larger than my screen by a few inches and displayed onto my dark burgundy walls. Oddly enough, the white projected image that overspilled on the left side shows as red / burgundy. The same white overspill on the right side shows as a greyish cast. You can tell it is burgundy underneath, but it is a radically different shade.

I also noticed some very slight convergence problem on the left side, but seemed very minor.

Does any one have any ideas what this could be coming from? Should I return the unit? I dread the hassle of shipping it back.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

LR

I am undecided between the Z4 and AE900. I intend to place the projector 4 feet from middle of the screen, on table stand. Expect little to no vertical shift.
Will the Z4 handle this with no picture degradation?
Also anyone know if the AE900 is capable of handling this degree of shift?
If you're within the screen boundaries either projector will satisfy your lens shift requirements. It's above the screen where the Z4 excels. For the throw both offer the same range so again not a deciding factor - but at 4' depending on the size of your screen I'm not sure if either can accommodate such a short distance. I believe the range for an 87" wide 16:9 screen (100" diagonal) is 10-20 feet.

Installation questions aside a big factor in the decision would be your seating distance. For all intents and purposes the AE900 has no pixel structure so if you plan on sitting inside 1.3-1.5 screen width this would be an advantage. Beyond that the obvious pixel structure of the Z4 reportedly goes away. The 900 in general has been favored for color reproduction, grayscale tracking, black levels, and ease of calibration. The Z4 earns points in fewer vertical banding issues (with a user function to eliminate if present), clean image, very sharp detail, low fan noise, and a nifty auto lens cover and dust cleaner for maintenance. At these price points you will have to give up something regardless of your choice. For me the trump card is the Z4's greater range of vertical offset. If that weren't an issue I would likely go with a Panasonic 900.

I am very happy with my Z4 with 106" screen sitting at 14' where sde is not noticeable.

harmil2 thats very close to my set current set up.

I'm considering an upgrade to the Z4 from a 4805. Do you mind me giving me your rough mounting measurments for the projectors distance from the screen and your drop?

Also anyones feeling on a HCMW dalite (my current screen) as a match for the Z4 in a totally light controlled room.

Thanks

If you're within the screen boundaries either projector will satisfy your lens shift requirements. It's above the screen where the Z4 excels. For the throw both offer the same range so again not a deciding factor - but at 4' depending on the size of your screen I'm not sure if either can accommodate such a short distance. I believe the range for an 87" wide 16:9 screen (100" diagonal) is 10-20 feet.

Installation questions aside a big factor in the decision would be your seating distance. For all intents and purposes the AE900 has no pixel structure so if you plan on sitting inside 1.3-1.5 screen width this would be an advantage. Beyond that the obvious pixel structure of the Z4 reportedly goes away. The 900 in general has been favored for color reproduction, grayscale tracking, black levels, and ease of calibration. The Z4 earns points in fewer vertical banding issues (with a user function to eliminate if present), clean image, very sharp detail, low fan noise, and a nifty auto lens cover and dust cleaner for maintenance. At these price points you will have to give up something regardless of your choice. For me the trump card is the Z4's greater range of vertical offset. If that weren't an issue I would likely go with a Panasonic 900.
Thanks for the reply. The projector will be on a stand right next to bed. The 4 feet is approximate distance from middle of screen to stand. I will be back 11-12 feet. It sounds that with my set-up, both projectors will work with the horizontal shift? I was a little unsure after reading about Z4's 100% shift and Panasonic at half that of the Z4.

Not sure why we tend to do the announcement thing, but I have jus ordered my Z4, after following so many pj threads for a while now. The Hitachi PJ52 was the main contender but getting the Sanyo for $750 less than my best Hitachi on line price (and $1995 less than my local Hitachi dealer price) was the deal maker.

If you are hesitating getting the Z4, I suggest you check some of the avscience sponser links (can't name the dealer) to find the lowest price that I have seen yet for this pj. But the price may go up again by Monday. Margins must be very slim.

I will post my observations later next week. Fingers crossed that there are no real problems.

Going to read the manual tomorrow. Already have ROne and CKL's settings printed out. The Fifth Element dvd ready to tweak flesh tones.

Goodbye to my Sony 10HT (for which I paid $5500 6 years ago.)

Shelly

Thanks for the reply. The projector will be on a stand right next to bed. The 4 feet is approximate distance from middle of screen to stand. I will be back 11-12 feet. It sounds that with my set-up, both projectors will work with the horizontal shift? I was a little unsure after reading about Z4's 100% shift and Panasonic at half that of the Z4.
Both projectors have enough combined horizontal and vertical shift to move the projector anywhere within the perimeter of the screen. The Z4's advantage here is that it's not even close to stretching its range so image degradation is a non-issue, whereas the Panasonic is reported to bow towards the limits (if you poke around between here and the official 900 thread you'll find more detail as to how much before this becomes an issue). I don't expect you'll have any challenge within the screen perimeter. Even when combining both vertical and horizontal shift (they limit each other).

There's a question in my mind concerning the optional 5 minute shutdown.

Does this occur if the dvd is on Pause or just when there is no signal present? It doesn't make sense that the Z4 would shut down after 5 minutes on Pause so I just need some confirmation that it does not.

Thanks.

Shelly

There's a question in my mind concerning the optional 5 minute shutdown.

Does this occur if the dvd is on Pause or just when there is no signal present? It doesn't make sense that the Z4 would shut down after 5 minutes on Pause so I just need some confirmation that it does not.

Thanks.

Shelly


Its only for NO signal. The timer shows on screen and counts down before your eyes.
I love mine on a 126" Carada screen! It rocks!

You won't regret getting the Sanyo Z4. Its truly a great piece of equipment.

I sit right at 1.5x the screen width and the picture is sharp and clean. Screen door not an issue.

I watched the Z4 for 5 minutes in the midst of my installation and my jaw fell on the floor. I don't even have a screen up and I was projecting on a dark gray wall that doesn't approximate a gray screen. Simply unbelievable depth to the image. It surprised me to say the least.

I will probably have a similar reaction. Right now I have a Sony SD 35" TV. Enjoy.

harmil2 thats very close to my set current set up.

I'm considering an upgrade to the Z4 from a 4805. Do you mind me giving me your rough mounting measurments for the projectors distance from the screen and your drop?

Also anyones feeling on a HCMW dalite (my current screen) as a match for the Z4 in a totally light controlled room.

Thanks

Sure you don't want to wait on the next crop of Infocus pjs? 3000:1 actual calibrated spec on the IN76 - if you read the beginning of this thread (and if nothing has changed) the Z4 is sub 2000:1.

One (little) thing I wish Sanyo would have taken better advantage of is the user screen capture. You can snag whatever image is currently on screen from any source and it becomes the background that displays as the projector warms up. For laughs with the demo unit I was playing with I grabbed a shot from the THX Tex "cow" intro. Sure enough it appears during warm up but then blanks out after the projector reaches operating temperature (about 10 seconds from when the image begins to appear). Would have been slick for this to be the background image all the time when no signal is present.

Anyone have experience sending 1280 x 720p DVI output from a PC to the Z4's HDMI input?

Thanks

Finally. After two weeks of work every night, I got my basement room updated for homecinema. Black ceiling and black/red walls and Z4, Denon DVD-3910 and Denon 3806 and a Carada 104" Brilliant White screen.

I haven't calibrated Z4 or anything, just watched the intro to Return of the Sith in 720p over HDMI and I was blown away, almost litterally. Can't wait to try ROne's settings. I can not see any SDE, the picture is razorsharp and the Z4 is very quiet.

Stunned!

Sure you don't want to wait on the next crop of Infocus pjs? 3000:1 actual calibrated spec on the IN76 - if you read the beginning of this thread (and if nothing has changed) the Z4 is sub 2000:1.

Oh you KNOW how I hate waiting. I have started to lean toward the AE 900 though based on lots of reports of really poor performance on SDTV and blacks not being all they they were cracked up to be on the Z4. I was all about the super sharp HDTV image originally but now Im not sure. I may not be able to wait as I sold one of my 4805s and have someone wanting my other one. I REALLY want to see 720 in action and $2000 seems like its almost $1000 less than $3000 or I would stick with DLP ;)

Some of the buzz on the IN76 is making me wonder if it will be worth the wait. While the case is ubber cool, not sure the chips are going to be that state o the art when they come out. If you would buy me a 7210 for Xmas it would solve all my problems :D I believe you have my shipping address.

Anyone have any experience with Sanyo’s Customer Service?

I think I am going with the Z4, however, I want to make sure I will be able to easily collect on this 3 year warrantee should something happen.

Anyone have any experience with Sanyo’s Customer Service?

I think I am going with the Z4, however, I want to make sure I will be able to easily collect on this 3 year warrantee should something happen.

I think there are a few "I Hate Sanyo CS" threads in the Under 3500 forum. If you read between the lines however, the problems usually revolves around the projector being used 8 hours a day for 6 months straight or something along those lines. If you're worried about warranty then you could also just call them up and ask questions. Or you could talk to your particular dealer and if they are honest and up front they'll tell you what type of things fly with the warranty and what type of things do not.

...lots of reports of really poor performance on SDTV and blacks not being all they they were cracked up to be on the Z4.
Deinterlacing performance is definitely an issue. If you have a lot of interlaced sources and are not using an external scaler then it will be an important decision factor for you. I have a 900 in its box that I'm exchanging for a Z4 this week because I crave a ceiling mounted installation and the Z4 will allow for it. After some brief evaluations of the 900 and more recently a Z4 demo unit I found the Sanyo's deinterlacing lacklustre at best. Very jaggy with lots of twitter and shake. The 900 was much better in that regard.

For blacks I didn't get a chance to compare calibrated images but the consensus is that the 900 is slightly better BUT in my opinion you would have a tough time telling the difference without benefit of direct comparison. From what I've read here and in the tweak thread the Z4 needs more attention to get it in line but once there reviews on key performance parameters have been excellent.

Can't lose either way, just depends on what is important to you.

I agree with Jay. Watched standard def SciFi channel tonite and decided to wait until the show comes out on DVD. I just didn't enjoy it on the Z4. DVD and HiDef are so great on the Z4 it is hard to believe they couldn't have improved deinterlacing a bit since my old Z2. The jaggies and low rez are frustrating but for me it just seems like the contrast goes to pot and the colors are just plain weak. Tweaking was not helpful. I would recommend trying the Panasonic if you are stuck watching a lot of standard def ota, sat, or cable. I am lucky to have a lot of Hidef and a netflix hub nearby in my locale so I am still glad I got the Z4. Maybe HiDef has just spoiled me to much for standard def at this point. I have not seen the Pany and am basing my opinion on other's reports of it's standard def display being better than the Z4.

Can anyone running a 480i signal on the z4 please take some pictures so we can see how bad it looks? That's like the only thing holding me up from buying one right now. Thanks for your time.

Ditto

i think you are going to run into that with all these projectors, i havent owned one yet that makes a reg tv signal look good. you gotta understand that when you blow up a pic to 100 inches its going to show its flaws. Especially analog signals. ae900, ae700,z3,z4,hs51 all of em show the flaws.--- just remember garbage in garbage out----jeff

I've seen the pan 900 running a normal 480i image, and it was watchable. Crappy but watchable. On par with what i see on my 50" RPTV on standard cable. I'm curious if the z4 is on par with that? or worse.

Could someone please explain to me the differences between opening up the manual iris to make the picture a bit brighter, and by just using the Brightness control?

Thanks.

Shelly

The way i understand it (correct me if im wrong) is that if you think of it light shining a flash light through a pin hole in a piece of paper. If you make the whole bigger, then more light shines through, therefore making a brighter picture. However, if you just make the flashlight brighter, then the small area that DOES go through the hole, will be brighter, but overall, there's not at much light getting through as opposed to making a larger hole. Make sense?

The iris size also affects the black levels i believe. I'm not sure the specifics, but it does affect the range of the black levels and contrast i believe

õt sure about that because thelens, whether more open or with more brightness changes (lights up) whole sscreen evenly, doesn't it?

On another note, the price of the Z4 has just dropped another $80. What's going on with the price war?

Shelly

õt sure about that because thelens, whether more open or with more brightness changes (lights up) whole sscreen evenly, doesn't it?

On another note, the price of the Z4 has just dropped another $80. What's going on with the price war?

Shelly

Dude this is killing me not to buy it, hell it was killing me like 2 months ago for $2200. Must holdon to nec 9200 alittle longer.... arg!!!

I agree with Jay. Watched standard def SciFi channel tonite and decided to wait until the show comes out on DVD. I just didn't enjoy it on the Z4. DVD and HiDef are so great on the Z4 it is hard to believe they couldn't have improved deinterlacing a bit since my old Z2. The jaggies and low rez are frustrating but for me it just seems like the contrast goes to pot and the colors are just plain weak. Tweaking was not helpful. I would recommend trying the Panasonic if you are stuck watching a lot of standard def ota, sat, or cable. I am lucky to have a lot of Hidef and a netflix hub nearby in my locale so I am still glad I got the Z4. Maybe HiDef has just spoiled me to much for standard def at this point. I have not seen the Pany and am basing my opinion on other's reports of it's standard def display being better than the Z4.

This may be naive questions but what , if anything would happen if you ran SD bradcasts through a HD scaler such as the DVDO HD+. Would that not improve the PQ ? Is this an additioal expense that is not jusified, or am I just way off track

This may be naive questions but what , if anything would happen if you ran SD bradcasts through a HD scaler such as the DVDO HD+. Would that not improve the PQ ? Is this an additioal expense that is not jusified, or am I just way off track

If you don't mind spending $1000 on one then yes, that's what the scaler is for. Go for it!:)

This may be naive questions but what , if anything would happen if you ran SD bradcasts through a HD scaler such as the DVDO HD+. Would that not improve the PQ ? Is this an additioal expense that is not jusified, or am I just way off track
Absolutely, but as Smartypants indicates that changes the economics substantially. If you weren't already planning on having that scaler you would probably want to consider projectors at the $3000 to $3500 price point that have quality internal processing as well. Or immediately jump to the 900 and save a pile of cash (assuming there are no deal breakers for you on that model as well).

In addition to exceptional processing something like the iScan would also reduce the number of cables running to the projector to one. Depending on the distance and the number of sources that could represent a significant savings that should be weighed against the cost of the scaler. Likewise these scalers are very adaptable, so you could easily continue using one through several generations of projector. And with the new iScan VP30 just being released you can probably pick up the HD+ for a really good price either direct or on eBay.

All that said you should not have to expect to buy external processing these days, regardless of this price point.

Dude this is killing me not to buy it, hell it was killing me like 2 months ago for $2200. Must holdon to nec 9200 alittle longer.... arg!!!

It just got harder, and moved my purchase from a z3 to a z4.

Try $1800, new, and not from Japan. :)

As I'm still painfully trying to decide on a screen, I called Da-Lite. They said a good ballpark is 20-30 fl at the screen for dark conditions, and > 50+ for 'full afternoon ambient light.'

Formula used is:
ansi lumens / sq foot of screen * screen gain

So, 2 are known to be true, but what about actual lumens? I get the impression PJ manufacturers are similar to low-end air compressor and lawnmower companies, claiming 7HP out of a 110v machine (not possible)...

Has anyone measured actual lumen output of either the z4 or z3 (as the z4 is sanyo rated at 200 ANSI lumens more than the z3, can extrapolate a bit..)..

This has turned into one of the hardest decisions I've had. Z4 or E900. After every 10 posts or so I keep switching from one to the other. I really don't know what is best for me now.

I'm going from a 3 year relationship with an NEC LT150 on a 110" screen. I sit about 13' back. I'll be moving in a couple months and the new place will need the projector to be about 20' back, my seating still about 13'. All walls are white in a light controlled room. It's an apartment so can't paint the walls but I can control the light. Both projectors end up in the same area on the calculator at projectorcentral.com and both are right at the green/red line.

I run off of a HTPC and only use it for DVD's, HD movies once they arrive, and some HD gaming.

I keep leaning towards the Z4 because of the sharp picture I keep hearing about, and the automatic lens cover, 3 year warranty among other things. I'm not a stranger to tweaking but I do have my limits. I'll calibrate using Video Essentials and that's about it.

So with that, any advice? Also any place I can demo either unit in the Denver area?

To LynxFX:

I'm personally going with the z4 after months and months of deliberation. And what made me decide, is the fact that i will be able to have a much larger room for setting it up (i like to re arrange my theater every so often, and i will be moving in the near future also) - I can also tweak to my hearts content (something else i love to do) and the sharpness was one of the things about the 900 that was just a tad off for me when i demo'd it. And everyone says the z4 is a tad sharper, so hopefully that will solve my woes.

Also sometimes after months of headache of researching some things we forget why we wanted to purchase whatever it is in the first place. We get so caught up in searching for the absolute best product that we realize that 2 months has gone by and we still don't have a projector, so there comes a time when we need to just make a decision on one of them and go with it. (cause we all know were going to upgrade in another year or 2 anyways right, lets be honest with outselves). I ordered the z4 the other day sight unseen (having only seeing the 900, and if i don't like it, ill turn around and sell it after a few months of learning to love it.

Hope that helped.

Thanks Pinpoint. I still have 2 months before I move so I was going to wait until then before I bit. So that's 2 more months of debating. :D

Unless I discover some sort of deal killer, the Z4 will most likely be my new projector. Also really nice to see all of the recent price drops.

This has turned into one of the hardest decisions I've had. Z4 or E900. After every 10 posts or so I keep switching from one to the other. I really don't know what is best for me now.I keep leaning towards the Z4 because of the sharp picture I keep hearing about, and the automatic lens cover, 3 year warranty among other things. I'm not a stranger to tweaking but I do have my limits. I'll calibrate using Video Essentials and that's about it.

So with that, any advice? Also any place I can demo either unit in the Denver area?

Yeah I feel you -- it's been almost a month of research for me and i'm happy to say... just got off the phone with XXXXXXX and I have a Z4 on the way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To LynxFX:
Also sometimes after months of headache of researching some things we forget why we wanted to purchase whatever it is in the first place. We get so caught up in searching for the absolute best product that we realize that 2 months has gone by and we still don't have a projector, so there comes a time when we need to just make a decision on one of them and go with it.

I think we all should read that statement again, carefully ;-) I agree with it 100%. I expect to see something coming out of CES (or is it Comdex coming up?) in Jan or so that may well affect some pricing, and perhaps make some new models worth drooling over in 6 months or so, but it's becoming winter, and I want it NOW, dmannit ;-)

As it is, I likely spent about a month of total research, starting with a 37" LCD for the bedroom, now moving the RP in there, and the PJ into the LR. The pending PJ purchase begat the new DVD player (oppo), and entire HT audio setup (JVC receiver, AS-C1, AS-B1s, speaker stands, wall mounts), and the PJ itself went from z2->z3, then a last minute purchase of a great deal (for today anyways) on a Z4.

Six months from now, maybe there will be a DLP 1280x720 with fast color wheel at the $2k price point, or a higher res LCD PJ accepting 1080p. In the end, I usually upgrade 'to a point,' and get the best considering the amount of $ I'm really willing/OK to part with.

I expect I'll keep the z4 for at _least_ a year. The speakers at least 2, and DVD player and receiver at least 2 unless HD DVD forces an upgrade, and the screen itself very likely many years. I say two on the receiver as the JVC 402 does HDMI switching for me, but who knows what the dominant format will become, or if I'll need additional HDMI inputs later. Likewise with the PJ- even at a year, unless something is drastically better, and at less than I just paid for the Z4, I'm likely to keep it for ~2 years or so, depending on lamp life...I may consider selling it when the lamp goes out.

I expect many of us went through the 'PC upgrade insanity' for a while, I work as a sw engineer and sysadmin and _know_ I did for a while, but now generally avoid 'state of the art,' because it's so overpriced in comparison, and for most things my systems are just fine. Still no AMD64 system for me, nor (massive power consuming) dual core P4...and I've got an ungoldy number of systems, including servers, but they do what I need.

So, in the meantime though- enjoy what you've got, and make a decision based on what you want, and can afford, whatever it is, and don't worry about 'later'- 'losing' $ is part of the ongoing technology equation, so just enjoy it..

most places will allow you to order it and test it for <5 hours on the lamp with the option to return it without a restocking fee.

the guy i ordered from said he'd give me 7 days... i told him i'd order from him if he gave me 14 days... he said i could take as long as i want (within reason) as long as i kept bulb life under 5 hours...

evidently a lot of people are buying these for x-mas presents so they want an option to return it without costing a 1/4 the cost of the unit or loosing major money aside from shipping.

i saw a nice Optoma $1k DLP projector to compare this Z4 too... if i can't justify the extra money, then ill go ahead and get a cheaper DLP as a stop-gap for next years big models.

My Z4 is now installed, along with my new Comcast HD dvr and Oppo dvd player (although still waiting for my hdmi cable due any day now so just audio for now). I also had to reconfigure my in/out receiver menu and switch/add lots of cables. I am VERY happy that it is over with.

Although I ran the pj in early afternoon for sizing and setup, it was a sunny day and coud not expect much. I entered ROne's Living and Creative Cinema settings as well as CKL's Creative Cinema settings.

I kept a live basketball game on to watch the flesh tones, especially.

The factory default Creative Cinema and Living, as has been stated often, give a very good picture. Better than my older Sony 10HT and without any tweaking. ROne's Living setting offers the most punch, although I have turned the color down a few notches.

I did not notice much change when I toggled through the lamp setttings of Off, A1, A2 and Full.

One test I use is to take the Color value down as far as she goes to see what my black and white picture is like. On my Z4, it is as black and white as I could ever want. My Sony never rid itself of some tinting at all the custom settings. Now I can enjoy older black and white movies again.

Perfect color uniformity. No blotches of red or green or purple anywhere. No vb and no dead pixels that I have noticed.

I thought that the Sony was sharp but the Z4 goes a step beyond. Although it was very sharp with ROn's settings, I have set all of my custom User modes now to sharpnesas of 0 as opposed to the minus values in the tweak thread. I just like the extra sharpness this provides to my eyes. I do not see edge enhancement or anything that looks like unnatural sharpness, nor a digital look from my 2x seating distance from my 106" 1.0 gain Draper Cineperm wall mounted screen. (My room is 15 x 27 x 9 1/2, and not light controlled.) I did turn Off all the Edge Enhancement settings recommended in the tweak thread.

I am using Comcast HD, BEV HD and Dish HD receivers, all with component connections. The Oppo will have a hdmi connection, and if I get a hdmi switcher, I will convert the Comcast box to hdmi as well. Can't imagine how much more the colors and picture could improve though.

With the Sony pj, and with my Sony 57" older rptv in my other room, the BEV and Dish feeds always were under saturated, a bit washed out. To compensate, I programmed user settings with much increased contrast and decreased brightness. With the Sony pj, I would often switch to the vga output of the 2 6000 satellite receivers for a more vibrant picture. The Z4 produces a much more vibrant picture through the component connections of these 2 sat boxes than I had ever seen before with either of my systems. I have not tried the vga yet but it is hooked up. Maybe tomorrow as I am on overload right now.

Overall ansi contrast is great to my eyes. Blacks are very dark gray, although I will know more about this with dvds. Let me put it this way. The blacks smoke my Sony pj but are not near what I saw with the Dwin TV4, which costs 3 1/2 times as much as the Z4.

So to summarize a bit: I would have been pleased with the default Creative Cinema or Living settings, although I would have tweaked the color intensity, contrast and brightness, and lens opening all on the fly depending on the program being watched. (It is great that all of these on the fly remote control tweaks will not be saved unless you wish them to be and the original settings will reappear next time you use the pj.)

ROne's Living settings are great. (I need to further use the Color Managemen to tweak the red with a static image of an American flag, greens with some grass and the flesh tones with the opening scenes of the professor in The Fifth Element once my dvd player is active.)

The range of basic adjustments from the remote offer tremendous on the fly opportunity to fine tune each individual program. Flipping through the HD channels showed that no two films had the same color intensities. Video formats like those found on InHd channel or live events were more uniform and very accurate.

Very silent and I could barely hear it when I was adjusting the zoom and lens shift.

The cons are that there is a one or two second delay with the remote commands in my room as the signal has to bounce off the front wall to the pj (so I often gave extra presses which took me beyond wherre I wanted to go and I had to cycle through some settings all over again. The pj rests on a wood shelf about 8 1/2' from the floor, extending down from one the room beams about 13' away from the screen. I have access to it via a circular staircase that puts me at eye level to it.

The lens cover really shuts harder that I thought it would. It arrived with the lens cover open with a protective covering on the lens. And user error always plays a part in the beginning. I had no picture for the first 5 minutes and the Z4 shut down. I had forgotten to chose my Component 1 input.

So the Z4 is now at rock bottom price, cheaper than my purchase price of just a few days ago.

Let's hope that I am not jinxing anything by saying all this now on just my first day.

Shelly

Shelly: It would seem that you are as pleased with your Z4 as I am. Enjoy.

Absolutely. Also considering that I paid 3x the Z4 price for my sony.

Very dark out tonight with no moon so my theater room conditions were as dark as possible.

I've put a few more hours on it and found some shows too dark so I had to open the iris, and bring brightness back from negative numbers to zero, As I mentioned earlier, there's also too much color saturation for some shows so color value reduced to zero as well.

I have to work in the Color Management, which should deal with some of the over saturation.

I watched the boxing program on InHD tonight and was able to get very ral and natural color with deep contrast and shadow details in the crowd. Nothing beats a taped live show.


Shelly

Good for you Shelly! I might be going with the Z4 as well. I do like the idea of the lens protection. That might preserve the projector in the long run. Please post some screen shots if you get a chance. I want to see what it looks like.

Considering I've been reading this forum for ages, this may be a dumb question, but does anyone know if you can use an HTPC as a scaler and deinterlacer for 480i Satellite TV?

It seems that's the biggest pitfall of the Z4, and since I've got a decent HTPC and am ordering satellite TV soon, I'd really like to be able to watch 480i channels. I'm currently using a standard TV tuner card and analog cable, which puts out a decent enough image, so I'd hate to downgrade here.

Or does satellite tv mean all channels are digital and therefore progressive scan, with zero deinterlacing?

TweaKing -- You should be able to. However, your results may not be any better than feeding the Sat. receiver directly to the Z4, especially if you use the HDMI connection (or even the VGA connection). The Sat. receiver can also do the scaling & deinterlacing, so you have 3 choices (STB, HTPC or Z4). You just need to try all of the combinations and see which looks the best.

My Comcast dvr defaults to 1080i.

While watching the boxing and some movies last night, all exhibited a jerkiness as if a fracton of every other second was missing. Happened with both live tape and film.

I switched the output to 720p and the problem was solved. Smooth as silk.

I have not sen this with my other 2 sat boxes outputting 1080i but did not watch them for any length of time. I will look for this to determine if it is necessary to send 720p instead of 1080i.

Shelly

CT_Wiebe -- OK, thanks for the tips. How would I go about connecting to my HTPC? Any special video cards needed?

Just received my Z4 today. Looks like a serious convergence problem (4 pixels between green and red). Bummer! Looks like I'll be spending mucho time on the phone line next week. Haven't seen too many posts about convergence problems with the Z4 so hopefully this is an isolated incident.

MK

Whoh...now that is ugly. I feel for you MK. I haven't seen one that far out before. Good luck getting it worked out. I don't see how Sanyo or your dealer can ignore that problem. Perhaps the good news is that it is so far out, not even a close call. Let us know how the problem is handled.

I've noticed that the image my Z4 projects tends to have a blue glow. For example I hooked it up to the HTPC over DVI, opened up MS Paint and drew a single pixel vertical white line against a gray background. The white line is perfect. However there is a blue glow extending to the left and right of that line; the glow is mostly contained within the initial adjacent pixels. Ditto if I draw a horizontal line, glow above and below. It's almost as though the "blue" isn't as focused or something.

Is this something I can adjust or tweak?

I, too, hope this is an isolated incident. My unit arrived at the dealer yesterday and I'm picking it up Monday and installing Friday. I'll be yanking it out of the box as soon as I can to check for this.

sphinx99,
Mine has the same issue. I put up a cross hatch pattern and you can see about a pixel and half off of blue and about 2 pixels in the green. However, on very bright scenes, you can see the blue halo effect that you are talking about, basically surrounds the image... white shirt collars show this.

I have not done much tweaking as yet to see if this can be removed. I wonder if the blue is being driven to hard?

My Comcast dvr defaults to 1080i.

While watching the boxing and some movies last night, all exhibited a jerkiness as if a fracton of every other second was missing. Happened with both live tape and film.

I switched the output to 720p and the problem was solved. Smooth as silk.

I have not sen this with my other 2 sat boxes outputting 1080i but did not watch them for any length of time. I will look for this to determine if it is necessary to send 720p instead of 1080i.

Shelly

Shelly,

I have a comcast HD receiver and a Dish receiver connected to the Z4 thru component inputs. I am experiencing similar jerkiness but it does not go away when I change the output to 720p. sometimes it never happens, sometimes it starts 5-10 min after I switch the Z4 on. It goes away after 30-40 min. And when this happens both my DISH receiver and comcast receiver exhibit similar jerkiness and no amount of changing the input singal to 720p/480p helps at that point.

What I'm still experimenting with and have not still got resolution on is that this seems not to happen if the projector is on for an hr or so; and it never happens on the HDMI input.

My oppo is connected to my HDMI and the picture is rock solid as expected.

coolsat

Can anyone confirm if the Z4's discrete power codes are the same as for the Z2 (all I was able to find on Remote Central)?

sphinx99,
Mine has the same issue. I put up a cross hatch pattern and you can see about a pixel and half off of blue and about 2 pixels in the green. However, on very bright scenes, you can see the blue halo effect that you are talking about, basically surrounds the image... white shirt collars show this.

I have not done much tweaking as yet to see if this can be removed. I wonder if the blue is being driven to hard?

It might be. I've noticed that it isn't necessarily uniform across the screen. I haven't really tried to fix it. As a matter of fact, my first thought was that I might be seeing chromatic aberration from the lens. Until I find a permanent place for this thing and buy a screen to wall-mount, I'm using quite a bit of the lens shift range....

Is your Z4 really that quiet? Mine is quiet but I can still hear it when there are no other sounds in the room or when there is a quiet scene in a movie. It is a LOT quieter than my 4805 was, but it is still not silent to the point that I can't tell its running. I'm really curious to know if you are maybe exaggerrating a little bit, because if not, then I can't help but think that something may be wrong with the fan on mine.

What did you find out?
I bought my Z4 after seing the 900 and thought; same price, Lenscover, 3 years warranty, quiter, similar image quality.
But i think my Z4 is noisier than the 900 was?

My ears are tuned in on the fan noise now and i find it annoying in quite scenes :(


Another problem: When feeding 1280 X 720 from HTPC by 5 m DVI/HDMI cable i dont get 1280 X 720 on the projector. I can scroll the picture and can see the picture is only somewhat 90 % of the projected image. I have set overscan on the projector to 0, did not help. If i togle from underscan to native in the nvidia settings for the graphic card, then sometimes i get the full 1280 X 720 projected?

My z4 is super duper quiet, i can't notice it at all, and its sitting literally about 2 feet up and behind my head. And especially once the movie is actually playing. The only noisy part is when the dust cover opens or closes (but who cares about that). Its super duper quiet.


I have also had no problem with projecting a 1280x720 image from my computer to the projector, however im using a vga cable instead of hdmi. That works great. For some reason i had to use the Horizontal Pixel and Vertical Pixel adjust to center the image though. But it works!

I agree. Super Duper Quiet.

It has beennoted, though, that using the Ciling setting for ceiling mounts willincrease the fan speed (and noise).

But I can't hear mine at all. It's mounted on a 8' high shelf attached to ceiling beam about 3' in front of seating. The pj is upright with Off as moounting choice in the menu.

Shelly

What did you find out?
I bought my Z4 after seing the 900 and thought; same price, Lenscover, 3 years warranty, quiter, similar image quality.
But i think my Z4 is noisier than the 900 was?

My ears are tuned in on the fan noise now and i find it annoying in quite scenes :(


A. Is it ceiling Mounted? B. Is it right above your head?

If both are yes take a look through the tweak thread. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=591989

There is quite a bit of info on how the projector fan is louder when ceiling mounted and some service menu tweaks to adjust.

Mine is silent since I have it projecting through the wall in my equipment room.

A. Is it ceiling Mounted? B. Is it right above your head?

If both are yes take a look throug com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=591989[/url]

There is quite a bit of info on how the projector fan is louder when ceiling mounted and some service menu tweaks to adjust.

Mine is silent since I have it projecting through the wall in my equipment room.

Thanks for the quick answer.

The projector is not ceiling mounted. It is on a shelf 4 feet above my head. The fan noise is there ass soon as it is on, so itis not a heat problem(my flat is quite cold this time of year). I would rather not have to go into the service menu. As i understand things could get pretty messed up if not being carefull in there.

Edit:
Checked the service menu, Lamp mode was Eco, Fan 1 1275, Fan 2 2235, Fan 3 1620, Fan 4 1815, Fan 5 1715. Temperatur A: 25, B: 46, C : 36.
That looks pretty normal i guess.

Just to put people minds at rest.

One of the things that i was hessitant at about purchasing the z4 was the de interlacing abilities for watching Standard deffintion contect from my sattelite box. Well, i've been watching it for 3 days now, and i have to say, its perfectly fine, and watchable. I've heard some people say "the z4 480i material is so crappy its impossible to watch" well that's garbage, sure it looks crappy that its stretched so large. but honestly its perfectly watchable. so rest assured, its not abismal. Watchable, but not great.

I'm thinking about goint with the z4. Any suggestions about a good A/V receiver to go with it. I'm thinking of going with a yamaha 5990 because of it's hdmi connections. Anybody have any suggestions? I'm going to be making the jump within a month.

Can anyone confirm if the Z4's discrete power codes are the same as for the Z2 (all I was able to find on Remote Central)?
I'm talking to myself. :p Got my Z4 today and quickly fired it up check convergence (seems fine, about a pixel blue shift on the fringes but nothing major, doubt it would show up in program material). Checked my discrete codes and the OFF seems to work (no effect when Z4 is off, but shuts it down when on) but the discrete ON does nothing. I'll try reloading it just in case. If one works I imagine the other would also.

Any further word on this?

Also, for those interested I confirmed today that Chief now has the custom Z4 plate for their RPA mounts. You can order the plate on its own or with an RPA.


ADDENDUM: Took a closer look at the hex code that I picked up at Remote Central. It's listed as the same for both discrete on/off. It works for OFF but somewhere out there is the ON counterpart.

I almost cried 10 minutes ago, when I checked XXXXX and found they were selling the Z4 for $320 bucks LESS than I paid 2 months ago.. What is going on with the price drop?

Just wondering if anyone out there can confirm this for me,

I had my xbox 360 running through components through a Marantz AV 9000 reciever, then to my sanyo z4 component 1, and when the xbox was set to 1080i every so often the machine would start giving me really wierd jumpy artifacts, as if half the screen is being drawn in the wrong part on the image, similar to when a PC is overheathing and giving you visual artifacts. Any whoo, i havent actually tried pluggin the xbox directly into the projector to see if its my reciever yet, but has anyone else expiereinced this? Btw, i know what your all thinking (the xbox can do 720 and your projector is 720 native, so you should be using that.) however i notice that there are far less jaggies on the graffics of the xbox when its running at 1080i) so i would prefer to run it that way. But i guess the sanyo isnt down scaling them properly.

However, running a DVD the same way at 1080i it has no problem with. that's why im thinking its the xbox

just wanted to see if anyone else expeirenced that.

thx

Hi,

Please refer to my post #1056

I have the following connections:

z4 hdmi - OPPO
z4 Component 1 - comcast HD receiver
Z4Component 2 - DISH HD receiver

Now, I see the same thing as you do on both the receivers; here is what I have manged to find out:

As soon as I turn on my projector and start watching either my comcast or the DISH HD feed, things are ueually ok for a couple of mins or so and then I start experiencing the same thing you see. This goes no for anywhere between 5 -45 min; It stops after that. During that time changing the DISH/comcast receiver's output to 720p or 480p does not help. the wierd thing is that when I start seeing this on the comcast feed, I see the same thing on the DISH feed as well on all the HD channels.

These past 3-4 days, I have kept the projector on for 30-45 min before I actually watch the show and this problem does not happen. I think it is something to do with the sanyo component inputs and HD

On the HDMI input, I have my Oppo dvd player connected and it never exhibits anything like this at either 720p or 1080i. What I need to try now are 2 things

1. connect oppo to component and see if this ahppens
2. connect the HD receiver to the HDMI input and see if this happens or goes away

for now I'd recommend turning the projector on 30 min before you play a game and see if it goes away

coolsat


Just wondering if anyone out there can confirm this for me,

I had my xbox 360 running through components through a Marantz AV 9000 reciever, then to my sanyo z4 component 1, and when the xbox was set to 1080i every so often the machine would start giving me really wierd jumpy artifacts, as if half the screen is being drawn in the wrong part on the image, similar to when a PC is overheathing and giving you visual artifacts. Any whoo, i havent actually tried pluggin the xbox directly into the projector to see if its my reciever yet, but has anyone else expiereinced this? Btw, i know what your all thinking (the xbox can do 720 and your projector is 720 native, so you should be using that.) however i notice that there are far less jaggies on the graffics of the xbox when its running at 1080i) so i would prefer to run it that way. But i guess the sanyo isnt down scaling them properly.

However, running a DVD the same way at 1080i it has no problem with. that's why im thinking its the xbox

just wanted to see if anyone else expeirenced that.

thx

Wow, so it isnt just me, i think its the projector,

Yeah the HDMI works fine for me, but ill try out the components

I noticed one thing that may be interesting also, "Component 2" is labeled as Component 2/D4

what's that D4 thing?
perhaps we need to connect our recievers to that component input instead? is it used for something special or perhaps different voltages or something?

ill try that out tonight also to see if it does the same thing.

sounds like were in the same boat though!

Yeah, I have been noticing this for days and I have unable to debug this thing. and I was wondering what to do; I even tried a power line conditioner etc; but the only thing that seems to help is leaving the projector on for some time!

I cannot seem to find anyone who's using their component inputs for HD!

So both component inputs are exhibiting this for you?

and they are both running directly to the projector and NOT through a reciever?

the only success that i've had so far is like i said, was changing the xbox's output to 720p instead of 1080i

I will try running it directly and report back.

i'm getting HD finally this weekend, but i was planning on using the component inputs, so hopefully it won't do it, but things arnt looking up.

I dont want to have to get a HDMI switcher or something. This deffinatly seems to be a flaw with the projector from the sounds of it.

i will also try my oppo with the components tonight, instead of the HDMI and see what happens.

did your oppo do it with the components?

Yeah, I have been noticing this for days and I have unable to debug this thing. and I was wondering what to do; I even tried a power line conditioner etc; but the only thing that seems to help is leaving the projector on for some time!

I cannot seem to find anyone who's using their component inputs for HD!

See my post #`1049 on previous thread page.

Is this what you are seeing--a kind of stutter as I descried there?

I had it with my Comcast HD receiver at component 1080i but changing to 720p fixed it.

Shelly

yes both components are since they are connected to HD receivers; I tried switching receivers but it does not help.

All my stuff is connected to the Z4 directly!

I have not yet connected my oppo to the component; I'll do that tonight! I was busy tweaking the oppo/Z4 to get the best image until this HP distraction started driving me nuts; the problem with debugging this is that it happens sometimes and does not sometimes; but it lways goes away afte the projector is on for some time

I'm not paying for a HDMI switcher either; It surely seems to be the projector itself; I'll let you know tonight;

Shelly,

I saw you r post but my problem did not go away when I changed to 720p. it is sad that when this happens it happens on the both the HD receiver I have connected to the components. But at the same time the Oppo connected to the HDMI is fine.

coolsat

See my post #`1049 on previous thread page.

Is this what you are seeing--a kind of stutter as I descried there?

I had it with my Comcast HD receiver at component 1080i but changing to 720p fixed it.

Shelly

sounds like its part of the interlacer that's not working correctly, cause the image that i saw when it was being drawn incorrectly was like every second line of the image was drawn except that image was drawn 50% up the screen and to the left of the original image. i would draw up a photoshop image with an example but i dont know how to post images.

its a 720p projector either way, i guess we shouldnt be feeding it 1080i, cause its just going to downscale it anyways.

do most HD cable boxes do 720?

I've got an HD cable box (SA 8300HD) pumping out via component to receiver to z4 component input, no problems with either 720p out or 1080i out from cable box.

Wow! is it possible that both the HD receiver boxes that I have are bad? I got both of them on the same day; I'll have to try switching a box with a friend and see if this goes away!

I have my Directv Sony HD300 via component 720p and my Yamaha receiver Z9 which upconverts all my video (vcr) and S-video sources to 720p component to my Z4 and its a rock steady picture!

Not a single complaint on my Z4 yet. It sounds like an interlacing issue. I send my Z4 all 720p via 2 component inputs and also my HDMI input 720p as well.

Great projector...

The projector itself is awesome and the DVD image that I get from my oppo over HDMI is phenomenal; An also when the image finally stabilizes from my HD receivers, it looks out of this world. However, what I don't seems to be able to figure out is:

1. when this problem happens I see it on both my receivers; and changing them at that very moment to 720p does not help
2. It stabilizes after 30-45 min

The projector itself is awesome and the DVD image that I get from my oppo over HDMI is phenomenal; An also when the image finally stabilizes from my HD receivers, it looks out of this world. However, what I don't seems to be able to figure out is:

1. when this problem happens I see it on both my receivers; and changing them at that very moment to 720p does not help
2. It stabilizes after 30-45 min

It sounds like it is either a cable problem or the projector itself. Hopefully it is the cable.

Hey coolsat, btw which cables ARE you using?

I'm using a 25ft length 3-cable RGB from monoprice.

Ill try some other cables out later to see if it does the same thing later tonight.

Hey coolsat, btw which cables ARE you using?

I'm using a 25ft length 3-cable RGB from monoprice.

Ill try some other cables out later to see if it does the same thing later tonight.
I would have said it was a cable problem if it happened maybe on just one of my HD receivers; but it happens on both my HD receivers; the DISH and the comcast; I'm using 6 ft cables (monster) bucause both the receivers are close to my projector. and it also happened with the DISH/Comcast supplied cables; But yes I could get cable made by some other manufacturer to check this out.

I'm really hoping it is the cables and not the projector; Still cannot explain how it becomes ok after the projector is on for 30 min

Yeah mine doesnt begin until about 5-10 mins into it, then it goes away after about 3 mins of it happening, it sounds much less then what you are expiereicing, but mine is from the xbox. I'm getting HD finally this friday so i will be able to tell you my expiereces with that.

Try giving sanyo a call and see what they say.

Here's an interesting shootout amond the Z4, Epson and Pan pjs on CKL's site.

http://www.avbuzz.com/audio-video/200511/ckl-3in1lcdshow/index.htm

I think that there is also a more detailed account of the comparison.

Can't understand the text but it is clear that the audience (not sure if they are videophiles or regular folks) clearly preferred the Z4 for dvd and 1980i

Also not sure what settings were used on the different pjs.

Shelly

I would have said it was a cable problem if it happened maybe on just one of my HD receivers; but it happens on both my HD receivers; the DISH and the comcast; I'm using 6 ft cables (monster) bucause both the receivers are close to my projector. and it also happened with the DISH/Comcast supplied cables; But yes I could get cable made by some other manufacturer to check this out.

I'm really hoping it is the cables and not the projector; Still cannot explain how it becomes ok after the projector is on for 30 min

Does it happen on the same channel on both boxes, or all channels on both boxes? If it happens on all the channels I would say it is your projector. It sounds like it is a heat related issue: As the projector warms up the problem goes away. I think your cables are fine. Cables usually don't work intermittently--they either work or they don't work.

Does it happen on the same channel on both boxes, or all channels on both boxes? If it happens on all the channels I would say it is your projector. It sounds like it is a heat related issue: As the projector warms up the problem goes away. I think your cables are fine. Cables usually don't work intermittently--they either work or they don't work.
when this happens all the channels that I switch to exhibit this behavior. it could be a heat releated issue; but it never happens on the hdmi input

Here's an interesting shootout amond the Z4, Epson and Pan pjs on CKL's site.

http://www.avbuzz.com/audio-video/200511/ckl-3in1lcdshow/index.htm

I think that there is also a more detailed account of the comparison.

Can't understand the text but it is clear that the audience (not sure if they are videophiles or regular folks) clearly preferred the Z4 for dvd and 1980i

Also not sure what settings were used on the different pjs.

Shelly
I'd like to see a translation of that. The translator I used didn't do a very good job. Is there more to that page? Interesting results - would be interested to get more detail. CKL, if you're listening can you post some thoughts?

Hi, everyone, after following the threads on this forum for about a half year I finally pulled the trigger and ordered the Z4. Thanks guys for sharing your thoughts and experience. My z4 is scheduled to be delivered toady. As I have only a few hours to check things out before I decide to exchange or return it , I would like to ask you people how to spot the defects on the unit such as convergence, etc. Can someone describe or post pictures about what a one pixel misalignment would look like? Also are there other defects this unit may be prone to? Thanks very much in advance for your advice!

I'd like to see a translation of that. The translator I used didn't do a very good job. Is there more to that page? Interesting results - would be interested to get more detail. CKL, if you're listening can you post some thoughts?
Actually there had been subtanstial discussion a month and half ago on this forum about the three machine shootout. see the thread http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=600048&highlight=avbuzz
including CKL's comments.
That shootout was a major factor in my deciding to go with Z4. It's a blindtest conducted for avbuzz club members. I don't know the criteria of their membership, buy it seems they are at least HT enthusiasts if not experts. Most of us I imagine would be more or less like those club members who simply enjoy great looking video images.

can the Z4 be switched on and off remotely completely (not suspend) or is it one of those pj wher eu gotta get up and hit the switch on the actual projector to switch it on?

Well, I use the remote switch to turn it on and off; after installation I have never touched the projecter at all; only operate it with the remote; I like the way the door closes and opens

can the Z4 be switched on and off remotely completely (not suspend) or is it one of those pj wher eu gotta get up and hit the switch on the actual projector to switch it on?
It has a master power switch on the back, but once on can be controlled via remote.

I'll ask again (posted earlier as well as Remote forum but still without positive response): are there discrete on and off power codes available for the Z4 or previous Z series projectors? I found a Z2 'off' code on Remote Central that worked but the associated 'on' did not. There must be a counterpart out there somewhere. Installation is tomorrow and I want to begin programming my macros.

Well i've done some more testing into our little problem cool sat, and it looks like its most likeyly my xbox overheating instead of the projector, cause i tried hooking up my dvd player via component and im not expierecing any problem thus far. But i will keep you posted.

Ok disregard that last message,

here is a picture demonstrating the problem im having, its happening with the HDTV and the Xbox 360 (however not the component inputs from my Oppo DVD player

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c359/PiNPOiNT2K/sanyo-z4problem2.jpg

Exactly what is happening to me too! I will atach my pictures tonight, but this is exactly it. It never happens on the component of the OPPO connected to the either of the component inputs of the Z4. It only happens when I connect my DISH 801 and comcast HD receiver. And fo rme it does not go away if I change the receiver's output to 720p.


Ok disregard that last message,

here is a picture demonstrating the problem im having, its happening with the HDTV and the Xbox 360 (however not the component inputs from my Oppo DVD player

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c359/PiNPOiNT2K/sanyo-z4problem2.jpg

Also pinpoint, can you confirm that it does not happen when you connect your HD box with the HDMI cable?

I presume you gentlemen are aware of many reported problems with the Xbox 360 and overheating, resulting in system hangs and crashes? Apparently that power block needs a lot of free air.

Yeah, its happening with our HDTV boxes also,

but not my component DVD player, wierd.

Can anyone tell me what size screws are needed to mount the Sanyo Z4 to a ceiling mount?

Thanks...JP

Hey coolsat, this is to confirm, that infact the HDTV connected via HDMI, works fine, with no problems, its just what ever is connected through component that's messed up.

btw, what the hell is the component 2 connector, i've never seen that type of connection? (mine is japanese if that matters)

Pinpoint,

Both my component connections are similar; i don't see anything different; The japanese model must be different; the US onbe has both the component connections labelled the same;

it happens on both those connections; But I confirmed on thing:

1080i thru HD boxes on both component input cause this to happen
720P on thru HD on both component inputs causes this to happen

BUT 480p(which BTW looks like crap compared to the other 2) magically does not see this. I tries this for hours on both the component inputs switching between 1080i/720p and 480p; 480p NEVER has this isse while the other 2 modes always see this

As you rightly said HDMI is the only input that seems to work for HD at 1080i/720p; connecting the HD receivers to HDMI works

Looks like I need to place a long detailed call to the sanyo service dept or get myself a HDMI switcher (God I hate that!)

Wow; 2 of us with the same problems; there must be someone else out there with similar issues

hopefully its just the two of us, and we both got lemons, so we can swap them and be done with it. It would suck if it was the whole line of z4's that has this problem

Is anyone else experiencing visual problems while connecting HDTV boxes or xboxes to their Component 1's on their z4's running in 720P or 1080i?

I will call my dealer tommorow and let them know what's happening, and also send those pics off to the sanyo guy on monday.

I think im right at my (swap it for a new one if there's any problem) day. Hopefully they will just give me a new one instead of sending it back to get fixed

pinpoint!

Sanyo does not replace with new ones! it only repairs them; I'll take the repair also if it works! I'm going to call them on monday and overnight the projector to them

Call your dealer first and let them initiate the request.

I have had my Z4 for a few weeks now. I absolutely love it, but I had been busy and not used it for a few days. We used it last night and my wife commented that it did not seem the fan was making ANY noise compared to what she remembered. This got me paranoid too thinking the same thing. There was no visible problem with warning lights or anything. The right exhaust vent was VERY hot, but it really didn't seem to be noticeably more than I remember when checking before. It seemed that I could hear some faint fan noise when placing my ear RIGHT UP NEXT to the exhaust vent, kinda warm by the way.

After watching it for a few hours I powered it off, and the normal flashing warning light indicating that the bulb is being cooled down for turning off/restarting the projector did not seem to turn off after any longer time than it has previously. That is a curiosity question too, my light only flashes for literally about 2 minutes or so after every time that I use my projector, is this the same for others?. My assumption, which could be off, is that if a cooling fan was flat out not doing its job then there should be warning lights about overheating or the normal warning light when powering off should stay on longer due to the projector being too warm. FYI, my projector is seated on top of a component rack behind the seating area with huge clearance around all vents in a basement room that is usually quite cool. I have "cleaned" the filters 2 times already even though I did not see a hint of dust on them either time.

I just want to be sure that nothing bad is going wrong with our new baby, but I guess as long as everything is okay then it isn't a bad problem to never hear the fan at all :)

P.S. I was at Best Buy today looking at a $4,500 Sony 60" Grand WEGA™ SXRD™ Rear Projection HDTV in their Home Theater chair and still marveling at how much better having the Z4 for less than half the price in my home theater is :D

Can someone help me with a placement issue for this PJ?

I want to shelf mount the PJ 21 feet from the screen. Its a 1.4 gain, 114 inch screen.

When I look at the throw calculator from projectorcentral, it says that from 21 feet, the biggest screen I can use is a 104 inch. That seems wrong to me.

Can anyone verify this for me or help me figure this out.

thanks.

Lofty,

According to the PJ.com calculator, 104 is the biggest you can go without using the zoom. at 21 feet throw the Z4 should cover from 104-209 inches. You should be good to go for that 114 inch screen.

Thank you sir......now Im happy again.

Im VERY happy with the way under $2k price tag that I paid for the PJ.

Its unbelievable that technology brings such amazing home theater experiences into our living rooms for such a cheap price.

Thank you sir......now Im happy again.

Im VERY happy with the way under $2k price tag that I paid for the PJ.

Its unbelievable that technology brings such amazing home theater experiences into our living rooms for such a cheap price.
No doubt. I'm still pretty amazed at what has happened in this industry. There's a big technology shift happening right now with 1080p in the wings. I couldn't justify spending big cash on a projector right now.

Your welcome Lofty.

I agree as well. I am still using my Z3 and are constantly amazed with the thing. I thought of upgrading to the Z4 but figured I might as well wait another year or so. The move to cheap/awesome performance 720p units and affordable 1080p is happening very quickly!

hopefully its just the two of us, and we both got lemons, so we can swap them and be done with it. It would suck if it was the whole line of z4's that has this problem

Is anyone else experiencing visual problems while connecting HDTV boxes or xboxes to their Component 1's on their z4's running in 720P or 1080i?

I will call my dealer tommorow and let them know what's happening, and also send those pics off to the sanyo guy on monday.

I think im right at my (swap it for a new one if there's any problem) day. Hopefully they will just give me a new one instead of sending it back to get fixed

OK, just got my bad-convergence projector back from Sanyo and it looks much better, not perfect, but better. I was watching Superman last night on my Directv HD receiver and it started jerking almost every second. I thought it was Directv, but now it looks like a Sanyo problem. I'm setting the receiver for 720p and am using the component input. I watched a couple DVD's tonight on C2 and did not withness a single stutter.

Matt

i'm going to be calling them today and letting them know about this issue. Hopefully they'll resolve it soon

Geeze, now its 3 of us.

I'm taking mine back to the dealer for a brand new one (10 day defect free deal) so i will report if my new unit does this also later tonight.

re: HDTV playback on Z4 component inputs

Fine on mine : HD SA8300HD STB component out to either component 1 or 2 in on z4, works fine for 720p or 1080i (over 40' of component to boot).

Here is another picture from my DIsh801 HD recevier connected to the component of the Z4 at 720P; Spoke to my dealer who thinks it is a vertical sync issue; he has place a call with sanyo and is waiting to hear back from them


Geeze, now its 3 of us.

I'm taking mine back to the dealer for a brand new one (10 day defect free deal) so i will report if my new unit does this also later tonight.

sweet, thx coolsat, yeah this is deffinatly the same problem,

ill send those pics off to my guy here in canada also

I have now had my Z4 for three weeks and have been very pleased with its performance until yesterday. I have a dedicated home cinema with dark walls and total light control and have used Creative Cinema as my preferred setting. Yesterday I tried vivid setting an then I see pulsation in the transition from the black bands to the picture on 1:2.35 films.
It is visible all the time but most visible in light pictures. Up close it looks like its covering 1 ore two rows of pixels. When DVD player is paused the pulsation stops.

I have a Thosiba 350 DVD player and use its scaler til scale to 1280X720. The problem is the same in the other resolutions from the player. A friend have the same dvd player and I have connected it to my projector it with the same results.

Have anyone other experienced the same problem?

Is it the Projector (this is my 4. projector and I have not have this problem before (But not connected via HDMI before)) or the DVD player?

Is there possible to fix it in the settings of the projector?

And here is another happy Z4 owner. I have been away from the hobby for quite some time, comming from the 9 inch CRT projection world, leaving the extremes behind for the wife and my own (money) sake. The Z4 is really doing all one needs and I can only sustain what others have said/praised, the baby has a build in James Bond silencer. No hush box needed, you can enjoy the most subtle parts of a well layed out soundtrack. Haven't played around with all options yet and the HDMI cable is still in the post.

With my color analyzer I only took a quick reading with Avia and 80/30 IRE and I was pleased to see the creative cinema mode being so close in color temp 3 mode to D65. My room is not black at all anymore, so I might have not the best readings, but so far for PAL SD sources I only took away some red gain, switched off all gimmics, iris at auto in the creative mode and the picture was already pleasure. I aslo have blue convergence a little off, but I use heavy lens shift as well. It's just great to have that stylish box on top of a shelf above everybody's heads. What a beauty, even when "the door" is closed :cool:

Hi

My current Z4 has been used for around 40 hours. This is my second one - the first one was replaced because of a whining sound that turned out to be caused by a defective lamp.

Anyway, with the new unit, after it has been running for about an hour, there is a smell of burnt plastic. I'd just like to know if anyone else has experienced this? This unit also has alignment problems (none on the left side but just over one pixel on the right part of the screen).

The first one just had the "new equipment" smell but it went away after being used for a couple of hours.

I have talked to the dealer and he has agreed to replace this unit as well but who know what problems I could get with the next one! :-)

The first hour or so that i had mine, i could smell the lamp warming up the unit. Like the smell of warm plastic, and dust etc, anywhoo, that went away after a few hours. Havent smelt it since.

I believe the smell is normal for the first week or so. I remember when I would by a new monitor for my pc of haveing such a smell for while while I broke it in. If you still notice it in a couple weeks, then you may want to show a little concern. Right now... don't worry about it. ... Just make sure the unit can "breath".

Here is another picture from my DIsh801 HD recevier connected to the component of the Z4 at 720P; Spoke to my dealer who thinks it is a vertical sync issue; he has place a call with sanyo and is waiting to hear back from them


coolsat,

I just received my Z4 and in the box there was a notice regarding the connection of "High-Vision Video Equipment" to Component 1 and 2 terminals. It goes on to say if you experience "horizontal line noise" to use the "fine sync" adjustment outlined on page 32 of the owner's manual. The default value is "10" and can be adjusted between 0 and 31.

Not sure if this is a new notice or was included in all of the Z4 boxes.

Judd

So, coolsat, guess what,

I took the projector back to the dealer today, and we plugged it in so that i could show him the problem. We watched it for over an hour trying different things, NOTHING wrong happened. So he said, take it home again and try it again, because if we couldnt find anything wrong with it, he wouldnt be able to return it. So i bring it back. hook it up again, and Bam, its doing that wierd thing again. BAH

ill have to try some other things, like plugging it in, in different rooms or something.

ill keep you posted.

Can anyone tell me what size screws are needed to mount the Sanyo Z4 to a ceiling mount?

Thanks...JP

Bump

Judd,

I found that in my box today as I was getting it ready to ship my Z4; Since then I have been itching to try it out but have not seen it happen even once; I want to give it a shot and set "fine sync" all the way to 31 to see if it will stop happening; Rest assured that I'll spend the next few hours waiting to tweak that setting if my z4 starts acting up again; thanks Judd!

Coolsat


coolsat,

I just received my Z4 and in the box there was a notice regarding the connection of "High-Vision Video Equipment" to Component 1 and 2 terminals. It goes on to say if you experience "horizontal line noise" to use the "fine sync" adjustment outlined on page 32 of the owner's manual. The default value is "10" and can be adjusted between 0 and 31.

Not sure if this is a new notice or was included in all of the Z4 boxes.

Judd

So, coolsat, guess what,

I took the projector back to the dealer today, and we plugged it in so that i could show him the problem. We watched it for over an hour trying different things, NOTHING wrong happened. So he said, take it home again and try it again, because if we couldnt find anything wrong with it, he wouldnt be able to return it. So i bring it back. hook it up again, and Bam, its doing that wierd thing again. BAH

ill have to try some other things, like plugging it in, in different rooms or something.

ill keep you posted.

Pinpoint,

for what it is worth if you can reproduce this situation, try and set the "fine sync" to 31 and see if the problem goes away

I'm wondering if anyone has updates on discrete power codes. I've started a thread here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=616779) with no results. I have a working discrete OFF command but nothing yet for discrete ON. I have to assume one must exist with the other.

Addendum: After further thought I realized that if you leave the Z4's power confirmation active (setting in the user menu) you don't need to worry about the standard on/off toggle command. Unless the user provides a second power command when prompted the projector will remain on. So any power on macro that includes a single on/off command will still work without inadvertently turning off the Z4. Of course if it's already off the power command will successfully be issued. And the discrete off code provided in the link above bypasses the Z4 shut down confirmation. Alternatively you would be able to just stack two power commands but discrete works much better. So unless a discrete on command surfaces we'll still be OK for automation.

Heres probably a stoopid question.

I just got my Z4 today....Fed Ex dropped it off and within minutes I had my Denon 2910 hooked up to it and was shooting the image on my living room wall....just to make sure everything works.

Im using the component inputs with my DVD set at 720p out.

When I check the info tab in my PJ's menu however, it says Im in 480P.

Is there a PJ setting I need to change?

Im looking through the manual but I cant find anything,

Heres probably a stoopid question.

I just got my Z4 today....Fed Ex dropped it off and within minutes I had my Denon 2910 hooked up to it and was shooting the image on my living room wall....just to make sure everything works.

Im using the component inputs with my DVD set at 720p out.

When I check the info tab in my PJ's menu however, it says Im in 480P.

Is there a PJ setting I need to change?

Im looking through the manual but I cant find anything,

I think it will only show the correct reading of 720 if your using HDMI to HDMI.
Thats the way it works on mine. If I switch over to Component I only have 480 showing no matter what I set the player to.

I think you're right.

I just hooked up my HDMI cable to it and now its reading 720P in the info section.

The only thing is that the picture does look crisper than with component.

I wonder if it will allow a 720P pic through component cables?

I wonder if it will allow a 720P pic through component cables?
It should allow for an analog 720p input. Does your DVD player scale its output from component? Some scaling players will only pass the upscaled 720p/1080i signal from the DVI output.

I think you're right.

I just hooked up my HDMI cable to it and now its reading 720P in the info section.

The only thing is that the picture does look crisper than with component.

I wonder if it will allow a 720P pic through component cables?

Forget the component its much better on HDMI.
I have the Denon 3910 player and if you use HDMI Y Cb Cr instead of HDMI R G B you will have an absolutely beautiful picture with much truer colour! The result is truely amazing through HDMI Y Cb Cr, it kills R G B!
Keep the HDMI setting on the player to NORMAL and the projector to L2. Dont use the darker settings as you loose detail. After a calibration it really is an incredible image.
I hope your Denon has these settings!!!!!!!!

Yes, it does.

Thanks for the info....Im gonna go try it out now.

Im already very happy with the picture even though Im shooting it on a textured wall thats dark biege right now. I cant wait to see it on the screen I have on order.

Heres probably a stoopid question.

I just got my Z4 today....Fed Ex dropped it off and within minutes I had my Denon 2910 hooked up to it and was shooting the image on my living room wall....just to make sure everything works.

Im using the component inputs with my DVD set at 720p out.

When I check the info tab in my PJ's menu however, it says Im in 480P.

Is there a PJ setting I need to change?

Im looking through the manual but I cant find anything,

I'm fairly certain thatt the Denon 2910 upconverts only through the DVI or HDMI outputs. Component will always be 480p.

Shelly

Ok Pinpoint here is what I have tried so far!

Setup:

Z4 component 1 connected to Comcast HD receiver
Z4 component 2 connected to Dish 801 HD receiver

Whenever I found that i was seeing this issue on either component input, I changed the "fine sync" value from its default of 10 to +2 or +3; And the jitteriness disappeared! It reappeared sometimes albeit very briefly. At that time increain the value of fine sync by 1 seemed to help; The value that seemed to be very safe so far in my tests was +25 on fine sync on both my component inputs

I will carry out more tests tonight and will let you know; I'd encourage you to try it out and see if the problem goes away.

Coolsat

Pinpoint,

for what it is worth if you can reproduce this situation, try and set the "fine sync" to 31 and see if the problem goes away

I took some random sscreen shots from Comcast HD tonight.

Shelly

Some more screen shots.

Shelly

And finally, the last two hd shots from Comcast.

All taken durring a half hour or so of just surfing through high def channels and freezing some frames that could show off some colors, blacks and shadow detail.

I find that movies often have over saturated flesh tones but I did not lower my Color Saturation settting for any of the shots. All shots based on Living preset with my own changes and color management tweaks.

Shelly

And finally, the last two hd shots from Comcast.

All taken durring a half hour or so of just surfing through high def channels and freezing some frames that could show off some colors, blacks and shadow detail.

I find that movies often have over saturated flesh tones but I did not lower my Color Saturation settting for any of the shots. All shots based on Living preset with my own changes and color management tweaks.

Shelly

shelly,

they look very good! Would it be possible for you to share your detailed settings with us please?

thanks,

coolsat

Well, I do not have a clue as to what my settings might measure, and I am certain that they are far from the D6500 ideal so am a bit reluctant to post them.

But they do look fine to me. I have been using ROne's settings based on Living and Creative Cinema, finding the more vibrant Living settings preferred most of the time but sometimes use the CC settings with Hi Def which can present a very bright picture.

The whites are whiter than the creamier whites of a calibrated picture. I just tried to match the blacks and shadow detail of ROne byt using the Brightness and Gamma
settings most than changing the Gain and Offset RGB setttings.

I kept most of the Living defaults but changed the what I felt were exaggerated setttings. Comcast HD dvr is connected with component cables for now as I am waiting for the back ordered Markertek manual hdmi switcher. Ouput is 720p.

Color Management for flesh tones (decreased), sky blue, red and one more. I can write these down tomorrow with more detail.

Based on Living default: Brightness -5
Contrast +6
Color Sat +4 (Also used 0 for some hd and dvd, adjustinmg on the fly without Storing the 0 setting.)
Tint 0
Colot Temp Low 1
Sharpness 0
R +9
G 0
B 0
Lamp Low
Gamma -1
Lens Iris -32
Lamp Iris Auto
Auto Black 0
Contrast En 0
Transient L1
All Gains, Offsets, Gammas 0
HDMI L2

It looks really good to me with whiter whites, good flesh tones and vibrant colors. Blacks not quite as deep as ROne's Living but a bit more shadow detail.

Shelly

I have now had my Z4 for three weeks and have been very pleased with its performance until yesterday. I have a dedicated home cinema with dark walls and total light control and have used Creative Cinema as my preferred setting. Yesterday I tried vivid setting an then I see pulsation in the transition from the black bands to the picture on 1:2.35 films.
It is visible all the time but most visible in light pictures. Up close it looks like its covering 1 ore two rows of pixels. When DVD player is paused the pulsation stops.

I have a Thosiba 350 DVD player and use its scaler til scale to 1280X720. The problem is the same in the other resolutions from the player. A friend have the same dvd player and I have connected it to my projector it with the same results.

Have anyone other experienced the same problem?

Is it the Projector (this is my 4. projector and I have not have this problem before (But not connected via HDMI before)) or the DVD player?

Is there possible to fix it in the settings of the projector?

Anybody experiencing the same problem? Help is much wanted! Its hard to not get any replies on my first post on the forum!

Shelly> Forgive my laziness, i could probably find out if i looked back further, but what size screen are you using?

Your HD Hockey picture looks way better than what i get on my 300U. My 130" screen may be hurting the overall image by allot though.

I'm really thinking about buying/upgrading the first week of January, but and theres always the "but", the Sanyo warranty threads in the past have steered me clear of the Z4.

Despite the warranty and problems posted in this thread, i'm still considering the Z4 or the Epson 550.

The Epson has the better Lumens though which may give it the edge for my big screen.

When it came down to warrenty issues for me, i thought to myself, have i ever actually had to get something i own that's electrical fixed ever?!??!! the answer was no. By the time something has broken (only 1 dvd player broke on me) it had been like 5 years old, and there was so many new things out there (like progressive scan and up scaling) that it was time to get a new one anyways. Chances are its NOT going to break, so i don't care about warrenties personally. Things don't break on me.

I'll offer a different perspective. Having dealt with warranty issues in dealing with Panasonic's wonderful 1 year offering, I have to tell you that I was tilted towards Sanyo because of the three year period. They may have issues with the way they handle their warranty but at least I have a legal leg to stand on when they promise three years. With Panasonic, my Optical block failed right after a year and a half and they basically wiped their hands from it. Even though it was replaced once before the first year due to the same issue. Even if Sanyo decides not play nice, at least legally I'll be able to put up a fight.

Btw, my Z4 should be arriving this Friday! Woohoo!

Shelly> Forgive my laziness, i could probably find out if i looked back further, but what size screen are you using?

Your HD Hockey picture looks way better than what i get on my 300U. My 130" screen may be hurting the overall image by allot though.

I'm really thinking about buying/upgrading the first week of January, but and theres always the "but", the Sanyo warranty threads in the past have steered me clear of the Z4.

Despite the warranty and problems posted in this thread, i'm still considering the Z4 or the Epson 550.

The Epson has the better Lumens though which may give it the edge for my big screen.

It's a 106" diagnal Draper Cineperm wall mount 1.0 gain.

I think that the Sanyo Z4 shows MUCH beter than some of the reviews indicate, especially if you use some of the Living setting tweaks. Most reviews seem to use the Creative Cinema setting which is no where near as dynamic.

And the Z4 price is starting to go up, although it remains much less than the competition (excepting pjs with rebates which evens the playing field.)

Shelly

"And the Z4 price is starting to go up..." -SHELLY

I'm predicting that a week before Superbowl will be it's lowest price yet.

Well i tried it out last night, and i think it worked! thanks coolsat for figureing it out!. I noticed the issue still happend, but only once. So im going to keep tweaking that number and seeing if i can get it to go away forever.

yippie!!!!

Pinpoint,

for what it is worth if you can reproduce this situation, try and set the "fine sync" to 31 and see if the problem goes away

"And the Z4 price is starting to go up..." -SHELLY

I'm predicting that a week before Superbowl will be it's lowest price yet.

Does your prediction apply to all brands of pjs or just the Z4?

Shelly

Now that folks have had the Z4 for a while, how are you finding the contrast, and perhaps more importantly, the shadow detail to look? I am thinking of upgrading my Z2 and am debating the usual suspects (550, Z4, and AE900).

The VB, poor black level, and lack of shadow detail on my Z2 has just got to go.

good to know that Pinpoint! I've been playing with it for some time now and here some experimental data:

1. whenever this happens tweaking the fine sync at that time (whether decresing or increasin) seems to make is t go away.
2. Now it may re-appear after 10-15 min or sometime never; If the re-appearing ir intermittent I'd just leave it but a few times it happened more than once and then tweaking again made it go away.
3. I' guess I'll keep trying and see if there is a setting that my Z4 likes

Well i tried it out last night, and i think it worked! thanks coolsat for figureing it out!. I noticed the issue still happend, but only once. So im going to keep tweaking that number and seeing if i can get it to go away forever.

yippie!!!!

Matt,

Try increasing or decreasing the fine sync when this happens. If you follow my post you'll see that Pinpoint and me have had success in making it go away by tweaking the fine sync whenever this happens

OK, just got my bad-convergence projector back from Sanyo and it looks much better, not perfect, but better. I was watching Superman last night on my Directv HD receiver and it started jerking almost every second. I thought it was Directv, but now it looks like a Sanyo problem. I'm setting the receiver for 720p and am using the component input. I watched a couple DVD's tonight on C2 and did not withness a single stutter.

Matt

Hey papester, can you post exactly what it says on that paper you had in your box?

thanks

-PiNPOiNT

coolsat,

I just received my Z4 and in the box there was a notice regarding the connection of "High-Vision Video Equipment" to Component 1 and 2 terminals. It goes on to say if you experience "horizontal line noise" to use the "fine sync" adjustment outlined on page 32 of the owner's manual. The default value is "10" and can be adjusted between 0 and 31.

Not sure if this is a new notice or was included in all of the Z4 boxes.

Judd

here you go Pinpoint; the exact contents of that small piece of paper:

"For the connection between High-Vision video equipment and projector's COMPONENT 1/2 terminals, horizontal line noise may be noted only occasionally. in this case, adjust the value of Fine sync on page 32 of the owner's manual.

The factory default value of Fine sync is "10". the setting can be adjusted between 0 and +31"

Now who would ever attribute out issue to the above mentioned action. It says only occasionally and for us it happens so often.

Anyway, I m happy that we could fix it.

Hey papester, can you post exactly what it says on that paper you had in your box?

thanks

-PiNPOiNT

Nice pics shelly!

Looks like you've got things dialed in very well. I wouldn't worry about how close you are to D65, as long as the image satisfies you and the family, that's all that matters.

Thanks coolsat,

yeah, i noticed while dialing it up to 31, occasionally it got really really bad at some numbers which leads me to belive some are better then others, and hopefully ill find a "perfect" one for my system.

next, i gotta figure out how to tweak the image to my favorite preference.

right now im lacking shadow detail, my blacks are too crushed. and the whites are a slight overblown.

im going to try out all of the settings that rsone and dvdr have been posting and see how i fair.

althought im getting a new screen next week so ill get to do it all over again lol

Hi everyone,

I am looking to get the Z4 for my brother. I am running into a little problem with the setup. He has a room that is 15Wide and 24ft long and 7'8" High ceiling. The problem is that he has a duct running across in the middle of the room. The duct is 13ft away from the screen and drops down about 8" and he wants a 106" screen. Are we going to be ok if we were to put the PJ behind the duct and drop it about 9-10" and get a 106" image or would it be ok to stick the PJ in front of the duct which is 13ft from the screen?

I hope this makes sense. :confused:

Thank you for all the help

Taz

Taz, go to projectorcentral or the like an use one of the throw distance calculators; it will give you the minimum and maximum distances you can use to mount the projector based on the projector's zoom. With the generous lens shift on the Z4, you should be able to mount the projector at virtually any height and use the shift to move the image onto the screen. That is the beauty of lens shift, no more painstaking measurements to ensure the projector is positioned perfectly.

Does your prediction apply to all brands of pjs or just the Z4?

Shelly


Dealers usually have better prices around Superbowl time because a lot of people will be looking at them to watch the big game and impress all their friends with their HUGE tv on their living room wall. :) I don't have any inside info if that's what you mean... I'm just a regular schmuck. :D

Well I finally modified my UP1100 mount for my Sanyo Z4, powered my unit up and was amazed at the difference between the two projectors. I have been using my UP1100 DLP projector for the past few years and was happy with the DVD playback, but disappointed in the HD playback and the lack of a separate componet input. So after reading all of the post for the Panny 900 and the Sanyo Z4, I choose the Z4 and have no regrets at all. What a picture... I'm projecting onto a 106" da-lite screen with a gain of approx 1.2. The projector is about 17' from the screen and I'm sitting at around 14'. The Z4 mounted from the ceiling is very quite and my image is brither and the colors are more vivid.

I viewed some HD material from my Cablevision IO HD set top and viewed some of my DVD material, overall I can't be any more happy. I will be tweaking the Z4 during the next week or so with some of the settings mentioned on this board.

I'll provide additional information as I progress with my tweaking....

Judd

Does anyone know if the Z4 has the same mount hole pattern as the z2? A uy I know has a z2 with a z2-specific mount plate and was wondering if the mount would work on the z4 if he got it.

Nope, sadly its different. You will need a universal mount or a z4 specific one.

thanks dude...I'll pass along that info

Nope, sadly its different. You will need a universal mount or a z4 specific one.
If he's using a Chief RPA mount they now have the Z4 plate. I have one on order and am currently using the universal. I generally don't like universal solutions but this one works very well and is nice and low profile.

Now that folks have had the Z4 for a while, how are you finding the contrast, and perhaps more importantly, the shadow detail to look? I am thinking of upgrading my Z2 and am debating the usual suspects (550, Z4, and AE900).

The VB, poor black level, and lack of shadow detail on my Z2 has just got to go.

Bump....anyone?

Now that folks have had the Z4 for a while, how are you finding the contrast, and perhaps more importantly, the shadow detail to look? I am thinking of upgrading my Z2 and am debating the usual suspects (550, Z4, and AE900).

The VB, poor black level, and lack of shadow detail on my Z2 has just got to go.

I am coming from a Sony 10HT.

I find the Z4 to have much better black level but not what I saw from the Dwin TV4. but this is an $1800 pj compared to a $7000 (with proprietary digital video cable.)

The same can be said for the shadow detail. Using the tweak settings of ROne and my own, the shadow detail is not on par with the afore mentioned dlp, but it is there for sure. And using the Gamma adjustment, which can be done on the fly with the ability to save it or not save it in the User setting, the shadow detail can be increased for a particular source.

I suspect that you can get better black level and shadow detail spending just 2x as much (but that's still a lot) for an Optima dlp. But all pjs have tradeoffs. The Benq 7700 is probably better with the black and shadow detail but the reported premature bulb burnout and extgremely hot running temperatures are problems you should not have with the Z4.

I see no VB on my Z4. I have no dead pixels. Alignment looks absolutely correct but I do not go up nose to nose with the screen to obsess about it. Reading about some folks who have found a one pixel off in alignment at a viewing distance of 1 foot is absurd to me, but that's just me.

The biggest problem I have is deciding which tweaked setting to use. Too many choices.

The Z4 produces an extremely sharp and colorful picture with enough shadow detail and black level to satisfy most people. Purists should look elsewhere and prepare to spend much more $$$.

You can get perfect flesh tones, regardless of race. You can create more intense colors, aas well as rid green of any yellow and rred of any orange with the Color Management feature. The Z4 is a true bargain and you should be more than happy with the picture, especially if you follow the Z4 threads in this forum.

Shelly

Hi Guys,
merry-x-mas to the ones reading this already on the 24th, depending on what time it is at your place :)

My Z4 looks really perfect so far, I did calibrate it properly to D65, but I have trouble to access the service menu structure (if there is one?). When pressing "input" and "ok" at once I get on the screen the "service mode" display. But then I can press whatever I want, I get nothing, no further menu structure, etc. What am I doing wrong ? I only want to bring the blue "convergence" down by 2 pixels. Would be a cool x-mas present to get that fixed ! Thanks for any help.

http://hometown.aol.de/ASchild/blue.jpg

Hi Guys,
merry-x-mas to the ones reading this already on the 24th, depending on what time it is at your place :)

My Z4 looks really perfect so far, I did calibrate it properly to D65, but I have trouble to access the service menu structure (if there is one?). When pressing "input" and "ok" at once I get on the screen the "service mode" display. But then I can press whatever I want, I get nothing, no further menu structure, etc. What am I doing wrong ? I only want to bring the blue "convergence" down by 2 pixels. Would be a cool x-mas present to get that fixed ! Thanks for any help.
Merry X Andreas

Are you saying there is an adjustment in the service section to adjust position of the blue grid?

After pressing the Menu and OK button for a few seconds an "S" appears in the top right, then you have to press and hold the UP and DOWN arrow on the projector. I'm not sure if there is a panel adjustment like what your looking for in there. Make sure you check through the service manual that was posted here earlier.

write down all settings before mucking with them also

@Jay
If such an adjustment exists, it will only bring the grid down as you said, not the LCD itself.

@ PP
thought I tried it already exactly as you said (and that's what I also found via google), will try it again and again. I do not get an "S", I get a small window in the left upper corner saying "service mode" and some info !

Oh wow, will keep on trying and report back. Will also try to find that service manual. Feel free to email/pm me, if you have one. Merci.

No sorry, I pressed "Input" and "OK". "Menu" and "OK" didn't give me anything ! Will try that again as well.

its Input and OK that you have to press on the unit itself, not the remote. hold them both down at once for a few seconds

Then serivce mode comes up,

then you can use the arrow buttons to navigate it.

up and down changes the group number
ok changes the "No." group
and left and right changes the data value

Found the Z4 service manual...finally ! Buttons were wrong, it's "input" and "menu", not OK, then I get then "S" as well. Thanks again for the help.

Doesn't look promising. Flying through the service manual did not reveal any vertical blue adjustments via the service menu. Do we have anybody around who is familiar with the service menu and it's abilities ? Or are we rather talking about an electrical adjustments via testpoints here in my case ? Would be a bit of a disappointment, if I would need to return the unit next week, because it's not easily correctable, as besides that blue mismatch my Z4 is just a beauty !

Originally Posted by heja
I have now had my Z4 for three weeks and have been very pleased with its performance until yesterday. I have a dedicated home cinema with dark walls and total light control and have used Creative Cinema as my preferred setting. Yesterday I tried vivid setting an then I see pulsation in the transition from the black bands to the picture on 1:2.35 films.
It is visible all the time but most visible in light pictures. Up close it looks like its covering 1 ore two rows of pixels. When DVD player is paused the pulsation stops.

I have a Thosiba 350 DVD player and use its scaler til scale to 1280X720. The problem is the same in the other resolutions from the player. A friend have the same dvd player and I have connected it to my projector it with the same results.

Have anyone other experienced the same problem?

Is it the Projector (this is my 4. projector and I have not have this problem before (But not connected via HDMI before)) or the DVD player?

Is there possible to fix it in the settings of the projector?


Anybody experiencing the same problem? Help is much wanted! Its hard to not get any replies on my first post on the forum!

Originally Posted by heja
I have now had my Z4 for three weeks and have been very pleased with its performance until yesterday. I have a dedicated home cinema with dark walls and total light control and have used Creative Cinema as my preferred setting. Yesterday I tried vivid setting an then I see pulsation in the transition from the black bands to the picture on 1:2.35 films.
It is visible all the time but most visible in light pictures. Up close it looks like its covering 1 ore two rows of pixels. When DVD player is paused the pulsation stops.

I have a Thosiba 350 DVD player and use its scaler til scale to 1280X720. The problem is the same in the other resolutions from the player. A friend have the same dvd player and I have connected it to my projector it with the same results.

Have anyone other experienced the same problem?

Is it the Projector (this is my 4. projector and I have not have this problem before (But not connected via HDMI before)) or the DVD player?

Is there possible to fix it in the settings of the projector?


Anybody experiencing the same problem? Help is much wanted! Its hard to not get any replies on my first post on the forum!

I understand this is not an newbe forum since i still have not gotten any response....

Gary mentioned a few pages before (or was it in the tweak thread ?) that there might be a "factory mode" besides the "service mode", can anybody confirm this for the Z4 ?

I've asked this a couple different ways and I don't think I have gotten a definitive answer.

On paper, the Panny 900 is brighter than the Z4, but is a properly tweated\calibrated Z4 brighter than a tweated\calibrated 900?

Or is the brightness difference even noticable?

Thanks.

I've asked this a couple different ways and I don't think I have gotten a definitive answer.

On paper, the Panny 900 is brighter than the Z4, but is a properly tweated\calibrated Z4 brighter than a tweated\calibrated 900?

Or is the brightness difference even noticable?

Thanks.

I can't directly answer your question, never having seen the 900.

But the Z4 is more than bright enough in my room, which has white walls and ceiling, and no light control.

Obviously, the best picture is at night when it is dark, in fact it is phenominal. But, even at night, my wife has had a table liamp on near the couch and the picture remains vibrant.

I have watched during the day and the picture is fine for casual viewing such as sports, and that is at the tweaked settings. Bump up to the default Vivid mode and you will be quite pleased with the increased contrast and brightness of this mode, although colors are slightly off, but not enough for many folks to even notice--just us tweakers.

Shelly

I 2nd Shelly's statement. I have not seen the 900 either, but the Z4 is clearly brighter than my old z2. I don't notice having any problems with a small reading lamp being on while watching the Z4. There was a difference that bothered my with the Z2. I keep the projector lamp on A2 setting most of the time. I continue to be very impressed with the great HDTV and DVD picture from this machine.

Hey guys.. I bought my Z4 (Very happy).. but now i'm looking for a screen

The distance between my screen and my projector will be something around 10-14 feet... I want something between 92" and 120" (106" seem to be a perfect size)

Want kind of screen should I buy ? I have full control of the light in the room.

I live in canada and I dont have anymore money for now.. so I want something at good price.. lower than 400$ canadian.. (350 $US)

and Should I buy a grey screen, or white for the Z4.... or anything else ?..

Thx you

Another nod towards adequate light output. I watched HDTV last night with a reasonable amount of comfortable lighting and it looked fine. Direct lighting over the screen will be the biggest problem. When the lights are down there's more then enough horsepower. I have an 87" side/100" diagonal Da-Lite High Contrast Cinema Vision screen.

Want kind of screen should I buy ? I have full control of the light in the room.

and Should I buy a grey screen, or white for the Z4.... or anything else ?..

As I noted above I have the HCCV. Chose it for a bit of ambient light control when I'm not watching in complete darkness. I've placed samples of other materials from Da-Lite and Stewart against it and it's hard to tell how much of a benefit I'm getting from the light gray surface. I would have preferred the FireHawk but it's about C$1000 more which I couldn't stomach. The white sample I compared was a Stewart StudioTek 130 which was definitely brighter but I couldn't tell any problems with the blacks.

My bigger concern right now seems to be the texture of the HCCV screen. During panned shots I can see it and it's starting to bother me. There's also a very slight shimmer (which I also noticed in my FireHawk sample). When I was deciding on screen material my dealer indicated I could switch if need be and I may take him up on that. If I change it will be to a basic white (and untextured) material.

You can request free samples from any reputable screen manufacturer to compare. Just e-mail them directly. The samples are fairly small so it's difficult to fully appreciate the differences but at least it gives you a starting point.

Originally Posted by heja
I have now had my Z4 for three weeks and have been very pleased with its performance until yesterday. I have a dedicated home cinema with dark walls and total light control and have used Creative Cinema as my preferred setting. Yesterday I tried vivid setting an then I see pulsation in the transition from the black bands to the picture on 1:2.35 films.
It is visible all the time but most visible in light pictures. Up close it looks like its covering 1 ore two rows of pixels. When DVD player is paused the pulsation stops.

I have a Thosiba 350 DVD player and use its scaler til scale to 1280X720. The problem is the same in the other resolutions from the player. A friend have the same dvd player and I have connected it to my projector it with the same results.

Have anyone other experienced the same problem?

Is it the Projector (this is my 4. projector and I have not have this problem before (But not connected via HDMI before)) or the DVD player?

Is there possible to fix it in the settings of the projector?




I understand this is not an newbe forum since i still have not gotten any response....

Heja,

We all ask newbie questions. :-)

Apparently nobody has seen this problem or knows what is happening.

Have you gone back to your original settings on the projector? Did that solve the problem? Have you adjusted the panel settings?

Is it a good screen because its seem to be a good price compared to my local dealer...

Elite EZ Frame
Grey High Contrast..

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5844471685&sspagename=ADME:L:RTQ:CA:1

Carada sells great screens for a great price and they will make any custom size you want no charge! They have white, brilliant white, and grey available. They also have 2 types of frames. One is bigger and more heavy duty than the other. I've dealt with them and I can't imagine better customer service.

Heja,

We all ask newbie questions. :-)

Apparently nobody has seen this problem or knows what is happening.

Have you gone back to your original settings on the projector? Did that solve the problem? Have you adjusted the panel settings?

Thanks for the response!

The problem is only visible in the "lighter" modes of the projector. I assume it is apparent in the other modes also, but not visible because the picture is darker. I have not tried to adjust the panel settings i will try when i come back home from my christmas vacation tomorrow. I will also try a DVD player from anoter producer to see if it is the player making the problem.

Well, I hooked my Z4 up last night after recieving my sceen from FedEx yesterday.

I have a 110 Carada brilliant white, the PJ is shelf mounted from 21.5 feet away. Im using a Denon 2910 DVD player with a DVI to HDMI cable.



Question, how much does the distance of the PJ from the screen have to do with picture quality. The picture seemed to lack "pop"....for lack of a better word. It was kinda washed out in a completly light controlled room. I previously owned an IF7200......that thing was a light canon. The picture looked almost 3D. The fan noise was horrific, but thats another story.

Would moving the PJ closer to the screen give me more picture intensity?

Hi,

I got my Z4 and I'm wondering one thing. When I change the lamp mode (eco, normal, A1, A2) I cannot see any difference in the image. Is something wrong? At least with the Z1 I could easily see and hear the difference.

Lofty, moving the PJ closer should brighten the image because you'll be using less of the zoom range on the PJ. Using zoom, like in an SLR camera, reduces light input (output in this case). Try it and see if it makes a difference for you.

Well, I hooked my Z4 up last night after recieving my sceen from FedEx yesterday.

I have a 110 Carada brilliant white, the PJ is shelf mounted from 21.5 feet away. Im using a Denon 2910 DVD player with a DVI to HDMI cable.



Question, how much does the distance of the PJ from the screen have to do with picture quality. The picture seemed to lack "pop"....for lack of a better word. It was kinda washed out in a completly light controlled room. I previously owned an IF7200......that thing was a light canon. The picture looked almost 3D. The fan noise was horrific, but thats another story.

Would moving the PJ closer to the screen give me more picture intensity?

What picure mode did you use?

I find that Creative Cinema lacks the "punch" although it has best color rendition out of the box and is the picture mode that reviewers seem to use. And it is the first of the default Picture modes so is the first one you will see.

Try the Living setting and then tweak it with ROne's Living settings found in the Z4 tweak thread.

Shelly

Hi,

I got my Z4 and I'm wondering one thing. When I change the lamp mode (eco, normal, A1, A2) I cannot see any difference in the image. Is something wrong? At least with the Z1 I could easily see and hear the difference.

I also did not at first see any changes when toggling through the lamp setttings, but do see the slightest of differences now. But because the changes I see are so subtle, I keep all of my tweaked User settings at the lowest lamp setting to get the most life out of the lamp.

Shelly

What picure mode did you use?

I find that Creative Cinema lacks the "punch" although it has best color rendition out of the box and is the picture mode that reviewers seem to use. And it is the first of the default Picture modes so is the first one you will see.

Try the Living setting and then tweak it with ROne's Living settings found in the Z4 tweak thread.

Shelly
Living with ROne's settings definitely has more snap and contrast ratio. But depending on the movie it may be too much.

Thanks....Ill give it a try. What I hate about moving it closer is that I'll have to cieling mount it.......what a pain.

What settings would you reccomend? I see that Rone's settings are for a HDMI out from his HTPC.

Would it be different from my Denon DVD player?

Unfortunatly we don't have any settings yet for the z4 calibrated with component inputs. Hopefully by someone with an oppo because a lot of us seem to have that combo.

I've been using rsone's living settings via HDMI from the oppo, but the only difference is changing the HDMI level to L1 instead of L2. I found i lost to much black detail with it on L1 coming from the dvd player.

All of my oppo settings are set to default with Truelife and CSS to off

I've been using rsone's living settings via HDMI from the oppo, but the only difference is changing the HDMI level to L1 instead of L2. I found i lost to much black detail with it on L1 coming from the dvd player.

so does L1 still look better even though it loses "much black detail" from Oppo?

Thanks....Ill give it a try. What I hate about moving it closer is that I'll have to cieling mount it.......what a pain.
Upside is it's out of the way and not as easily blocked by people walking by. Downside is, aside from the install process , you need to by a mount. I've also read the fan is noisier when the unit is upside down. Try moving it forward as an experiment to see if image improvement outweighs trade-offs before you commit.

Well, I just table mounted it briefly to try it out. I Put the PJ as close as I could considering the size screen I have. Its almost 10 feet closer.

The picture vibrance almost doubled.....its like a different projector. Twice the brightness and contrast. Much more vivid with a whole lot more punch.

I guess everyone could benefit from moving thier PJ as close as they can.

Hey lofty, way to go! Actually that’s what I had to do with mine. I had to settle for a ceiling mount at 12.5feet for a 123inch screen. Unfortunately that seems to be how the optics inside these front jps works. All the lamp iris, lens iris and auto iris can control is the amount of light BEFORE its hitting the LCD panel, the only thing you can do to alter the amount of light after the image is formed is to change the zoom. With LCD panel leakage you just can’t have more than -30 lens iris to get a decent black level. The ceiling mount is indeed pretty noisy although you can tweak it out by following the Z4 tweak thread. But I figured if my Z4 was being overcooled, I could probably live with a little more noise. It seems louder projectors have fewer heat related problems. Jim

Any one here use a Zenith 318 with the Z4? I am having issues where the unit seems to be having sync issues on all resolution with component video.

Thanks jz....if the fan was twice as loud as it is now, it would still be less than half as loud as my IF7200 was.

Also, the fan noise is a low rumble, much less annoying. My IF had a great picture but the fan was a whiney squeal almost.


Hated it.

Any one here use a Zenith 318 with the Z4? I am having issues where the unit seems to be having sync issues on all resolution with component video.

I'm using an LG 7832 which I believe is the same as the Zenith 318 and have no problems. I have it connected to the Z4 with 40' of Belden cable from Blue Jeans Cable.

Is the start up screen out of sync as well?

Go the Carada way, you deserve a premium quality screen for a budget price.

Get their Brilliant White in the higher end trim, ie thicker crushed velvet covered duraluminum frames, you'll love it. The reason i recommend brilliant white is because pretty much all reviewers of Caradas agree on this and also my PLV-Z3 loves it with its slightly lower lumen output.

Have the Carada Brilliant White (thicker frame, higher end) in 110" size. Throwing PLV-Z3 from 22 ft. Beautiful HD on 16 channels from Dish/Voom.

Bob.....youre throwing from 22 feet?

I tried from 21 with my Z4 and the picture was washed out and unwatchable.

I have the exact same screen as you.

Even from 12 feet, the picture is no where near as bright and vibrant as my IF 7200 was.

My basement is almost complete and I have semi-designed the theater area around the settings input on projectorcentral for the Sanyo Z4. Basically, I plan on buying a Z4 and DaLite Cinema Contour Series 110" diagonal screen. The settings showed that a maximum throw of 22.1' and a screen with a gain of 1.3 to 1.5 would suffice. I plan on purchasing the DaLite with the Cinema Vision finish, which has a 1.3 gain. Now, I put a built-in in the rear wall of the theater area for the projector that is exactly 22.1' from the screen. From what I am reading here, that may be too far for a 'WOW' image. Although mounting it closer is not a problem, it would throw off the asthetics of the room and I'd have to buy longer cables because I put built-ins in the rear of the room for the audio / video equipment as well. Any input from folks who have mounted the Z4 at or near it's maximum throw distance would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jerry

If the distance from the screen affects overall brightness of the image, then why does the formula for screen briteness in FL not include this? I don't think the distance from the screen matters. You are essentially taking the lumen output and focusing it over a cone that covers the screen. If you are far away, the cone is narrower. If you are close the cone is wider.

FL = lumen output X screen gain / area of screen

Dick, I dont know.....math was never my forte.

Ill just tell ya that from 21 feet my picture looked horrible.

From 11 feet, it looks much brighter and vibrant.

Dick, the calculator doesnt take into consideration the lens speed (this is shown as F2.0-3.5 for example). If you read about lenses in photography you will notice that as you zoom, the speed of the lens affects the light input. Such is the case with projectors, the light output is reduced when zoom is used even after you take into account the distance and viewing size.

If the distance from the screen affects overall brightness of the image, then why does the formula for screen briteness in FL not include this? I don't think the distance from the screen matters. You are essentially taking the lumen output and focusing it over a cone that covers the screen. If you are far away, the cone is narrower. If you are close the cone is wider.

FL = lumen output X screen gain / area of screen

Dick, you are right. This topic has been debated ad nauseum in other threads. :rolleyes:

Maybe it has....Im rather new to this forum.

However, it doesnt change the fact that I saw almost double the picture brightness and intensity from when I moved the PJ from 21 feet to around 11 feet.

Its not just me imagining it.

My girl friend, whom really doesnt know her butt from her elbow regarding home theater, wasnt impressed at all when she saw the image from the Z4 when it was at the original distance.

When I moved it to where its out now, she was amazed at the difference.

If you'd like, Ill take some screen shots tonight to show the difference.

Its a different projector.

I wished you were right. Moving the PJ closer means I have to ceiling mount it. I wasnt looking forward to the hassle of that.

Lofty, reading your post makes me happy I'm placing my PJ close to the minimum distance. I would really love to see some screen shots. Please post them ASAP. I'm really close to finally pulling the trigger. I have to decide between the Z4 and the Epson 550.

Im not Happy with the color of this pic....I havent calibrated the unit yet.....been too busy with installing everything.

But you get the idea.

http://images9.fotki.com/v184/photos/2/25033/1020682/gandalf-vi.jpg

http://images14.fotki.com/v250/photos/2/25033/1020682/DSC03282-vi.jpg

http://images14.fotki.com/v247/photos/2/25033/1020682/DSC03301-vi.jpg http://images12.fotki.com/v253/photos/2/25033/1020682/DSC03305-vi.jpg

If this information has been posted, well, just ignore it. Otherwise I would like to pass on to those interested that the Cine4Home site has made some information available in english - one of the two reviews up is on the Z4, the other is the Mitsubishi HC3000. Hopefully we will see some other tests up soon - a shootout between the two mentioned and the Epson 550, Panansonic AE900 and Hitachi TX200 would be nice.

My basement is almost complete and I have semi-designed the theater area around the settings input on projectorcentral for the Sanyo Z4. Basically, I plan on buying a Z4 and DaLite Cinema Contour Series 110" diagonal screen. The settings showed that a maximum throw of 22.1' and a screen with a gain of 1.3 to 1.5 would suffice. I plan on purchasing the DaLite with the Cinema Vision finish, which has a 1.3 gain. Now, I put a built-in in the rear wall of the theater area for the projector that is exactly 22.1' from the screen. From what I am reading here, that may be too far for a 'WOW' image. Although mounting it closer is not a problem, it would throw off the asthetics of the room and I'd have to buy longer cables because I put built-ins in the rear of the room for the audio / video equipment as well. Any input from folks who have mounted the Z4 at or near it's maximum throw distance would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jerry

Hey Jerry. First off congrats on getting the Z4...you'll love it. I have read the debates about this issue. Some have concluded mounting distance doesn't mattter within the range, but people I respect very much in this industry who I know personally, have told me different. Here is what they said ( I won't take credit for this info :) ) While on paper, if doing a formula, it may make no difference, however, there are other variables that the formula doesn't take under consideration. No lense at this quality level can be consistant at all zoom ranges. You'll get some distortion at the extremes. It is similar to camera photography. The best image usually comes in the middle of the zoom range, not the extremes. Mounting at it's maximum throw distance (especially at such lengthy throws) you won't get the maximum punch the projector can provide, even in total light control. In addition to lense distortion, light going to be different over the range, plus the image needs to go through more 'air' which is filled with things such as dust, etc....all of which can change the end results. If you are in total darkness, the max might be 'ok', but I'm guessing you will see some impact on performance (can't say for sure but it's a good bet). I have a Da-Lite Permwall High Contrast Cinema Vision (it's 1.1 gain) & I'm about 14' from the screen which is 106". From 22', more gain might be better, but if you do move the Z4 closer, I'd go to the HC Cinema Vision as it'll provide better black levels & the 1.1 gain is more than sufficent at 16'. Viewing angle is a bit better too.

Lofty, thanks for posting those. I think I'm leaning toward the Sanyo. Maybe I'm not as much of a videophile as others on this site, but I think the pics I've seen of the Z4 look great. I hear so many problems and so much criticism. If I have a very sharp and bright picture, with good color, I will be thrilled. Just the fact that your watching a 96 or 100 inch screen is pretty amazing to me.

Lofty, what settings are you using? Those shots look excellent. I'm using ROne's from the tweak thread and I'm finding it too contrasty and harsh. The shot of Gandalf looks more natural then what I'm getting. Likewise the closeup eye shot (what flick is that).

While I'm thinking of it, can you reference the chapter/time for the Lord of the Rings scene?

Im sorry, I never bothered to write down chapters and times.

The bottom two pics are from "The Island". The close up of the eyes is from the scene where Ewen McGregor puts a moth into a bottle. The Gandalf scene is from ROTK when Gandalf is watching the fire shoot out of Minas Morgul.

As far as settings, I used Video Essentials to get me in the ballpark and adjusted to taste from there. The Gandalf pic I wasnt finished tweaking....it looks better now.

I tried Rones settings and the picture looked horrible.....VERY red and grainy. It had to have something to do with my DVD player or something. Im using a Denon 2910 with a DVI/HDMI cable set to 720P and I think his settings were for HDMI via a HTPC.

I'll write the settings down and PM them to ya if youd like.....maybe you'll like them.

My Z4 is 22', wall mounted and looks great on my 92" diag Carada. I wouldn't be too concerned with this short throw issue.

fwiw, the Iscan Pro will deliver beautiful 480p - if that is all the Z4 needs to scale up to the 720p, the Pro is a nice solution, can be found in the neighborhood of 2 bills used. from what we are being told, both above and on PC, that should do the trick. 'course, it WOULD be nice to actually see one of the little buggers....;)

Has anyone tried using the Iscan Pro with the Z4? If so, was it enough to overcome its de-interlacing issues?

I'm doing the 'classic' comparison between the Z4 and the Panny AE900 and starting to lean towards the Z4 but the de-interlacing item bothers me. However, I've got an Iscan Pro since my current 2000 model RPTV had scaling issues as well. Will the Iscan Pro getting things to a good 480p be enough or is it really worth another $1K to get the newer Iscan? (which could sink my chances of getting this whole thing past the SO...)

Does anyone know if I will be able to mount the Z4 on a shelf BEHIND my rear wall(through a float glass window)? Or will I need to mount it upside down from the ceiling?

Does anyone know if I will be able to mount the Z4 on a shelf BEHIND my rear wall(through a float glass window)? Or will I need to mount it upside down from the ceiling?

Assuming you have a large hole cut in the window, you could project through the hole with the Z4 upright sitting on a shelf although again there is the issue of throw distance. You'd have to have it right up against the hole as well to assure the image is unimpeded to the screen. I wouldn't think going through the glass would work as it would distort the picture. Is that the setup you are talking about?

The close up of the eyes is from the scene where Ewen McGregor puts a moth into a bottle. The Gandalf scene is from ROTK when Gandalf is watching the fire shoot out of Minas Morgul.

I tried Rones settings and the picture looked horrible.....VERY red and grainy. It had to have something to do with my DVD player or something. Im using a Denon 2910 with a DVI/HDMI cable set to 720P and I think his settings were for HDMI via a HTPC.

I'll write the settings down and PM them to ya if youd like.....maybe you'll like them.
I thought those eyes looked familiar!

I'd appreciate your PM'd settings if you don't mind. ROne's settings are very much in the ballpark for me on HD and select DVD material. But I find they can be too contrasty. Grain can be a problem as well (although not at 2x seating or further, which is the second row; 1.5x at the first row can be a little close, reviews have been generous). Don't know if it's the settings so much as variability in source material and the Z4 being very sensitive to that. I'm running a Toshiba SD-9000 interlaced DVD player via component into an iScan HD+, and then from there via HDMI/DVI to the Z4 at 720p. Z4 is ceiling mounted firing from about 17' onto an 87" wide/100" diagonal Da-Lite HCCV screen.

Has anyone tried using the Iscan Pro with the Z4? If so, was it enough to overcome its de-interlacing issues?

I'm doing the 'classic' comparison between the Z4 and the Panny AE900 and starting to lean towards the Z4 but the de-interlacing item bothers me. However, I've got an Iscan Pro since my current 2000 model RPTV had scaling issues as well. Will the Iscan Pro getting things to a good 480p be enough or is it really worth another $1K to get the newer Iscan? (which could sink my chances of getting this whole thing past the SO...)
I'm using the iScan HD+ and there are no deinterlacing issues running an older (but excellent) Toshiba SD-9000 player via component then scaling up to 720p. Without a quality external scaler or scaling DVD player the Z4 is pretty bad. Worse considering how prevalent good scaling techology is these days.

I think the big deal with the latest iScan is a whack of DVI/HDMI inputs. Otherwise the core scaling technology should be primarily the same. And you are able to upgrade the firmware on your Pro. To fork over the extra grand opens up new projector choices for you unless there are some deal breaker reasons you want the Z4 (mine was lens shift). The thing I like about the iScan solution (would have bought it regardless of projector choice) is the single cable run to the projector, and the ability to handle multiple sources that will change over time.

Assuming you have a large hole cut in the window, you could project through the hole with the Z4 upright sitting on a shelf although again there is the issue of throw distance. You'd have to have it right up against the hole as well to assure the image is unimpeded to the screen. I wouldn't think going through the glass would work as it would distort the picture. Is that the setup you are talking about?


Yes it is, throw distance is not a problem, I am at about 15' for a 100" diag screen. The hole is cut out already at about 6" down from the ceiling. The glass that I was planning to use is Float Glass (http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatalog/displayproduct.cfm?productID=1919&search=1) that others have used to buld hush boxes.

Does anyone know if I will be able to mount the Z4 on a shelf BEHIND my rear wall(through a float glass window)? Or will I need to mount it upside down from the ceiling?
What are the reasons behind this? You will be stretching its throw capabilities unless your room is pretty shallow, and on any projector running at the extremes is not the best solution if you can avoid it.

Noise? It's a quiet projector that only makes itself known on the quietest scenes and/or when you're listening for it. Others have compared the fan noise and found it to be slightly louder when mounted upside down but even still it's not a big issue. I sat right under it this evening watching Las Vegas and CSI: Miami in HD and it never bothered me.

Out of site, out of mind? I can appreciate that perspective, which is why I chose the Z4 in large part for its useable lens shift range. I have mine ceiling mounted as flush as the bracket will allow, which leaves it about 17" up from the top edge of a 100" diagonal screen. It's centered on the ceiling so a little horizontal shift is used as well. There is zero bowing or distortion, at least none that I can see or that shows itself in normal viewing.

With the work that would be required to properly mount the projector behind a wall, and ensuring you're getting top quality clear glass to minimize any distortion, may not actually pay off.

Incidentally, for IR control I ran an emitter from my Home Theater Master MRF-300 base station (using an extension from adjacent equipment room) and it works great. No worries about line of site. If you choose to go behind the wall this is an excellent solution. The extension cable I bought is from Smarthome and it's 50' or something ridiculous like that. Standard 1/8" phono male/female to receive a conventional IR emitter plug. The HTF MRF-300 (as an example) uses this standard connector; their MRF-250 uses proprietary so you would need an adapter plug.

I'm using the iScan HD+ and there are no deinterlacing issues running an older (but excellent) Toshiba SD-9000 player via component then scaling up to 720p. Without a quality external scaler or scaling DVD player the Z4 is pretty bad. Worse considering how prevalent good scaling techology is these days.

I think the big deal with the latest iScan is a whack of DVI/HDMI inputs. Otherwise the core scaling technology should be primarily the same. And you are able to upgrade the firmware on your Pro. To fork over the extra grand opens up new projector choices for you unless there are some deal breaker reasons you want the Z4 (mine was lens shift). The thing I like about the iScan solution (would have bought it regardless of projector choice) is the single cable run to the projector, and the ability to handle multiple sources that will change over time.

I guess I'm being dense here but will the Z4 have any issues with a 480P signal coming from an old pro or does it really have to get a 720p input to get a good picture? From what I can see the Z4s issues are really around 480i input so I'm hoping that my exisiting Iscan will work out until I can look at other improvements later on.

480p is fine, its 480i source thats can be a problem, but if you have a digital STB outputting at least 480p that takes care of that and 480p DVD player takes care of DVD.

I've been using a panny 480p for 3 years and was curious if the new 720p/1080i upconverts were any better, so i picked up a panny s77 upconvert dvd player and a/b'd with my 480p player and there was virtually little difference between 720p/1080i upconvert on HDMI and 480p on component. You really had to concentrate and look for likely image differences to detect any difference, and it was quite small to the point of being immaterial. This is likely true because the z4 is likely upconverting the 480p to 720p , so theoretically its projecting 720p in both cases, just different upconverts along the way.

Bottom line, not worth the $250 for me to spend on upconvert DVD player, 480p does the same job, i'll save $ for HD player when they arrive, the upconverter is going back. Not all 480p players are created equal though, your mileage may vary.

I guess I'm being dense here but will the Z4 have any issues with a 480P signal coming from an old pro or does it really have to get a 720p input to get a good picture? From what I can see the Z4s issues are really around 480i input so I'm hoping that my exisiting Iscan will work out until I can look at other improvements later on.
Oops. Forgot that the Pro doesn't output 720p. I'll try and remember to set my HD+ to 480p output later on to see if there's any appreciable difference. Strangely the Z4 seems to handle deinterlacing and scaling of 1080i to 720p with little problem. I've compared both settings on my HD satellite receiver (Dish Model 942 in US, Bell Model 9200 in Canada) and I'm hard pressed to notice any improvement on program material. The menus look sharper when set to 720p, but otherwise I can't pick out obvious improvements. Which is good in my situation as I'm splitting the HD signal to my rec room RPTV (using the very cool Audio Authority 9870 system (http://www.audioauthority.com/index.php?ret=http://www.audioauthority.com/9870wn.php), works as advertised to deliver HD video and digital audio via a pair of CAT-5 cables) which will not accept 720p.

Lofty / Jay Mitchosky
Is there a way you could post the settings that you discussed. I tried ROnes as well and I'm still trying to decide on what looks good versus great. Txs,
J

Im sorry, I never bothered to write down chapters and times.

The bottom two pics are from "The Island". The close up of the eyes is from the scene where Ewen McGregor puts a moth into a bottle. The Gandalf scene is from ROTK when Gandalf is watching the fire shoot out of Minas Morgul.

As far as settings, I used Video Essentials to get me in the ballpark and adjusted to taste from there. The Gandalf pic I wasnt finished tweaking....it looks better now.

I tried Rones settings and the picture looked horrible.....VERY red and grainy. It had to have something to do with my DVD player or something. Im using a Denon 2910 with a DVI/HDMI cable set to 720P and I think his settings were for HDMI via a HTPC.

I'll write the settings down and PM them to ya if youd like.....maybe you'll like them.

Lofty / Jay Mitchosky
Is there a way you could post the settings that you discussed. I tried ROnes as well and I'm still trying to decide on what looks good versus great. Txs,
J
I also would like to see loftys settings as I have similar equipment.

Like I told Jay.....Im sure these arent a proper D6500.

I started with VE and went from there to get a picture that was a good compromise to my eyes.

My screen is a Carada brilliant white, 1.4 gain.

Im getting ready to paint the room a darker color so I might tweak the settings some more later.

The pictures a little washed out to my eys but when i back the brightness and gamma to where I like it, I loose shadow detail.

Again, compromise.

Hope they work for you.

I start from the "Living" pre set.


Bright = -11
Contrast +20
Color +5
Tint -2
red +3
green -2
blue +2
sharp -7
Gamma -4
lens iris 0
gamma b +1
gamma G 0
gamma R -1

thanks lofty will try tonight and report back.

Yes it is, throw distance is not a problem, I am at about 15' for a 100" diag screen. The hole is cut out already at about 6" down from the ceiling. The glass that I was planning to use is Float Glass (http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatalog/displayproduct.cfm?productID=1919&search=1) that others have used to buld hush boxes.

I think that would be ok. The only concern would be that the image will project down quite a bit right from the lense, so you'll really need to get the Z4 right against the glass. The lense doesn't stick out like on other models, so it's impossible to say if the throw will be impeded by the glass. I guess you'll have to try & if the bottom of the picture is clipped by the glass, you'll have to mount it without that glass somewhere else.

Why not leave the glass out entirely. You still won't hear the Z4 from behind a wall.

My z4 is directly above my head about 1 foot, and i can't hear it at all, even when there's no sound going.

My z4 is directly above my head about 1 foot, and i can't hear it at all...
Mine's flush to the ceiling so a bit louder easily lost in the background.

Why not leave the glass out entirely. You still won't hear the Z4 from behind a wall.


My initial intent will be to install without the glass and after fully setup and tweaked is to test it with the glass, if I am not happy with the results, I will not use it.

Im looking to get a Z4. Can someone explain the apparent problems with 480i and 480p signals. Im a newbie and this is a little beyond me.

Hi all;
Not sure if this is an appropriate spot to ask but...
I haven't been able to get my receivers on screen display to work on the sanyo PLV-Z4 (hence writing here). The receiver is a yamaha htr5590. It works on our old rear projection TV. To function its always required a second cable (ie in addition to the component you must have an s video or composite video from the receiver to monitor (source). I've tried this on the Z4 and get nothing. I've turned off the blue backround for no signal - i've tried even sourcing the s video directly - nothing.
Due to the popularity of yamaha (or my perceived popularity) I didn't think i was re-inventing the wheel and was hoping someone may be able to help. I've emailed both yamaha and sanyo and received no response. I've tried a search on the forumn but was unsuccessful. Thank you all for your time.

My z1 didnt like my on screen unless it had a signal on it before i switched the z1 to the resciever. The yamaha should have the on screen as monitor out, try runing a signal to the yamaha from a dvd player or a crappy vcr, that way there would always be a signal coming out of monitor out.

Thanks for the input. I'm actually already using the receiver to handle all my sources and send to the Z4. the receivers monitor out to the Z4 is through component cable.
I knew already from experience with the rear proj originally connected to the receiver that the component alone wont allow the on screen to work. Yamahas manual requires an additional cable out from the receiver to the monitor. this can be either an s video or composite video cable. never quite understood it. but when the TV is receiving its signal from the component it somehow gets the onscreen through the S video connect despite the TV not being set for that input.

When I couldnt get the z4 to respond i did also try looking right from the s video input (the yamaha manual does indicate you can do this too) but I get nothing here either.

Can different settings be saved on the USER 1 2 3 4 that are different for Component and HDMI?
eg. 4 different for component.

another 4 different foe HDMI?

nope, you only get 4 user settings total, spread across all inputs

Hey all-
I'm looking to get a Z4 to upgrade from my x1 but am wondering if the lens shift will be able to match the offset of the X1. I would like to not have to move my shelf (it's mounted on a DIY shelf on the wall in my apt. living room). I can't find any info on this and a search doesn't seem to produce the info I am looking for. If any more knowledgable people can help that would be great!

Hey all-
I'm looking to get a Z4 to upgrade from my x1 but am wondering if the lens shift will be able to match the offset of the X1. I would like to not have to move my shelf (it's mounted on a DIY shelf on the wall in my apt. living room). I can't find any info on this and a search doesn't seem to produce the info I am looking for. If any more knowledgable people can help that would be great!
There's a wide range of useable shift on the Z4. You get one full screen height vertically from neutral (center) position. Don't recall horizontal, and if you use both you get less of each. Mine is mounted flush to the ceiling which places the lens center about 17" above the top of my 100" diagonal screen. There is more then enough vertical shift to accommodate this, plus a little horizontal so the projector can be centered on the ceiling. There is no obvious bowing or distortion at this range.

The horizontal Lensshift is easy to describe: the projector can sit up to the far right or left corner of a 16:9 or 21:9 picture / screen
That's the biggest lensshift available imho....

Just ordered a z4. Will be projecting onto a 110" diag High Power. Sitting 14' away. Moderate light control during the day, complete at night. Do you think this screen size is too big?

Same size screen I have. If I had to do it over, I would have bought a smaller screen.

The Z4 is no light canon.

What kind of screen material is it?

I have a 110'' at 16' and I would have gone larger.