Also, has anyone tried the AE900 with any of the upconverting DVD players on the market?

I'm using it with an Oppo (which has the Faroudja chip that does the macroblock enhance) and haven't seen any macroblocking. I also tried a Bravo D2 I have, but the Oppo is much better at deinterlacing. It's a worthwhile upgrade over using 480i or p via component.

First time poster :) This board has been invaluable to me, and I'd like to thank everyone for taking the time to make this site such a wealth of information.

I'm about to pull the trigger on an AE900, my first FP. I've already ordered an Oppo DVD and a Panasonic xr55 receiver. Currently, my best set is a SD 27", which results in a pretty small image when watching widescreen. So, needless to say, I'm really looking forward to the FP experience. I've just finished a dedicated HT space in my basement, 20' x 20', light controlled, dark walls, etc. etc.

My question is about running an HDMI cable from the Oppo (or a switch, in the future) to the projector. Is 50' too far? 50' would allow me to run the video cable along some lowered crown molding (used for rope lighting) to the front of my room and would be perfect. 33' (10 meters) wouldn't be enough.

I've scoured the forums, and there are some vague opinions about whether that is too far, and vague recommendations to buy "good" cables. I'm aware that HDMI is digital, so it's pretty much all or nothing. Ultimately, I think it depends on your source and receiver. I think it's a pretty good bet that the Oppo will be a good source. Have to wait and see about my cable provider.

Does anyone have any experience running 50' of HDMI to an AE900? I've seen a number of posts indicating no problems with 25', but lengths greater than 25' can't be that rare. Thanks.

I am wondering the same thing. I need about 40ft. I haven't ordered the AE900 yet (in a few days I think) but already got a 50 ft HDMI cable and I hope it will work although I am really not sure about that. If it doesn't, I may have to change my setup and put the PJ on a shelf. Going fiber must be quite expensive. I think I have seen somewhere a DVI repeater, so maybe splitting the 50ft in 2 25ft cables with a repeater in the middle would work too.

I've scoured the forums, and there are some vague opinions about whether that is too far, and vague recommendations to buy "good" cables. I'm aware that HDMI is digital, so it's pretty much all or nothing. Ultimately, I think it depends on your source and receiver. I think it's a pretty good bet that the Oppo will be a good source. Have to wait and see about my cable provider.

Does anyone have any experience running 50' of HDMI to an AE900? I've seen a number of posts indicating no problems with 25', but lengths greater than 25' can't be that rare. Thanks.

I run a 50 foot bettercables HDMI to my Panny AE900 with no problems whatsoever. I highly rec. brad's cables at www.bettercables.com also an AVS sponsor.

Also my two dvd sources are Pioneer 59avi and OPPO, both running into an Iscan HD+.

Ron

Has anyone been able to view the 900 in the St. Louis area? If not, how about competitive models.

Please do. I'm looking to upgrade from a 4805 for the reasons you mention in addition to better saturation and a bigger image. I don't want to take a step back in any area of PQ, of course.

I have a 4805 in the gameroom, and I just put a AE900 in my beedroom. To me the picture on the 900 is better in every aspect. Also I currently don't have any screen setup for the 900, which is projecting a 84" image. The 4805 is a 92" high contrast grey screen.

If you use anywhere near the full vertical lens shift, there are some convergence issues that are noticeable with white text, but it's not much of an issue unless you sit close to the screen. I think I mentioned this in a previous post, but I recommend keeping the lens shift within the height range of the screen wherever possible.



Yea...I get a bowing effect on the bottom of the image with mine. A straight mask would solve this. But so many damn movies are in different aspects that it drives me crazy on how to create a SIMPLE mask. So now I just deal with it.

As a previous owner of a Benq 8700 I thought I would take the plung with this new baby! So far I am fairly happy exept I have a small problem when I chapter secarch a movie via HDMI I get this horrible purple flash through every search!! I am using a high quality Kimber HDMI cable so I dont think that is the problem as it never happened on the Benq DLP. Has anyone else come across this same effect or do you think I have a faulty PJ?
Cheers, Steve

I will have a 900 in tomorrow to replace my Z2, which is a pain in the ass to clean. I know the Pannys have better filters.

(I will be selling it... 600+ hours with an extra bulb never used on ebay... ) :)

Anyway, I know the 900 will be at least a noticable improvement in contrast and black levels over the Z2, which I generally ran with closed iris in low lamp mode. But the big thing I am looking forward to is smoothscreen. I sit only 10 feet back from a 106" screen and pixelation on large sections of color is noticable on the Z2.

Can't wait to see what the 900 brings. More info tomorrow night, in a direct comparison with a Z2 for those thinking of upgrading.

I just bought a 30" 1080i CRT from Samsung... the image is intensely good. If I can come even half way with a PJ I will be happy.

Take some pictures between the two...curious to see the difference between smooth screen and what it used to look like. My 900 is the first projector, it would be cool to see what the older technology used to look like on any level.

Can someone tell me what on the service menu what special and normal mean?

my Z2, which is a pain in the ass to clean

I taped some Electrostatic Hammock filter material (True Blue Company, LaPorte Indianna) over the air intakes in my Z2. Supposed to block dust, pollen, mites and smoke. 2 years never had dust on the pannels or had to replace the filter which looks as clean as new. I smoke.

More info tomorrow night, in a direct comparison with a Z2 for those thinking of upgrading

Looking forward to that. Saw the 900 at at a dealer, in a dark room, uncalibrated with Spiderman on a DVD player with component inputs and was underwhelmed. It did look great, but not significantly better than my Z2. When I got home and put the same movie on my Z2, I was not tempted to upgrade, even though I am a technojunkie. There did not seem to be enough of an improvement.

To for AE900U owners, was there a hole in your Panny shipping box when you received your new AE900U?

I got mine today from ProjectorPeople. It was double boxed. The outer box has a hole where the UPC Label should be. The inner box however is fine. Is that normal?

Thanks/King

Will the AE900 support this small viewing environment:

Viewer distance: 126" inches (distance from front wall to face of viewer)
screenwidth: 65"
Throw: 66" (distance from lens to wall)

Will it work out of the box in these constraints?

About the hole in box, weird...yea mine too.

gdemery,
My brother just bought a 700 and he also has just over 30 hours on it. He has no VB or blurring so you might have a bad pj, unless it's your signal. He has his connected to the Comcast HD DVR box.


I have used a few methods to determine my issue. First, I connected directly from my Comcast HD box to the pj, Next I connected from my dvd player to the pj, then I connected both into my Home Theater Rec and in all three cases I still had the same results.

I'm thinking of taking it back and getting either a new 700 or maybe a different pj all together. I'm leaning towards a different pj.

Thanks

To for AE900U owners, was there a hole in your Panny shipping box when you received your new AE900U?

I got mine today from ProjectorPeople. It was double boxed. The outer box has a hole where the UPC Label should be. The inner box however is fine. Is that normal?

Thanks/King


I had the exact thing happen to my AE-700 box. I thought it was weird. I wonder what the reason is? Anybody know?

I have a 4805 in the gameroom, and I just put a AE900 in my beedroom. To me the picture on the 900 is better in every aspect. Also I currently don't have any screen setup for the 900, which is projecting a 84" image. The 4805 is a 92" high contrast grey screen.

Thanks, SKH, appreciate that. I wonder if I could trouble you for a bit more detail, black levels, saturation, etc.? How did out-of-box color seem at the best settings?

flat purple-walls-ceiling-carpet
14 x 10 @ 74" diagonal home made screen using 2 pass blackout cloth-fckn eh... :)

Wow even with the lights on what a picture, crazy! A lot easier to get the lense focused up on the screen without a fight from the dirty little joystick. No filter, tweaks or adjustments, straight from the box using normal, so rich I wanted to stay up and watch movies all night. OSD menu has a new look a lot of the selections that were in the hidden service menu are now standard option to pick from. No VB no flicker adjustments for me at the moment, green will have to be adjusted. There is some new options to choose from in the service menu on the 900 which I didn't want to play with, they now have some type of lense or panel adjust <-- correct me if I'm wrong just below flicker adjustment above initialize in service menu.

Quote:
Originally Posted by King
To for AE900U owners, was there a hole in your Panny shipping box when you received your new AE900U?

I got mine today from ProjectorPeople. It was double boxed. The outer box has a hole where the UPC Label should be. The inner box however is fine. Is that normal?

Thanks/King




I had the exact thing happen to my AE-700 box. I thought it was weird. I wonder what the reason is? Anybody know?

My 900 was the same way. I assume it's just so they can scan the UPC barcode from the inner box.

DE

My 900 was the same way. I assume it's just so they can scan the UPC barcode from the inner box.

DE


dont you need the upc for the rebate?

dont you need the upc for the rebate?

Yes - I just cut it from the inner box.

DE

Hi all. I'm almost happy owner of AE900. Picture is outstanding and im still after a week just sitting and wondering how good the image is :) , yes it's my first pj btw. But there is a problem, something makes a quite bad sound on dark and very bright scenes, probably iris. Disabling dynamic iris helps of course but u can still hear it for some reason :confused: . Is there something wrong in my unit? or is it "feature"? I have read couple post concerning this somewhere. This is almost showstopper for me :(

-JaMiR-

Edited- No asking for pricing info Caspain ;)

Edited- I deleted the whole posting myself. :rolleyes:

A couple of q's for the present owners of AE900:

And finally who has a good price and return policy online store?

Thanks

This shouldn't be a surprise to someone who has been here for 5 yrs...we are not allowed to discuss prices other than MSRP. If we do, the thread could get closed.

Ron

Keep the price discussion out of this forum please.

Kysersose

I did not ask for a price just a good seller.

See the forum sponsors above...

Duh!

This shouldn't be a surprise to someone who has been here for 5 yrs...we are not allowed to discuss prices other than MSRP. If we do, the thread could get closed.

Ron

My statement is merely asking for a popular online retailer.
If recommending a dealer is not allowed then it must be noted.

I have been around and never by no means a fellow policed me and told me a posting was in violation. But then again I am a CRT forum guy and dealer recommendation is all over the place.

Having said that I do understand why asking for no advertising dealer's name over here is not popular. But editing a post of such content is beyond me.

YGM

I've been a member since August and have been reading like crazy to get the best I could. I originally was going to go with an Optoma H77 but I cannot get access to the tech because of my location. I don't know if I see rainbows and I will be having friends and family over alot and don't want to affect them either, so I went with LCD. My main uses will be HD Dallas Cowboys, HD, and Xbox360(HD). I got a Panny AE900U and a very good deal from an AVS sponsor with the rebate and a gift card. I also got the newest Oppo dvd player with Faroudja processing and upscaling to 720 or 1080.

Out of the box.

When I first hooked everything up, I was kind of concerned somehthing was wrong with the pj because the image didn't look very good. I figured out I was only getting a 480 signal. I have the pj and player hooked up via hdmi/dvi so you would think it would look pretty good right? For my taste the 480 signal was not very watchable, i'm sure if you calibrated the pj to it, it would probably look ok but it had alot of artifacts/noise and was very dark. Once I got the dvd player upscaling to 720, all my fears were laid to rest. This combination looks bad ass! Like a huge plasma! I don't have a screen yet so i'm projecting onto a white sheet at 110" and it still looks so good. I have the option to return this pj but I will not, for the price I paid and the image i'm getting, this cannot be beat. I played with the different factory picture presets and the "normal" setting looks good for most dvd's I looked at. I will be calibrating as soon as I get a screen and Avia, but for now i'm way impressed with what i'm getting out of the box.

This is my first pj so i'm only judging it from my own eyes and what i've seen before. The contrast is great, the black levels are great, the color is accurate and vivid. I looked at Star Wars, Monsters Inc, Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Robots, The Fifth Element, a Sesame Street dvd, and some Up In Smoke Tour concert footage. Everything I watched looks great except Sesame Street and The Up In Smoke tour. The transfer from film to dvd of Up In Smoke was not very good and you can tell it.

Now, Sesame Street, I know alot of you won't be watching these dvd's but I have 2 little ones and they were in the room when I set this up and I think this is very interesting to know. I'm going to address the iris, this was a concern to me when I was shopping and researching because I found out it can make the image go dark to light/light to dark. I maybe noticed it once or twice while watching normal movies but Sesame Street is the real kicker. Since the iris closes some when blacks are present you can really see this with the puppets that have black inside thier mouths. When they are talking, think about the black in thier mouths flashing very quickly. The whole image is bright and colorful and when they talk, the black appears and dissapears and the iris tries to compensate resulting in a strobing effect and the whole image flashes. This was very noticable. Like I said, I know most of you won't be watching this so it might not be a concern. I haven't even heard of the iris issue being as bad as I found so I thought I would share this to give an idea of what triggers it.

To sum it all up, the iris is not a deal breaker unless your a huge Sesame Street fan. The image rocks. I'm very impressed and I will be keeping this unit. Like I said, it looks like a huge plasma tv and I haven't even hooked up HD to it yet or Xbox360, calibrated it, or added a screen. I can't wait.

Chris

My statement is merely asking for a popular online retailer.
If recommending a dealer is not allowed then it must be noted.

I have been around and never by no means a fellow policed me and told me a posting was in violation. But then again I am a CRT forum guy and dealer recommendation is all over the place.

Having said that I do understand why asking for no advertising dealer's name over here is not popular. But editing a post of such content is beyond me.

YGM

My "policing" stems from a previous warning in this thread from madpoet telling members not to discuss prices. Other threads have been closed for price discussions. I don't want this thread to be closed. here is what madport said in his last post:

***********

Stop the deals/pricing posts now. Last warning.

__________________
-Madpoet

***********

Here is a stinky thread that discusses the policy entitled "Do Not Post Deals, Dealers, Or Street Pricing."

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=500886

Sorry if it offended you, but it now seems you were not aware of prevous warnings about dealer and pricing discussions. In my mind asking which dealers are offering good prices is another way to discuss prices. I now see that the mods have agreed with that.

I propose we get back to discussing the pros and cons of this projector

OK, back to discussing the projector. :) I just received it, set up, and have some initial thoughts in comparison to my Sanyo Z2. First, to address comments...

I taped some Electrostatic Hammock filter material (True Blue Company, LaPorte Indianna) over the air intakes in my Z2. Supposed to block dust, pollen, mites and smoke. 2 years never had dust on the pannels or had to replace the filter which looks as clean as new. I smoke.



Looking forward to that. Saw the 900 at at a dealer, in a dark room, uncalibrated with Spiderman on a DVD player with component inputs and was underwhelmed. It did look great, but not significantly better than my Z2. When I got home and put the same movie on my Z2, I was not tempted to upgrade, even though I am a technojunkie. There did not seem to be enough of an improvement.

That's a good idea, DenisT. But one shouldn't -have- to do that. I managed to keep it clean by doing it on a regular (too often) basis, but for difficult installations it is too much to ask. The extra filter is a good idea; kind of like a prefilter. (Which, incidentally, the 900 has in its air filter).

As for the rest, consider that I almost always ran the Z2 on eco setting to make the bulb last, and to maximize the blacks. I had the iris closed as far as it would go to maximize contrast/black levels.

I sit only 10 feet away from the screen, which is a 106" Carada Classic Cinema White (or whatever they call it). I have complete light control and the room is painted a dark navy blue. I am using a Denon 2910 via HDMI upscaled DVD player and a Comcast HD box via component. (and an Xbox 1 - apparently my Xbox 360 preorder will take longer than I thought but I digress.)

I always found a few bad problems with the Z2:

1) VB on and off and SDE. But in retrospect, much of the "vb" I might have been seeing at times was probably pixel structure. At my seated distance, SDE was subconsiously noticable. Sometimes, it was flat out noticable. Any movement or solid colors made it worse.

2) The bulb life (which I never had a problem with) was only 2000 hours on high. Still not bad, until you consider the fan noise at high was much too loud with the PJ sitting two feet over my head. It also sucked in more dust.

2A) Overall brightness of the Z2 was good, but the 900 is much better. Considering the age of the Z2's bulb, I still think it is considerably better. (800 vs 1100 lumens must count for something!)

3) The fan exhaust blew sideways, which in my installation was right into a speaker.

4) No HDMI, no PC VGA in (though this is a moot point since I use a DVI cable in my walls with (now) HDMI connectors on each end.)

5) And the most critical - crappy blacks/contrast. The Z2's contrast levels are not that good. I doubt the 900 gets its speced contrast numbers, but the auto iris does definitely make a big difference.

So I am selling the Z2 primarily for dust/exhaust and contrast issues. It is a very good unit, and a steal at the prices it is being offered at. That said, onto the 900.

My initial thoughts in no particular order:

1) Build of unit/Fan Noise/Filters/Connections:

The Panasonic is about the same as the Z2, but a couple of years of refinement have helped. The Panasonic has a manual lens cover, the Z2 had a flip down cover. I always left it open.

Fan noise is considerably less on the 900. In high lamp mode, it is roughly equal to the Z2's eco mode. Low lamp mode I cannot hear at all. When you shut the unit off, the fan blows at maximum to cool down the bulb for a couple of minutes.

Filtering is much better, for me anyway. The 900's filter is a combo "hepa" style/prefilter unit that fits snugly. There are only two entry points for air, one on the side and one on the back. Time will tell, however, in the long run.

The 900 has more connectors, and more modern ones (HDMI). There are PC (serial/VGA) inputs, HDMI w/HDCP, and two component.


2) Lens/lens shift

The Z2's lens shift is better, no doubt. The Z3 an Z4 must be similar. The 900's range is limited, and if you go to the extreme you see some bowing in the image. I am using some shift, but see no bowing. The locking mechanism on the 900 is nice, as the Z2's tended to bounce out of place when I was playing a loud soundtrack with a lot of bass.

The 2:1 lens is also nicer for those who have longer rooms. In my room, from a 10.5 foot distance, I get just under 106" comfortably.

3) "Smooth Screen"

The Z2 puts out a pixelated image at 10 feet seating distance, but longer distances would be fine. This caused my images to look very sharp, but too sharp as SDE was noticable.

The 900 is so good that you have to stare at it up close (less than an inch away) to see even where the pixels are. The pixel fill is amazing, and holds up even a foot away, never mind 10 feet. For those with short distances, the Panasonic's smooth screen tech is amazing. The image goes from computer-y to film like, much like my 1080i CRT downstairs.

The smooth screen doesn't take away detail from the image. Every pixel of info is still there, just packed well together. I tried to take pictures but my camera is not that good. Suffice to say if you have ever seen one of those Sony SXRD rear projector TVs (the 60 inchers) the pixel structure looks similar to what the 900 puts out up close, though the SXRD/LCoS still has an edge.

I think smooth screen may be some kind of convergence trick, because very close up convergence is a tad off.

4) Colors

Non calibrated 900 vs. calibrated Z2 - about the same, though the 900 seems to have a smoother range (10 bit color vs 8 bit?). I need to tweak the 900 a bit, but the Cinema modes have very good rendition out of the box.

The 900 has amazing color tweakability, which is important to note.


5) Contrast/Lumens

To my eye, without a doubt, the 900 has significantly better contrast in a light controlled room. With lights on, I saw significantly deeper blacks and overall better crisper contrast than I did with the Z2 no matter what the bulb setting. The difference is amazing. It is truly noticable. The image looks like a plasma and comes very close to my HD CRT. The level of contast you will see varies depending on the image, because the lamp and iris are dynamic. Some scenes with very bright parts combined with very dark parts will still have blacks that are not inky, but on the whole contrast is significantly (and in some cases, drastically) improved.

The lamp has more output at either level than the Z2 had when it was new. Online reviews of the 900 back up my recollections; the 900 has very good light output. That it can do so without killing the bulb is very nice, that it can do so and not kill contrast is even better.

The contrast combined with the smooth screen are the two most noticable differences one sees between the Z2 and the 900.

6) Interface/menu/remote

The Menu of the 900 finally gets away from the horrible circa 1989 camcorder look of the 700 and the 500. The Z2's menus look nicer, but are a bit more complicated. It is a draw, overall.

The Z2 has a nice countdown on the screen when the bulb warms up. I don't see that on the 900, then again I was focusing when the startup screen was on.

The Z2 allows you to set your own startup screen, which I miss with the 900.


7) Deinterlacing

I was not able to test this, but will run it through an HQV test disc for kicks.


>>Bottom line

This is an amazing device for the cost. The rebate makes the deal that much sweeter. If you are happy with your Z2, you don't need to change - you already have a very capable 720P HD projector. However, if you want significantly better contrast, higher light output that does not effect said contrast, a smoother much more film like image that doesn't remove image detail, and a solid build with good filtering and low fan noise, then the 900 is for you. It is worth the upgrade.

I had a bunch of reasons why the Z2 had to go, many of which were installation specific. The perceived value for me is therefore higher than others might see it for them. That said, I think Denis' experience with the uncalibrated unit was not the best one to show off this PJ in the best light possible.

I look forward to tweaking further with DVE and Avia.

The 900 is a winner.

-P

My "policing" stems from a previous warning in this thread from madpoet telling members not to discuss prices. Other threads have been closed for price discussions. I don't want this thread to be closed. here is what madport said in his last post:

***********

Stop the deals/pricing posts now. Last warning.

__________________
-Madpoet

***********

Here is a stinky thread that discusses the policy entitled "Do Not Post Deals, Dealers, Or Street Pricing."

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=500886

Sorry if it offended you, but it now seems you were not aware of prevous warnings about dealer and pricing discussions. In my mind asking which dealers are offering good prices is another way to discuss prices. I now see that the mods have agreed with that.

I propose we get back to discussing the pros and cons of this projector

I posted 5 questions in that post.
And all you had to say was a lucture on the last one. :rolleyes:

One more try to get some info.

Anyone:

Any dead pixel?
Any dead or defective on arrival?
Any gamma tweak feature?
Any HD and SD color menu selection?

Thanks

I keep hearing comments of the lens shift being better on the Sanyo's. In what application do you need any better lens shift? Are some people mounting the projector several feet off center of the room? I can understand a foot or two because of basement columns, etc.

One more try to get some info.

Anyone:

Any dead pixel?
Any dead or defective on arrival?
Any gamma tweak feature?
Any HD and SD color menu selection?

Thanks

No,

No,

Yes,

No (?) not sure on the last one, but if it is there it is not obvious.

I have noticed a thin black line at the top and bottom of the screen when there is a letterbox/black bars. It's inside of the black, on the image, about 1/8" from the bars on top and bottom. In between the fine line and black bars, the area is kind of highlighted or brighter than the rest of the image. Anyone see this or know the reason?

I was going to include a picture, but I guess I don't know how. Sorry

No,

No,

Yes,

No (?) not sure on the last one, but if it is there it is not obvious.

Thank you.

Today arrived mine! No VB, no dead pixels, no noise! Perfect unit!
Next week I'll connect my Maratz DV6600. Looks great! Batman's blacks are black!
I just need the Yamaha rx-v2600 to finifh my Home Cinema!

Lens/lens shift

The 900's range is limited, and if you go to the extreme you see some bowing in the image. I am using some shift, but see no bowing.


I think smooth screen may be some kind of convergence trick, because very close up convergence is a tad off.


-P


I think some have tried no lens shift and found that the convergence problem seems to stem from extreme use of the lens shift. I hadn't thought about slight bowing also related to the lens shift.

I've noticed a little of each of the above problems. I am going to remount my Panny to dead center of the screen. I hate to go through the hassle, but I'd rather spend the couple of hours doing so then to compromise the image.

Ron

Still looking for opinions on upconverting DVD players when paired with the 900. Specifically for macroblocking, thanks to the poster who said that the Opppo looked good. How about the Denon 1920? I'm still on the fence whether upgrading from my 480i only DVD player is worthwhile or not, but if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna get DVD-A and SACD at the same time.

Sam

Other than VB which has already been discussed extensively, does the AE900 have any noticable fixed pattern noise? I noticed quite a bit of it in pan shots back in the L300 and L500 days of LCD, but haven't seen a newer D5 model yet. I don't see it mentioned much in the reviews. Is this to say that it is basically non-existent these days? More or less prevalent than with the HS51?

ok, I shut off 1080i on the xbox and it comes up 480i/480p and 720 p correctly. I think it just basically comes down to the fact that even in 720p the text in the warriors isnt very sharp. When I view the initial movie even the whole paramount logo looks like the colors are misaligned. All other xbox games look a lot better, so maybe its just this one game.

I found instructions for the Cocast cable box, holding down select and setting it to output 720p. Now EVERYTHING is outputting 720p direct from the cable box, and not sening 1080i from those channels where its native and 720p from where those are native, like the bypass is supposed to, not sure whats up with that.

Sam

I can't wait to see real 720p games on the new xbox360! xbox doesn't look well projected with the pana900...

hi all, this thread has been great so far (been lurking for a while). looking forward to seeing photos of people's setups with the panny.

I'm new to projectors, and the AE900 will probably be my first purchase. I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on my planned room configuration for an AE900. The following is some detailed info about my location as a basis for my questions - if you don't care for reading a random person's room config details you may as well skip this post now, thanks.

Here are the stats:

Media room is 13ft wide, 18ft deep (+18 more feet = 36 ft total including nook/kitchen behind the media room in one continuous space). The ceiling is 9 ft up.

There is an L shaped shelf from the ceiling open towards the screen where a projector can sit up to 18 inches down from the ceiling, at a 15 foot throw.

My guess for viewing distances are a row of seats at 17.5ft and another at 12.5ft. Plus there will be plenty of casual viewing from the nook/kitchen area behind these primary seats.

The walls and ceiling in the media area (the first 18 feet of the room) are very dark, with darker carpet that also extends up the wall behind the screen. Lighter materials only begin back in the nook/kitchen area (the far 18 feet), where the same dark walls extend back from the media area, but the ceiling is light and there are hardwood floors and light kitchen cabinets etc.

There is total light control with various dimmers for all the lights everywhere, doors for the room entries and light blocking window coverings. No direct light will reach the screen. Ambient light will mainly come during casual viewing far back from the kitchen/nook while cooking/eating - and the dimmers can keep those lights at practical but reasonably low levels.


My questions:

(1) Does a 110 inch Firehawk seem like a reasonable screen choice given my room geometry and using an AE900? Particularly after calibration and after the bulb dims? I don't know how much to trust what projectorcentral's calculator says.

(2) Regarding screen material, the ambient light rejection properties of the Firehawk don't seem of much use to me, since most of my (controllable) ambient light will come from far far back rather than off axis. My reasons for using a Firehawk are just to enhance blacks, while getting some positive gain and get a good quality fixed frame construction. Could there be a more appropriate screen material choice for me though?

(3) At what point in the AE900's lens shift does bowing become an issue? I was thinking of setting up the 96x54 screen so that the top is aligned with the projector roughly 12-18 inches from the ceiling.

(4) How much minimum clearance is safe for circulation around the panny? My shelf has 18 inches of usable depth (the back side facing the kitchen/nook is closed with a removable panel to get at the projector from behind). Given the AE900 is about 11 inches deep, that gives about 7 inches clearance at the back. Safe?

(5) I've seen some discussion (can't find it now) that increasing the throw distance with the AE900 causes the "aperture" in the optics (independent of the iris) to change, resulting in less brightness. This is counter to my default assumption that fixing the screen size but varying the throw will not affect brightness, aside from how much hotspotting is apparent. Could anyone explain, quantify or refute this effect for me? Should I care with a 15 foot throw to a 110 inch screen?

cheers for reading all of this!

Could somebody suggest a cheap OTA ATSC tuner? I'm about to order and I'm gonna want to see HD content ASAP when it arrives. (I don't subscribe to Digital Cable or LSD (little silly dish).) I plan to build a HTPC with an ATSC tuner card (or two) in the near future but that may take months and I'm gonna need HD content in the meantime. I would ask in the HDTV hardware but I want this specifically for the AE900.

Other than VB which has already been discussed extensively, does the AE900 have any noticable fixed pattern noise? I noticed quite a bit of it in pan shots back in the L300 and L500 days of LCD, but haven't seen a newer D5 model yet. I don't see it mentioned much in the reviews. Is this to say that it is basically non-existent these days? More or less prevalent than with the HS51?

The PJ Central review mentions that the 900 exhibits less noise than the BenQ7700, and they had previously rated the 7700 as having very little picture noise. I'd like to think they were referring to all picture noise, including FPN.

What they fail to mention is why they had to go through 3 different projectors to write the review.

I think some have tried no lens shift and found that the convergence problem seems to stem from extreme use of the lens shift. I hadn't thought about slight bowing also related to the lens shift.


The bowing is definitely the lens shift because I can reproduce it.

As for the convergence, I set the lens dead center and I still saw that it was off. From a distance of, say, 1.5 feet it looks fine, but right up on the screen it isn't.

This is what makes me think somehow it is related to smooth screen.

I love the smooth screen... in short distance/large screen situations like mine it makes a HUGE difference.

I notice nobody is really talking about response time.. Is that because it is no longer an issue or have fixed pixel'ers just gotten used to the blurring in fast motion? I understand that times have improved but are they on par with CRT technology yet?

I have noticed a thin black line at the top and bottom of the screen when there is a letterbox/black bars. It's inside of the black, on the image, about 1/8" from the bars on top and bottom. In between the fine line and black bars, the area is kind of highlighted or brighter than the rest of the image. Anyone see this or know the reason?

I was going to include a picture, but I guess I don't know how. Sorry


I had the same problem with my AE900 and decided to return it to the dealer to have it investigated while I am on vacation: I will post the dealers explanation when I return home. I would be interested if anyone else on the forum has had a similar experience or know the cause of this anomaly.

Thanks to advice from chayto I have added images from LOTR Two Towers which demonstrates the problem.

Will the AE900 support this small viewing environment:

Viewer distance: 126" inches (distance from front wall to face of viewer)
screenwidth: 65" (or even less like 50-55")
Throw: 66" (distance from lens to wall)

Will it work out of the box in these constraints?

A previous post of mine referred to a cool-to-warm color shift from one side of the image to the other visible in black and white images, and that the 700 & 900 apparently share this problem. I see now that I misunderstood the wording in a post made prior to my comments. Given that, I have seen NO mention of this effect observed with the 900, and am only aware of its presence in the 700, including mine.

Of course, if any 900 owner discovers otherwise, I'd be interested to hear. I'd like to think Panasonic found a way around the problem.

Sorry for the error.

KongFan

I had the same problem with my AE900 and decided to return it to the dealer to have it investigated while I am on vacation: I will post the dealers explanation when I return home. I would be interested if anyone else on the forum has had a similar experience or know the cause of this anomaly. (I tried to attach an image, unfortunately it is too large and I do not have a proper photo imaging program on my laptop.)
drj2000, you may want to try the simple and free Image Resizer powertoy here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Not really. For a small room you want the PJ behind you, not in front of you! You won't stumble over the cables either, with it mounted behind you. Think BIG!

See the PJC projection calculator here: http://www.projectorcentral.com/Panasonic_Home-PT-AE900U-projection-calculator-pro.htm.

For the options you stated, the picture will be way too bright and way too small :eek:.

Since you stated that your head will be 10.5' from the screen, your room must be longer than that. Mount the AE900 on a shelf on the back wall, behind you, and adjust the zoom to give you an acceptable screen size (like a 92" diagonal - which is about right for a 10.5' viewing distance, 92" diagonal is 80" width :D ). That's what a friend of mine did for his small room, and it works great!

Greetings from der Schweiz,

I would just like to post my first impressions of my new AE900.
I hope this may be of some value to other newbies who are nearing that final
moment of decision of whether (or what) "to buy or not to buy".

(To the old-timers, please forgive my naive exhuberance and rather non-technical and entirely subjective observations).

First some background, however, so you have a frame of reference for my comments.

For the last 8 months I have been working nearly every weekend on a DIY
basement renovation project. During these long hours (especially sanding drywall mud!)
I had alot of time to dream about what that first movie would be like - what that first
impression would be. Would it live up to my expectations that have built up after nearly
two years of educating myself here at avs?? Would I immediately start seeing SDE, VB, FPN, 'peekaboo scan lines' or any of the other dreaded artifacts that I have learned about on these forums?

Several months ago I decided that the first show would be "The Magic of Flight" - WMV-HD format. I've watched this movie many times on my SOHO pc and find the photography to be incredible. With what I learned on the HTPC forum, I've even been successful in getting 5.1 sound off of the wmv-hd disk, over my HTPC and output through my surround sound receiver & speakers!!

The set-up for the pj is:
Throw 5.8 meters / 19.2'
Screen H 150 cm / 59"
W 267 cm / 105"
D 306 cm / 120"
Full light control (ie total darkness)
Walls, floor and ceiling are all slight cream / off-white in color
Screen: Not yet completed.
This first show was just projected on to the wall
- a newly finished / painted drywall!!
(I just couldn't wait!!)
Seating Distance 4.5 meters / 14.8'
Using about 50% of the available vertical lens shift.


Well, last Friday my new AE900 saw "first light". Direct out of the box, Cinema 1, bulb on high-power, no tweaks.

All I can say is - absolutely stunning! The picture was just simply gorgeous. Beautiful colours.
Clear, sharp and wonderfully detailed. The blacks, contrast and shadow detail to my (newbie) eyes are great.

SDE: I saw absolutely no SDE.

VB: During one or two brief moments, when there was an areal shot of the sky that
filled nearly the entire screen, I saw what perhaps was the slightest of VB and I mean slight. - I think I was really looking for it - after reading so much about it and seeing some
of the photo's that others have posted. Well, it only lasted for a moment before I was again totally absorbed in the movie, the sound, the full experience of my new HT.
It was almost like a relief "Oh , that's all. No problem".
I feel fortunate that, at least for the moment, it appears that VB is not a problem on this particular unit.

Noise: Very quiet! The fan noise from my supposedly "quiet" HTPC more then drowns out any small amount of fan noise coming from the AE900.

Over the rest of the weekend I watched "Jurassic Park", "Gladiator" and several more repitions of "The Magic of Flight" - including one time with my 4 year old son. Needless to say, he was amazed at the size of the picture. With wide open eyes he asked me "Daddy, how did you build this??". (Yesterday my wife picked up a "Bob The Builder" DVD for the boys. I can't wait to see their surprise when Bob is actually taller then both of them!!)

And my wife... she was really amazed. She really didn't have any idea of what to expect in terms of the quality of the picture. She knew how big the picture was going to be, knowing the layout of the room and my plans for everything - but other then that she had no clue. The few times she has seen a pj (in some of the big discount electronic stores)
the set-up was so bad that it left a rather poor impression. Well, there is no question now about my 'wisdom' in pursuing this little project!!

By the way, one thing that my wife *really* loves is seeing our digital photo's projected with the pj. Just for fun, after showing her one of the DVDs, I started up a slide show (just using Windows Explorer) of the digital photos on the PC from a few years ago when our boys were just babies. Well... this was a big hit with my wife!! Perhaps, even more so then the movie!! -- Just a hint for anyone with a wife/'significant other' that may not be entirely convinced of purchasing a pj.

So... "The Magic of Flight" and my new AE900 what a great and memorable inaugural show. At the moment I guess I am in that first time, newbie state of awe with my first projector - and I can't image being more happy then I am with the AE900.

-Moe

Wow, great maiden flight! Thanks for the read. :)

A previous post of mine referred to a cool-to-warm color shift from one side of the image to the other visible in black and white images, and that the 700 & 900 apparently share this problem. I see now that I misunderstood the wording in a post made prior to my comments. Given that, I have seen NO mention of this effect observed with the 900, and am only aware of its presence in the 700, including mine.

@kongfan:
Sadly, I'm one of those who can confirm that something similar (also) exists in my 900. I saw it last weekend while watching the, black and white, beginning of "the incredibles". I could clearly see a green tinge the left side of the image and a red tinge on the right.
Of course, once I noticed it I could also discern it while watching normal movies. On skintones, for instance, it is visible when a movie character is walking from left to right. A real bummer and a bit distracting..

But frankly, I don't know anything about this phenomenon. Could you elaborate a bit further on what causes it and how to get rid of/ minimise it?

Sadly, I'm one of those who can confirm that something similar (also) exists in my 900. I saw it last weekend while watching the, black and white, beginning of "the incredibles". I could clearly see a green tinge the left side of the image and a red tinge on the right.
Of course, once I noticed it I could also discern it while watching normal movies. On skintones, for instance, it is visible when a movie character is walking from left to right. A real bummer and a bit distracting..

But frankly, I don't know anything about this phenomenon. Could you elaborate a bit further on what causes it and how to get rid of/ minimise it?

It sounds like your panels are misaligned and the green panel is offset to the left while the red is offset to the right. If you display a sharp black and white image such as a PC desktop and walk up to the screen, you should be able to identify if this is the case. Sadly, if the panels are misaligned there are no setting tweaks to fix it, you would need to send it in for service. I'm curious how badly misaligned they have to be before the warrantee would cover it. Also the optics can sometimes exagerate this based on the zoom and possibly lens shift. You might play around with that as well to see if the problem worsens or improves as you shift it.

Could somebody suggest a cheap OTA ATSC tuner? I'm about to order and I'm gonna want to see HD content ASAP when it arrives. (I don't subscribe to Digital Cable or LSD (little silly dish).) I plan to build a HTPC with an ATSC tuner card (or two) in the near future but that may take months and I'm gonna need HD content in the meantime. I would ask in the HDTV hardware but I want this specifically for the AE900.

I started with a Samsung SIR-T151. These are on ebay now for under $100.

The interface is crappy and they run really hot, but the reception is awesome for the money.

DE

Edit: Best output would be via component - no HDMI.

Wow, great maiden flight! Thanks for the read. :)



@kongfan:
Sadly, I'm one of those who can confirm that something similar (also) exists in my 900. I saw it last weekend while watching the, black and white, beginning of "the incredibles". I could clearly see a green tinge the left side of the image and a red tinge on the right.
Of course, once I noticed it I could also discern it while watching normal movies. On skintones, for instance, it is visible when a movie character is walking from left to right. A real bummer and a bit distracting..

But frankly, I don't know anything about this phenomenon. Could you elaborate a bit further on what causes it and how to get rid of/ minimise it?

Could it be a problem with the cables (component or HDMI)? You could try another DVD player, or use the composite input (the picture might not look as nice, but it the colours should be aligned in time)...

At least that is an easy test to try to see if it is the optical or electical area. You might also try to see if the On-screen display menus show the effect.

Just wanted to chime in and report that i received my 900u yesterday.
FWIW

Viewing SW EPIII and LOTR Two Towers

Whisper quiet im sitting right next to it and cant hear it.

No SDE at 11 ft with a 100 image on the white drywall.

It runs hot though it basically is warming the room!

I have it set to cinema 1 and low lamp although i will probably switch to high tonight.

I have seen various LCD projectors (Hitachi PJTX100 Infocus Screen play 5000) this is the best of those.

Having said that i do think the image is a bit soft (smoothscreen) Im using the Zenith DVB 318 but I also have a Panasonic RP56 that i will test tonight.

For me anyways the lenshift was not as effiecient as i really wanted but i can adjust for that.


now for the screen

which one? I assume the greywolf?


Any thoughts on this screen for the PJ


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1204576&CatId=0

Ok, I now have close to 90 hours on the lamp and the panny is still running great! However, what I don't see is anyone talking about weight gain. After 90 hours of pure enjoyment watching every dvd and my neighbors, neighbors dvd's, my ass needs to get some exercise. So all who are just loving their 900 make sure you get out and get some exercise!

Need to get out of the house....is that popcorn?


Steve.

Claus-- wow, i never saw that PRO level calculator. I see your point--too bright, too small, too close. Question: if back wall mounting is a no-no, do you know of either another projector that might be more appropriate for this setup, or do you think i would be better off with a plasma or rear projector tv?

For the options you stated, the picture will be way too bright and way too small :eek:.


Have to disagree on the size issue. I sit at 10.5' with a 60" screen and it is
fine. I've tried with a larger screen, and fast action or sports are a little too
dizzying for my taste.

Actually my screen is 2.35, and I zoom for 2.35 content. At ~10.5', my 73" wide
screen is great. It also looks fine with HDTV/1.85 content, just has black bars on
each side.

As for projector placement, I would agree that you want it behind you, although
at these dimensions it will only be a couple feet behind you. You will be surprised
at the number of wires that you will need to connect. And at ~13' it won't be
too bright. Even less so if you use a filter.

This is with an AE700, would guess it's about the same with the 900.

--Joachim

I was looking to do "coffee table" projector... hence the 65" throw. Seating is against the back wall, 126" feet from the front wall. Would some type of filter or lens or brightness reducer help?

Wow, great maiden flight! Thanks for the read. :)



@kongfan:
Sadly, I'm one of those who can confirm that something similar (also) exists in my 900. I saw it last weekend while watching the, black and white, beginning of "the incredibles". I could clearly see a green tinge the left side of the image and a red tinge on the right.
Of course, once I noticed it I could also discern it while watching normal movies. On skintones, for instance, it is visible when a movie character is walking from left to right. A real bummer and a bit distracting..

But frankly, I don't know anything about this phenomenon. Could you elaborate a bit further on what causes it and how to get rid of/ minimise it?
I've tried everything to eliminate/reduce this problem on my 700. I just live with it. Sorry to hear the 900 exhibits this same problem too. I think 99% of the people out there would never notice it. I specifically point it out to friends and they have trouble seeing it. I think it has something to do with the new 2X optics/lens shift. My old 500 didn't have this problem.

I was looking to do "coffee table" projector... hence the 65" throw. Seating is against the back wall, 126" feet from the front wall. Would some type of filter or lens or brightness reducer help?

How about the Optoma MovieTime projector? I would have purchased this if
it had been out last spring. There is a thread going, just search for movietime.

--Joachim

My Panasonic PT-L500U is 98" from a 77" diagonal 16:9 screen. I sit about 9' from the screen and it works really well for me. If you can't get a 92" screen to work, smaller will still be acceptable at your seating distance but you do want bigger than 66" in my opinion.

Chris

Hmmm, what would people think about doing with a room that has 120" from the screen wall to the opposite wall. The seating is against the back wall, so the projecter would essentially be on a wall-attached shelf above the viewer's head. Taking into account length of the AE900 and cabling I'm guessing the actual throw would be something like 102", and then the actual viewing distance (since most people don't rest their head on the back wall) would be somthing like 96". Is the AE900 completely inappropriate in this situation?

I was considering the AE900 here mainly because of the limited viewing distance and the smoothscreen to eliminate risk of SDE.

you have to remember that the calculator is for maximum brightness uncalibrated. A properly calibrated projector probably has at most 1/2 the lumens of its maximum

Wow, great maiden flight! Thanks for the read. :)



@kongfan:
Sadly, I'm one of those who can confirm that something similar (also) exists in my 900. I saw it last weekend while watching the, black and white, beginning of "the incredibles". I could clearly see a green tinge the left side of the image and a red tinge on the right.
Of course, once I noticed it I could also discern it while watching normal movies. On skintones, for instance, it is visible when a movie character is walking from left to right. A real bummer and a bit distracting..

But frankly, I don't know anything about this phenomenon. Could you elaborate a bit further on what causes it and how to get rid of/ minimise it?

I'm sorry to hear that. A ways back, I posted my thoughts on possible causes/remedies, and John Ballentine's comment makes sense to me, as far as my ignorance allows.

I'm too dense to know how to give you a link to that post, but it's two posts back from this one if you want to search my posts.

Dang, I was hoping the problem would be history.

KongFan

drj2000 ,
That is the EXACT thing that mine is doing. I sent pics to my companies tech support and they told me somethings wrong and they want to replace the unit. It has something to do with the alignment of the lcd panels or something along those lines.

Question: if back wall mounting is a no-no, do you know of either another projector that might be more appropriate for this setup, or do you think i would be better off with a plasma or rear projector tv?

Why is back wall mounting out? I have a similar sized room with a AE-700 and couch against the back wall, and it works fine. As quiet as these are, there is no real noise problem (although I use econo mode or whatever the low power mode is called).... I think I have it mounted at about 6-7 feet up the back wall, right over the couch... Use the shift settings to get it centered...

Hmmm, what would people think about doing with a room that has 120" from the screen wall to the opposite wall. The seating is against the back wall, so the projecter would essentially be on a wall-attached shelf above the viewer's head. Taking into account length of the AE900 and cabling I'm guessing the actual throw would be something like 102", and then the actual viewing distance (since most people don't rest their head on the back wall) would be somthing like 96". Is the AE900 completely inappropriate in this situation?


Should work fine. I have about 12-18" more viewing distance with my AE-700 setup, but I think it would work fine, especially with the AE-900...

I personally wouldn't go too crazy with screen size (I use 88" screen), but that is up to you...

I was thinking about 77" diagonal, and the walls are already painted a dark brown in the room, with a deep red couch and dark stained furniture, so aside from the white ceiling - which may get painted the same dark brown a little later anyway the room is surprisingly dark even during the day. I say surprisingly because it's actually a "loft" room where the whole left hand (if you're sitting on the couch looking at the screen) is open with no wall to an overlook into the rest of the town house, the ambient light is very low in that space considering the circumstances.

Of course, the open wall is going to make the sound system a pain to get sounding satisfactory, but we'll see.

Would some type of filter or lens or brightness reducer help?

yes, brightness can be solved via a $15 ND2 filter.

I have a 100" 16:9 and 4805 setup in my 15ft-long room. Will the AE900 work for that size screen and room without reducing the screen size?

I have a 100" 16:9 and 4805 setup in my 15ft-long room. Will the AE900 work for that size screen and room without reducing the screen size?

Yes. The 900 is far more placement flexible than the 4805. Its throw range for a 100" diagonal image is 10.1' to 20.2'.

Nice theater! Are those the AS-F1's or 2's? Very good speakers. Giant killers for the price.

Yes. The 900 is far more placement flexible than the 4805. Its throw range for a 100" diagonal image is 10.1' to 20.2'.

Nice theater! Are those the AS-F1's or 2's? Very good speakers. Giant killers for the price.

Thanks for the reply bubbawilly, I'm seriously considering the AE900 for the upgrade to an HD pj.

The Athena mains are F2s. Those two together with my 12" AR sub rocks the little theater :)

I also disagree that the picture will be too bright. The projection calculator assumes the manufacturer's spec of 1100 lumens. The projector probably doesn't meet that spec in its highest brightness mode, and a calibrated 900 on low lamp and Cinema 1 mode will only produce about 1/3 of that. That leaves you the ability to calibrate the brightness down to about 16.3 FL on a 1.0 gain 65" wide screen, or 13.2 FL on a .8 gain 65" wide screen. Either would be fine. I'd recommend a .8 gain hi-contrast gray screen for deep, rich blacks.

you have to remember that the calculator is for maximum brightness uncalibrated. A properly calibrated projector probably has at most 1/2 the lumens of its maximum

Right, I don't understand why they even have that calculator fixed for maximum manufacturer quoted lumens. Even without proper calibration the projector, under typical circumstances (and by that I include a very wide spectrum) will probably have much less than 1/2 it's specified maxed lumens after a week's use. That's not even counting that most people will probably use the lamp at economy mode and that the lamp will start to dim over time.

It is very important to also consider the viewing environment (that is ambient lighting and surface reflections).

I keep hearing comments of the lens shift being better on the Sanyo's. In what application do you need any better lens shift? Are some people mounting the projector several feet off center of the room? I can understand a foot or two because of basement columns, etc.

The problem comes if you want to do ceiling mount. Then, you may have to use all of the vertical shift to get the image below the ceiling to a decent viewing height. That leaves no horizontal shift at all ...

Sanyo has 100% V shift (panny has 65%) ... so that makes ceiling mount easier with Sanyo.

Claus-- wow, i never saw that PRO level calculator. I see your point--too bright, too small, too close. Question: if back wall mounting is a no-no, do you know of either another projector that might be more appropriate for this setup, or do you think i would be better off with a plasma or rear projector tv?

Be careful with the calculator with regards to brightness. I'd only give the too dim measurement any credo. Some projectors have elevated lumens from real world numbers making you believe a pj is too bright. This is where forums are good references with actual owners of a particular pj. The Sony HS51 is a good example at 1200 lumens per Sony but actual output in low lamp mode as about 450.

Edit: If I would have actually read the other posts I'd see others had similar comments. :)

Brightness. There are so many calibration and operational variables on the AE900 that it is impractical to quote actual lumen outputs for each. Depending upon desired settings for screen size and room environment, the AE900 will generate anywhere from 200 to 650 lumens depending on how you wish to operate it. In practical terms, the AE900 is capable of adequately illuminating screens up to 150" diagonal in a dark viewing room. However for best image quality we would limit image size to no more than 120" diagonal

Take Projectorcentral's review on the AE900 and see the actual lumens you would be able to project. They should really fix that calculator...

Has Panasonic QA completely evaporated? After exchanging a unit with 2 lit green pixels I get back a unit with 6 dead pixels (5 red in lower right + 1 green in middle right). Anyone else getting terrible panels? I can understand this on a huge 37" panel but on panels of this size it's inexcusable. Anyone else out there having terrible luck? :confused: I've previously had 2 Panasonic products with zero pixel issues...hrmph...

@Kongfan, John, Mark and Assayer. Thanks for chiming in with comments and suggestions. Much appreciated.

I'll have a fiddle with the lens shift and I will put up some test screens on different sources(including pj menu). To be honest: I don't have much hope in removing the colour shift, but it least would help me in localising the problem.
I am still awaiting an official response from Panasonic regarding the VB on this PJ, but I'll be sure to mention this "problem" too.

Furious: For best response to 900 issues and questions, I would ask mod to move your post to the master thread. BTW, that does suck. If I find any issues with my unit, I'd be hesitant in taking another since I know mine doesn't suffer from VB or dead pixels. I assume your dealer has taken care of you without any problems...have they had to get Panny's approval for swapping out new units? This maybe important info since it would set a track record for how they handle the pixel issue.

Ron

Why move a post to a 45 page thread?

Thankfully, no other forum mods insist on keeping all newer products restricted to one behemoth thread. AVS never would have flourished if that were the case. Can you imagine trying to sort through a 400 page thread to find out if anyone may be experiencing a similar problem with their Denon 3805?

Can you imagine trying to sort through a 400 page thread to find out if anyone may be experiencing a similar problem with their Denon 3805?

Using the "Search this Thread" feature for "Denon 3805" would make this very easy. It's actually easier than searching the whole forum for the same thing.

Furious,
Sorry to hear about the bad luck. I also had an issue with my unit, only it has to do with my lcd panels being out of alignment. I got lucky, the company I bought mine from has great tech and customer support. They will be replacing my unit and quality control checking the new one before they send it to me, so i'll only have to go through this once.

I'm about to pull the trigger on the AE900, but want to confirm something first. Has anyone paired it up with a Da-Lite High Power screen? If so, what are your impressions. I don't want to deal with the waves from the other screens and prefer a bright picture. TIA! :)

Why move a post to a 45 page thread?



I suggested that becuase most of the members with 900's or that have experience with 900's frequent this thread. I felt he would have the best chance of someone seeing his problem and answering specific to his problem if it was posted in the master thread. I wouldn't suggest that it would preclude him from starting speparate thread....but more people would see the question here (would be my guess).

Ron

I know that you had good intentions based on the current structure and restrictions of the Display Device forum. I hope that my comment didn't imply otherwise.

It's just that IMO, the restrictions imposed allowing only one goliath thread on new products is counterproductive for many of the participants (I know that it is much more convenient for the moderators). It doesn't happen in any other area of the AVS forum, and those forums seem to play out nicely. I feel that it is much more efficient to have several threads on more specific aspects about a particular product, than to have one massive thread covering all aspects of a product for months, before it is finally allowed to break out into more specific discussions. But, what the hell do I know! ;)

Peace!

I've been dealing direct with Panasonic. They've been very nice and accomodating, it's just frustrating that these units are making it past QA, especially as I assumed the second was likely pre-screened before the exchange. Maybe I'm more frustrated as the last 13 LCD products I have bought have had mild to severe dead pixel issues (9 PSP returned all 5-10 pixels minimum, 1 rearpro TV, 1 latop, 1 Dell 20" WS LCD, and now 2 AE900's). I'm batting 4/17 for non defective panels right now...

Furious: For best response to 900 issues and questions, I would ask mod to move your post to the master thread. BTW, that does suck. If I find any issues with my unit, I'd be hesitant in taking another since I know mine doesn't suffer from VB or dead pixels. I assume your dealer has taken care of you without any problems...have they had to get Panny's approval for swapping out new units? This maybe important info since it would set a track record for how they handle the pixel issue.

Ron

I'm about to pull the trigger on the AE900, but want to confirm something first. Has anyone paired it up with a Da-Lite High Power screen? If so, what are your impressions. I don't want to deal with the waves from the other screens and prefer a bright picture. TIA! :)

I had my 300U paired up with Hi Power 119" Dia. for three years. It was ceiling mounted. I loved it so much.

I just ceiling mounted my 900U pairs with Hi Power 133". I love it even more! You can't go wrong.

I've been dealing direct with Panasonic. They've been very nice and accomodating, it's just frustrating that these units are making it past QA, especially as I assumed the second was likely pre-screened before the exchange. Maybe I'm more frustrated as the last 13 LCD products I have bought have had mild to severe dead pixel issues (9 PSP returned all 5-10 pixels minimum, 1 rearpro TV, 1 latop, 1 Dell 20" WS LCD, and now 2 AE900's). I'm batting 4/17 for non defective panels right now...
This is shocking!
Of all the LCD devices I own (and owned) I've never had a single dead pixel (I'm knocking on wood!)

I know that you had good intentions based on the current structure and restrictions of the Display Device forum. I hope that my comment didn't imply otherwise.

It's just that IMO, the restrictions imposed allowing only one goliath thread on new products is counterproductive for many of the participants (I know that it is much more convenient for the moderators). It doesn't happen in any other area of the AVS forum, and those forums seem to play out nicely. I feel that it is much more efficient to have several threads on more specific aspects about a particular product, than to have one massive thread covering all aspects of a product for months, before it is finally allowed to break out into more specific discussions. But, what the hell do I know! ;)

Peace!

I check the AVS forums for the AE900 and Z4 on a daily basis. I may not look at all the threads every day. If the first post by Furious was not moved to the main AE900 thread, I may not have seen it. It is an important post that all current and prospective buyers need to see. I think that there should be a new thread and the first post should be moved to the main thread as well so all can see it.

I went through 1 PT-L300U with a bad temp sensor, a replacement with a block of about 10 dead blue panel pixels, but the third one has been perfect for 2 years. My 900 came in today, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I've had my share of defective LCD's!

I went through 1 PT-L300U with a bad temp sensor, a replacement with a block of about 10 dead blue panel pixels, but the third one has been perfect for 2 years. My 900 came in today, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I've had my share of defective LCD's!

Congrats. What made you chose the 900 over the Z4 as I know you were considering both.

Shelly

That gives me some reassurance. I purchased the 900 with a 106" Hi Power today and was a little concerned because most seem to want to match it with the HCCV screens.
Can you tell me if the Hi Power will have any detrimental effects on the color accuracy of the Cinema 1 mode?

FYI:

For those of you thinking about pulling the trigger on the 900--and, ahem, are NOT reading the whole forum's posts :p

There's a cool announcement from AVS/Jason Turk on the main <$3500 board:

" AVS now carries the Panasonic AE900!
That's right! We are now carrying the Panasonic AE900. Many of those out there are already familiar with this unit! Now you can purchase from AVS and get the best service and knowledge, while helping support the forum! I have these enroute for sale!

Anyone interested, please feel free to contact us!

585-454-1460 x10, x20, x50."

Cool, eh?


willdao

Primarily the projectorreviews write-up of the Z4, and its brief comparo to the 900 showing the difference in SDE. I had a pretty knowledgable dealer 'alert' me about SDE on the Z4 as well. I just didn't want to take the chance, and I knew what to expect with regard to reliability out of Panasonic (first 2 units aside ;)).

I know that you're doing your pre-purchase research as well. Hang in there!

Just received the AE900. Very quick comments:

- The unit looks impressive, good build quality
- Remote is amazing, even nearly as good as my Marantz Learning LCD Remote
- It runs very hot, i run it in Low Lamp, Normal fan - hot!
- There is an annoying whine that some people have commented on at start-up - eventually fades
- Slight signs of VB, very minor - but its not eliminated.
- Quick Calibration sees an improvement in blacks and contrast

I've only really had one demo with 10 minutes of LOTR III and i watched all of Racing Stripes. Its an impressive picture.

For those who said its not a case of night and day between the AE900 and the AE700 or even the AE500/300.....well have i got news for you...

...you're probably right. There is a difference indeed, but its not a massive amount. Im not sure AE700's owners really need to upgrade. Im happy that i did, but it wouldnt have killed me not too.

Annoyingly, the colour is very different using HDMI, rather than Y/PB/PR Component. Also, i feel that the HDMI output from my Marantz DV7600 is not as good. Also, for some reason im loosing the HDMI signal a lot and have to go back to component...it beats as to why this is happening.

I'll try a full calibration tomorrow and post back my views on it.

Cheers
Chris

- It runs very hot, i run it in Low Lamp, Normal fan - hot!


I agree. It runs hotter than any other projector I've used. Based on comments from others on this thread, you really need to use the "High" fan mode to keep the projector cool and likely extend the lamp life. Someone commented earlier that they're up to something like 4000 hrs using High fan mode with one of the previous Panny models. I find that unless you're watching a movie with a lot of quiet passages, the High fan mode is not objectionable.

Mike: Thanks for the settings in the Panny Tweak thread. They are appreciated.


On another topic. VH Audio has a "clover leaf" power cord adapter...that allows one to use an aftermarket power cord with the panny clover leaf input. There is a discussion in this thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6517586#post6517586

I bought one and it works perfectly. It allowed me to use the power cord already running down my ceiling mount's column.

Ron

I recieved my AE900 today and have began playing with it. I have 10 bulb hours in which to decide if I'm going to keep it or not. I'll be running the projector from an HTPC. The plan is to stay digital all the way by using the HDMI input to achieve a 1x1 mapping. Problem is, the AE900 won't detect my PCs video signal on the DVI/HDMI port. It just blinks "HDMI" as if nothing were connected. I'm running from a 50' DVI cable, which works just fine on my Mitsubishi HC900 (which has DVI rather than HDMI). I've added a DVI->HDMI adapter on the end of the cable.

I have an ATI 9100 IGP on-board graphics card. The PC is ouputting 1280x720@60Hz (I've tried a couple other settings with no luck). Interestingly enough, when the AE900 is attached, Windows XP Plug and Play detects it and shows AE900 as the attached monitor, so the cable does appear to be OK.

Do I need to do anything special to enable DVI output from an HTPC via the HDMI input on the AE900? I know some devices have an RGB vs. YPbPr setting, but I don't see anyting like that on either the AE900 or the HTPC.

For now I'm running from the RGB input, but I need the RGB input for my secondary display. If I can't get this working via HDMI, not much point in keeping this particular projector. :(

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

--
Bryce

Anyone else notice that the zoom ring is very easy to turn? I flipped my 900 over to trace the mounting holes, and I thought that I saw the lens move. Sure enough! I flipped it back upright and the zoom ring turned slowly about 1/2" on its own! Back over, and the ring turned the opposite direction.

Both the focus and zoom rings on my 900 are very loose when compared to my Panny 300. The rings on it are very well damped, while the rings on the 900 turn with a breath. Much less resistance than the zoom/focus on a camera lens, for instance. I hope that they don't move with vibrations through the floor above!!!

Ok folks I admit it I am a lurker...I have been reading for years with no input. If this is an violation, I am sorry.

I have a room in my house that has been empty for a couple of months now. My wife is, welll, busy with both of our new kids and that is lucky for me...Way under radar :rolleyes: Anyway I was all ready to pull the trigger on the AE900 when "throw" was calculated at projectorcentral....

Enough intro you are probably bored already. My abandoned room is 12 1/2 feet wide at the back wall and 14' 4" to the front. Unfortunately it is not square so I am working with limited space on the front wall, approx 7 1/2'. If I were to use the table next to my couch as a temporary home for my new PJ it is about 12 1/2' from the screen and off center. Actually almost to outer edge of the screen. Next problem is that between speakers leaves me about 80". A 77-80" screen is about all I can fit without wood work...Can I get away with this? or am I, as my wife would say, "CRAZY"????

By the way....for those of you who realy know what you are talking about...where do you find the time???

thanks, mike :)

Just pulled the trigger and got a 900! I had to put all this 'research' to rest... this is the only way. Got a free bulb too (Panasonic Canada said it goes to the dealer, its up to them what to do with it).

I won't open it til the weekend (I just want to see whats said about the Mits 3000). I can't see it being significantly better than the 900.

My dad isn't a believer in projectors --> 'get a plasma and btw plasma, plasma plasma!' He's never seen a projector b4, we'll see what he says this weekend cuz he's coming down...

Btw willdao, your sig is HILARIOUS!


Madcutter,

Maybe I missed a post about your initial impressions--and your Dad's--but, if not:

Well? What the heck were they!!! :)

Willdao

I received my Avia disk today. In my setup, i've had the 900 in normal mode and I thought it looked great right out of the box. Today I calibrated (basic) with Avia and made the image even better than it already was. This pj is truly awsome for the price and i'm keeping it. If you don't have an Avia home theater disk, I highly recommend it.

Oriphus,
When I turn on my unit, there is only fan noise, no whiney sound, i've never heard that.

Byancey,
There is a button on your remote that selects what your are imputing, you have to select HDMI. If you've already done that then maybe this pj can't detect the signal even though your other one did. You might need a signal booster at that length.

Bubbawilly,
My focus is not that easy to turn, the only time mine may turn a little is when taking off and putting on the dust cover.

Mdbones,
If i'm understanding you correctly, I think you could get away with that, the Panny is very flexable as far as installation is concerned.

By the way....for those of you who realy know what you are talking about...where do you find the time???


Foldspace, via the Norma Cenva-modified Tio Holtzman Effect. 'Course, ya gotta have your own Guild Navigator--and a ready supply of melange gas--which gets expensive...but it saves months getting to Arrakis and back, and what with the price of fossil fuels, these days......:cool:


mdbones, welcome to the forums, officially. Now that you're here, you just may find that you can't get back out again. Ever. So, you manage to pick up a few things, here and there, to keep from being totally bored... ;)


willdao

Byancey,
There is a button on your remote that selects what your are imputing, you have to select HDMI. If you've already done that then maybe this pj can't detect the signal even though your other one did. You might need a signal booster at that length.




Problem is, the AE900 won't detect my PCs video signal on the DVI/HDMI port. It just blinks "HDMI" as if nothing were connected.



Its not just your PC, im having the same problem with my Marantz DV7600 sending the image via HDMI. It picks up the component signal fine, and i did get a HDMI signal at one point, but now that signal seems to have gone....

If anyone has any reasons for this, could they let me and byancey know.

Thanks
Chris

Madcutter,

Maybe I missed a post about your initial impressions--and your Dad's--but, if not:

Well? What the heck were they!!! :)

Willdao


Wildao,

Believe it or not I haven't taken it out of the box yet! Reason for this is at the time I was thinking of returning for the HC3000, for "deeper blacks".

I've been out here reading daily for three months and the race came down to four horses, the 900, z4, the epson and the HC3000 (last year the 4805 was the rage). So I read and read and read, and it seemed like the 900 was going to be the winner. There was no mention of the 3000, and people were saying the 900 "destroyed" the Benq 8700 which was also a 720p dlp so I assumed the 900 could out do the 3000. Ok, time to pull the trigger, and it was Oct 31st, and the last day to get a free bulb in Canada.

Well, the night I buy it, the first rumbling about the 3000 was heard. It sounded like it could equal an H78 so I was like "oh s--t". Now I'm basically waiting for comparisons, which are taking forever, but I'm patient. I'll probably keep it cuz it sounds like the 3000 can't throw a big picture. If I do keep it, I will upgrade next to c2fine if the successor to the 900 uses that technology....

My dad will probably never see the projector unless I pack everything up and bring to him when I visit... (I'm curious what he would think too)...

Ok folks I admit it I am a lurker...I have been reading for years with no input. If this is an violation, I am sorry.

I have a room in my house that has been empty for a couple of months now. My wife is, welll, busy with both of our new kids and that is lucky for me...Way under radar :rolleyes: Anyway I was all ready to pull the trigger on the AE900 when "throw" was calculated at projectorcentral....

Enough intro you are probably bored already. My abandoned room is 12 1/2 feet wide at the back wall and 14' 4" to the front. Unfortunately it is not square so I am working with limited space on the front wall, approx 7 1/2'. If I were to use the table next to my couch as a temporary home for my new PJ it is about 12 1/2' from the screen and off center. Actually almost to outer edge of the screen. Next problem is that between speakers leaves me about 80". A 77-80" screen is about all I can fit without wood work...Can I get away with this? or am I, as my wife would say, "CRAZY"????

By the way....for those of you who realy know what you are talking about...where do you find the time???

thanks, mike :)

Mike - It would probably work better if you plan to put the projector on a low table in front of the couch. With an 80" diagonal screen you could place the projector anywhere from 8-16 feet from the screen. If you place the projector off to one side 40" from the screen centerline - it will not work. Horizontal offset is only 1/4 of the screen width. If when placing the projector this close to the screen, the image is too bright then you can use a neutral density filter to lower the brightness. However, with your limitations, I would be looking at plasma monitor that I place anywhere in the room. The cost of AE900, cables and screen may make the cost of 50-inch plasma screen comparable?

Byancey,
There is a button on your remote that selects what your are imputing, you have to select HDMI. If you've already done that then maybe this pj can't detect the signal even though your other one did. You might need a signal booster at that length.


Thanks for the reply DigitalC. I actually upgraded to the latest GART drivers for the ATI chipset (including the 9100 IGP drivers) and that appears to have resolved the problem.

I had been avoiding the driver upgrade because the newer drivers had previously given me problems with TheaterTek. However, since the last time I tried the new drivers, I've added some system memory and upgraded to a newer version of TheaterTek. When I ran a quick test last night after upgrading the driverss, I didn't see any obvious video problems, so perhaps one of my other upgrades resolved the previous driver issues I was having. In any case, I think I'm good to go on the DVI input.

Thanks.

--
Bryce

Hey all

Whats the brightness like on the AE900 compared to the AE100? I know thats a huge gap in models but I have the AE100 and the picture is too dim.

Thanks
Anim

I used to have a 42 inch Panasonic plasma in my media room. Now that we've had it remodeled my wife and I decided to go for the full theater experience with a projector. This forum has been really helpful in making my decision. Of course I went with the 900 (why else would I post here?) .

My setup now:

92 in diagonal DaLite Screen

Denon AVR-3806 7.1 Receiver (HDMI switching!)

connected to the projector with a 50 ft HDMI cable from www.bettercables.com

Chief low profile projector mount

Panasonic PTAE900U projector

The projector is 18 feet from the screen and everything looks great. We use the XBOX up upscale DVD's to 720p. And of course HDTV looks better than anything on this. With the lights down, I feel like the image quality and color is just as good as my old plasma which has now moved into the living room. This projector looks fantastic. This weekend I plan on tweaking the colors and settings to make it look perfect. I have my Home Theater Set-Up DVD so I am ready to go. Then I have to learn how to program my Pronto (Yikes!).

----------------------------------
http://djmattyb.blogspot.com/
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dj, thats some nice kit you got there, the amp costs the same as the projector! Good to hear you can have some lights on and still get plasma quality.

Annoyingly, the colour is very different using HDMI, rather than Y/PB/PR Component. Also, i feel that the HDMI output from my Marantz DV7600 is not as good. Also, for some reason im loosing the HDMI signal a lot and have to go back to component...it beats as to why this is happening.

I'll try a full calibration tomorrow and post back my views on it.

Cheers
Chris

This *might* be a colour space issue. The HDMI input being defined as an HD transport would be expecting REC 704 whereas the YPbPr input is likely expecting REC 601 or NTSC SD colour space. If the Marantz doesn't do the colour conversion (not sure if upscaling players do the conversion necessary) then the HDMI input would look different since the primaries are weighted differently.

As to the signal loss - how long is your cable? There might be handshaking issues with source and PJ.

ted

Anyone planning on using the 900 with an Anamorphic lens for a 2.35 Constant Height setup?

ted

Well, I received my AE900 yesterday and thought I'd give some initial impressions. I put 4 hours on the bulb, which included a side-by-side (top-to-bottom actually) comparison of the Mitsubishi HC900 and the Panasonic AE900. Since these projectors have such similar model numbers, I'll just refer to the Mitsubishi HC900 as Mitsubishi and Panasonic AE900 as AE900 for the rest of this post to avoid confusion. :)

The Mitsubishi was being driven by the DVI and the AE900 was being driven by RGB, both displaying the same image at the same time. My screen is actually my entire wall equipped with a 4-way manual masking system. As such adjusting the masking so that I could fit 2 images up at once wasn't too much trouble.

I started out by throwing the AE900 up on it's own (120" diagonal). My first Impression wasn't very good...perhaps because the PC inputs aren't optimized for video. I switched to Normal Mode and used THX Optimizer from one of my DVDs to adjust the Contrast and Brightness. I don't have a blue filter, so I adjusted the color manually by tweaking the color temperature until it looked about right. Much better. :)

Moving on to the side-by-side.

Having come from DLP, I was paying particular attention to the blacks. The first thing I noticed about blacks on the AE900 was that they actually appear to be a very very dark bluish black relative to the Mitsubishi, which seems like a more neutral black, if that makes sense. I've heard the term inky used to describe blacks (a good thing, I think). The AE900 blacks were definitely more inky. The difference was primarily noticeable in the black bars on 2.35:1 content. The AE900 bars also seemed a little more visible through my black velvet mask. The mask tended to hide the Mitsubishi black bars a little better. Not sure why.

My wife and I watched several key scenes in LOTR FOTR. Here are some key observations:
The blacks almost seemed a wash when comparing the Mitsubishi and the AE900. On some scenes, the AE900 blacks looked deeper, on others, the Mitsubishi looked deeper. On the intro where The Lord of The Rings fades in on an all black background, the AE900 looked much better. Likewise, the opening shots of Mount Doom looked better on the AE900. The blacks appeared very deep and dark. In other scenes (can't think of any specific one at the moment) the Mitsubishi blacks looked deeper. I think it's a function of the dynamic iris. Scenes with a lot of black actually look much deeper and blacker on the AE900. In scenes with a combination of light and dark, the blacks looked deeper on the Mitsubishi.
In some dark scenes, the Mitsubishi clearly had more shadow details...but in scenes where this was the case, the blacks were always deeper on the AE900 and my wife and I both tended to prefer the picture on the AE900. Also, it was typically necessary to get up and inspect the image up close to make the distinctions in the shadows.
The DLP dithering artifacts were visible in dark areas on the Mitsubishi, but the darks were very smooth on the AE900. However, the dithering on the Mitsubishi was not really visible from any normal viewing distance.
There's a scene where the Ring of Power is flipping around through the air against a dark background. I could catch rainbow effect on this scene on the Mitsubhishi as I moved my eyes from screen to screen. Obviously, no rainbow on the AE900.
Colors were generally more vibrant on the AE900. In the beginning chapters of LOTR when Gandolf arrives at the Shire, he and Frodo are driving into town and they drive by a field of yellow flowers. The yellow colors of these flowers really popped on the AE900. However, in a lot of scenes, the images between the 2 projectors looked nearly identical.
The opening and closing of the Dynamic Iris was seamless while viewing video content, but it was readily apparent from the Windows desktop. When you pop up the start menu (which is white) the screen dims. When you dismiss it, the screen gets brighter. Likewise for opening windows, etc. Also, When switching between menu selections from Meedio (the 10' interface I use for my HTPC) there was a very noticeable and distracting flicker. Turning off the dynamic iris fixed this...but you also lose the advantage of the dynamic iris in movies. I might be able to deal with this if I can find a way to turn the dynamic iris on or off silently from the remote (or serial interface) without bringing up a menu. That way I could explicitly enable it only when watching a movie. Both my wife and I are concerned that we may come upon some scene in a movie someday that has a similar effect. I know a previous poster mentioned that he saw this effect while watching a Sesame Street video every time one of the puppets opened it's mouth. I must say, this is the one thing that makes the dynamic iris seem like somewhat of a gimmick (a gimmick that works very well for the most part, albeit). It's also the one thing that may be a deal-breaker for the AE900. :(


In general, the Panasonic AE900 seems to stack up fairly evenly with the Mitsubishi HC900. Based on what we've seen so far, both my wife and I agree that the overall image quality, when taken on the whole, is slightly better on the AE900. However, I probably wouldn't bother upgrading if I didn't have other reasons to do so. Namely, I need better 1:1 mapping for my HTPC and I want to significantly reduce fan noise. BTW, the AE900 was much quieter than the Mitsubishi (and it should be from the specs of 25dB vs. 30dB).

At this point, my biggest concern is how well the dynamic iris will work with my HTPC interface. Not sure if it's a keeper for me just yet. I have about 6 hours left on the bulb before I incur a restocking fee if I return it.

I'm also considering spending a bit more and taking a step up the the Optima H79, but I have some more research to do before I can decide if it's worth the extra dough. I also live at high altitude which may be a concern for the Optima units.

Hope these observations were helpful.

Thanks.

--
Bryce

Having come from DLP, I was paying particular attention to the blacks. The first thing I noticed about blacks on the AE900 was that they actually appear to be a very very dark bluish black relative to the Mitsubishi, which seems like a more neutral black, if that makes sense.

Thanks for your comments. Good stuff!

Regarding the bluish blacks, using Normal mode is likely the culprit. It has a high color temp which creates an overly blue cast to the picture. Switch to Cinema 1 and see if you notice a difference. For reference, I posted the color balance and temp for all the modes earlier in this thread here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6316970&&#post6316970).

Well, I received my AE900 yesterday and thought I'd give some initial impressions.
Hope these observations were helpful.

Thanks.

--
Bryce

Thanks for the impressions but what about the AE900 vs Mitsu HC3000 comparison?

This *might* be a colour space issue. The HDMI input being defined as an HD transport would be expecting REC 704 whereas the YPbPr input is likely expecting REC 601 or NTSC SD colour space. If the Marantz doesn't do the colour conversion (not sure if upscaling players do the conversion necessary) then the HDMI input would look different since the primaries are weighted differently.

As to the signal loss - how long is your cable? There might be handshaking issues with source and PJ.

ted

Hi Ted, appreciate your reply. I think i understand what you are saying about the HDMI input and the colour. I calibrated the Projector for the Component input, and then connected the HDMI - it looked pretty strange in comparison. What i think i need to do now is try to re-calibrate the Cinema 1 mode again, except this time using the HDMI cable.

In saying that, i have a choice on the Marantz to feed 576p, 720p or 1080i. They all look the same to me and i have good eye. I was expecting them to look different.

I now cant get any HDMI signal at all. As for length of the HDMI cable, 7 feet only, so there should be any problems in that respect. Its a good Q.E.D. cable as well.

Id appreciate yourself or anyone with any info that could help me.

Im not overly technical

Thanks
Chris

Chris,
If I had to guess at your problem, since you say at one point your HDMI worked.
The cause my be that you inadvertently switched a input of some kind in either your DVD player, or pj menus.
Just a possibility.

I'm also considering spending a bit more and taking a step up the the Optima H79, but I have some more research to do before I can decide if it's worth the extra dough. I also live at high altitude which may be a concern for the Optima units.


Turns out the Optima H79 doesn't have as long of a throw as I had though. I think I confused the Width and Diagonal fields the last time I looked at the projection calculator. As such, the Optima won't work for my setup, so I either keep the AE900, or return it and stick with the original Mitsubishi HC900 (and live with the higher fan noise and lack of 1:1 mapping).

I played with AE900 a little more this morning, this time, driving it from DVI/HDMI port, and the Mitsubishi from RGB. The AE900 has a few extra controls available on the DVI port, such as COLOR and TINT. These adjustments weren't available on the RGB input. I was able to further tweak the image, and improved the overall image quality relative to the RGB input.

After another few hours of viewing, my final conclusion with regards to blacks and contrast levels of the AE900 relative to the HC900 is this: Overall, the HC900 does have ever so slightly more details in the shadows. It's subtle, but if you look for it you can see it. You also have to look for a scene where such a distinction can be made. However, the AE900 had deeper, more pleasing blacks, and on the whole, a much more pleasing image in dark scenes.

In bright scenes, the AE900 has more color and is more vibrant overall. I also noticed more details in the foliage thanks to the true 720P resolution (I'm upscaling to 720P).

Smooth screen looks wonderful. No screen door effect at all. Even up close it's hard to see distinct square pixels. No sharpness issues either. On several occasions, my wife commented that the AE900 was sharper than the HC900.

I also checked for dead pixels, and any signs of VB or FPN (Put up Solid Red, Green, and Blue screens from the Windows Desktop). If any of those issues exist in any capacity, I'm completely unable to detect them!

With regard to the brightness flash when accessing the menus in Windows, after looking at the menu, I think I should be able to configure a memory preset with and without the dynamic iris enabled and switch between them using the remote (or even automate this using girder).

I believe I will most likely keep the Panasonic AE900.

Thanks.

--
Bryce

Chris,
If I had to guess at your problem, since you say at one point your HDMI worked.
The cause my be that you inadvertently switched a input of some kind in either your DVD player, or pj menus.
Just a possibility.

I didnt thank that i had to be honest. Im gonna sit down later tonight and have a look. However, if anyone knows any settings for the PJ to have HDMI enabled/disabled let me know. I really just plug and play from the PJ side of things. On the Marantz, possibly if i removed the component cables, maybe it would automatically send the image to the PJ via HDMI.

What im saying is, if i have both component and HDMI going to the PJ from the Marantz, does the Marantz get confused about which path to send it down? I also have a scart in the back of it going to a 28" tv behind the screen that i use the odd time.

Cheers
Chris

Great write-up, Bryce...appreciate it. I can't think of any questions I've got that weren't covered...

Hi All,

-Bryce: Are you thinking about testing your ae900 to the new mits hc3000? Considering what you've mentioned thus far about how the 900 has better pic quality than your older mits, I'm wondering what you think about how the new mits (hc3000) will compare to the pany?

I believe you have also mentioned (or maybe someone else has in the thread) that the hc3000 might be as good quality as the optoma h78--in my opinion I don't see this happening. The h78 has dc3, the hc3000 has dc2--that alone gives a huge advantage to the 78, does it not? On the other hand i heard that optoma and mits projectors are very similar--if not almost identical depeding on the model? Then again, prices on the hc3000 are about what, 30-40% higher than the 900===hence, even if the hc3000 throws a better picture, for me it may not be worth the extra price.

I too am about to pull the trigger on the 900. This will be my first pj purchase ever. Originaly I was going for the h31 b/c of the great price, but after reading so many wonder reviews on the panny, and the fact that it has true hd (vs. the e-def on the h31) I have convinced myself that spending 2x as much is worth it.

Looking forward to your comments!

Well, don't have the 900 mounted yet (still removing the old 300), but I did set it up on a table to check general operation.

I too experienced the high-pitched whine unon initial startup. It did go away after a few minutes, and it hasn't occurred on subsequent startups. Must be the fan bearings working in. Don't they fire these things up after production?? Verdict: Okay so far.

Went into the extended menu to go through the individual panels (R,G&B in the flicker adjustment option). Nice way to check for dead/stuck pixels on each panel. The problem is that only the blue panel comes up!! When I toggle to green and red, the little box with the color and flicker adj. value come up, but the screen is black. What's up with that. No source connected, of course, but the 300 shows all three panels just fine without a source connected. Help!!

I get all three colors in the panel adjust menu (man, are they way off), but only blue in the flicker adjust menu.

Anyone??? :confused:

You need to check using the black background on an input that isn't getting any video. The primary colors are not a good test as they will only reveal stuck subpixels which are very bright. Check a black field and then white field. I checked red, green, and blue on my 2 units and thought I was ok...then I found mulitple dead pixels with the black background test which were not initially visible on other colors (but are with normal program material). These even made it past panasonic service techs who had tested using red/yellow/green/blue fields from a signal generator.




I also checked for dead pixels, and any signs of VB or FPN (Put up Solid Red, Green, and Blue screens from the Windows Desktop). If any of those issues exist in any capacity, I'm completely unable to detect them!
--
Bryce

Gray is a good test too. The 300 had a "service menu" option within the extended menu that had a gray screen.

Anyone know why I'm not getting red and green panels to come up in the flicker menu?

Follow-up:

Turns out the Marantz has a service menu where you enable HDMI. Don't know why it was enabled and then disabled. Strange, but it works now.

As for the colour. Since the Up-converting Marantz does not conform to the right colour, what settings should i use to correct it. Do i start with a base Cinema 1 again, and attempt to correct it that way?

Cheers
Chris

Chris,
When you said in a earlier post, that the 900 runs very hot. When my brother and I were comparing the 900 to our 500's we didn't notice that. Do you mean the heat coming from the exhaust fan was hot?

Chris,
I calibrated using Avia from "Normal", "Cinema1", and "Natural" and saved the 3 to my memory settings. I watched several scenes from a couple movies, switching between the 3, and IMO the calibrated "Natural" picture was the best....my wife thought so too.

I guess that no one else has a clue about why I can't get the red and green screens in the flicker menu. I'll post a separate thread and see if it gets any attention before the moderators move it to this behemoth. :rolleyes:

My 900 is going back. It has a block (2.5"x2.5") of stuck green pixels that are visible on a black (dark gray) background. The block is midway between the center and left side of the screen, along the bottom of the image border. We'll see how good this dealer's return policies really are. They claim a "no questions asked" return option on the 900, as long as it is within 7 days, and under 10 hours. It took me 1 hour to find the defect.

Additional observations:
As another poster that 'upgraded' from a Panny 300 observed, the 900 is not significantly better. In fact, in my short time with the 900, it may have ever so slightly better contrast and black level, but I'm sure that it would take a side-by-side to tell. I'm not sure if that's necessarily a negative for the 900, or a positive for the 300. I ran the 300 with my reference material, then I replaced it with the 900 and ran the same material (after calibration), and my 'video memory' tells me that they are very, very close, with the 900 being a bit softer. And, at my viewing distance of 1.5x screen width, there is no difference in perceived resolution on DVD. I didn't test HD.

As for fan noise, it sounds ever so slightly louder than the 300 on normal fan. The fan resonates at a lower pitch than the 300, and appears to be a bit more throaty and louder because of that. And, as others have mentioned, it runs hotter than hell. I'm at 5000', and I ran my 300 in low fan mode with no issues at all. I don't believe that I would be able to do that with the 900, and the 900 in high fan mode is very loud compared to what I have become accustomed to.

As for the remote, I ended up using my 300's remote because it would bounce off of my screen 100% of the time just like it did with my 300. The 900's remote had to be pointed directly at the face of the projector, and even then it was very, very sluggish. It would respond maybe 25% of the time when bounced off of the screen.

In how far can you shift the vertical lens without affecting picture? Really need to know if a 24 inch stand will be suffice. Projector will be 12 feet from screen projecting around 100 inches.

Any input on best screen: high contrast matte white or high power? Room will have darkening shades.

In how far can you shift the vertical lens without affecting picture? Really need to know if a 24 inch stand will be suffice. Projector will be 12 feet from screen projecting around 100 inches.

Any input on best screen: high contrast matte white or high power? Room will have darkening shades.

How high will the bottom of the screen be from the floor ?

I did not order yet, so I probably can customize somewhat. Ceiling is 9.5 feet high. I expect it to be at least 20 inches from the floor. Is there any recommended height?

I did not order yet, so I probably can customize somewhat. Ceiling is 9.5 feet high. I expect it to be at least 20 inches from the floor. Is there any recommended height?

The recommendation is 1/3rd of the height be below the eye level. There is a post in the screen forum which is discussing this. My guess is you would be using almost all the vertical shift at 20" ... not a good thing. Panny works best when kept high on a shelf at the back of the room ...

The recommendation is 1/3rd of the height be below the eye level. There is a post in the screen forum which is discussing this. My guess is you would be using almost all the vertical shift at 20" ... not a good thing. Panny works best when kept high on a shelf at the back of the room ...

1/3 below eye level is what I use with my Z1. When I ordered my screen I got extra "drop" so that I could adjust the hight (it's a pull down screen). I have tried different heights and settled on about 1/3 below eye level as the most comfortable.

If the bottom of the screen is eye level then you are looking up all the time...

Thanks for the feedback. So you think I should go with a 30 inch table stand. I can not mount any differently. Only option is on table between two chairs.

As for the colour. Since the Up-converting Marantz does not conform to the right colour, what settings should i use to correct it. Do i start with a base Cinema 1 again, and attempt to correct it that way?


Cinema 1 is by far the closest to achieving the corect greyscale and color temperature. Natural is second best, but the color temp is still too high. If you haven't seen it previously, take a look at my post of the RGB percentages and color temp here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6316970&&#post6316970). The results are obtained using calibration equipment and Avia Pro.

In how far can you shift the vertical lens without affecting picture? Really need to know if a 24 inch stand will be suffice. Projector will be 12 feet from screen projecting around 100 inches.

If you can keep the height of the center of the lens within the height of the screen (top to bottom), you'll get the best result. Extreme vertical lens shift causes convergence issues and bowing of the image.

We use the XBOX up upscale DVD's to 720p

Um, is that a hacked xbpx? Far as I know the regular Xbox wont even do 480p and the X360 wont upconvert past 480p...

Sam

Chris,
When you said in a earlier post, that the 900 runs very hot. When my brother and I were comparing the 900 to our 500's we didn't notice that. Do you mean the heat coming from the exhaust fan was hot?

When i run the PJ in Low lamp and Low Fan, the heat from the exhaust is a good bit hotter than the AE500, but the top panel seems to be hotter as well. I suppose that has something to do with the extra Lumens on this model, but i was a bit surprised by it.

Chris,
I calibrated using Avia from "Normal", "Cinema1", and "Natural" and saved the 3 to my memory settings. I watched several scenes from a couple movies, switching between the 3, and IMO the calibrated "Natural" picture was the best....my wife thought so too.
Cinema 1 is by far the closest to achieving the corect greyscale and color temperature. Natural is second best, but the color temp is still too high. If you haven't seen it previously, take a look at my post of the RGB percentages and color temp here. The results are obtained using calibration equipment and Avia Pro.


Hi, thanks guys for the reply. I have the DVE disc, is it as good as the Avia one for calibration or should i purchase the Avia one? I will try to make some adjustments to Cinema 1 and Natural and then save them in the settings. With DVE all i can really find to adjust is the Contrast, the black levels, the blues, the tint and sharpness, the brightness and the colour temp. Im not reall sure about the advanced settings.

Also, when viewing DVD content, is it better in 720p or 576p, or even 1080i from the DVD player. The DVD player as said is an upscaling Marantz DV7600. Should i set it to do the upscaling and if so, what settings should i have on the PJ since i believe it also offers upscaling to 720p since it is its native resolution. My thoughts are to allow the Marantz to do it since the PJ will probably not alter a signal coming in at 720p anyway?

Thanks
Chris

Mine does the same. While I can't say why, if you display a white screen from a source like Avia while doing the flicker adjustment, it'll work as it did on the 700.

I guess that no one else has a clue about why I can't get the red and green screens in the flicker menu. I'll post a separate thread and see if it gets any attention before the moderators move it to this behemoth. :rolleyes:

.

Hi All,

-Bryce: Are you thinking about testing your ae900 to the new mits hc3000? Considering what you've mentioned thus far about how the 900 has better pic quality than your older mits, I'm wondering what you think about how the new mits (hc3000) will compare to the pany?


I compared the AE900 with the HC900 because my current (now previous) projector was an HC900. :) The HC3000 was one of the projectors I was considering, but I don't actually own one. My concerns with the HC3000 were as follows:
Installation Flexibility. I have a low ceiling and have actually been tilting the HC900 and using a keystone adjustment of 4 or 5 to get the image in the right spot on the wall. HC3000 has the same basic throw and offset as the HC900, so while it will work with my existing ceiling mount (I assume), I'd still need to use keystone. The lense shift on the AE900 resolves this problem.
One of the reasons I'm replacing my HC900 is fan noise. In quite mode, it runs at 30dB and is mounted directly over head of the main seating. The HC3000 reduces noise to 26 dB, but it would still need to be mounted directly overhead. I was concerned that I would still be able to hear the fan noise in silent scenes. The long throw capability of the AE900 along with it's 2x zoom capabilities allowed me to remove the AE900 from the theater room entirely. The projector sits behind the theater in the A/V room and projects the image through a view port. This involved a little minor construction on the room, but I got this all setup yesterday evening. In silent scenes (or when I pause the movie), all I hear now is the silent hum of the fridge in the lobby. :D I'm now of the opinion that the AE900 was worth the upgrade for the 2x zoom alone. All the better that I've seen a slight improvement in overall picture quality.
Another reason I'm replacing the HC900 is because I have been unable to get a good 1:1 mapping on the DVI port from my HTPC. I had assumed that the 1280x768 native resolution of the HC3000 would resolve this issue. However, I read some posts over on the HC3000 thread that indicated folks were getting 1:1 mappings from STBs, but having difficulty with HTPCs. It may be something that could be resolved with a little tweaking, but the fact that folks seem to be having similar issues in this regard as I had with my HC900 was reason for concern. I did have some issues getting a signal via the DVI port on my Panasonic AE900 initially, but an upgrade of my video drivers solved that problem, and I'm now getting 1:1 mapping, so it has addressed both of my 2 key concerns (fan noise and 1:1 mapping).
I don't have a lot of problems with DLP rainbows, but I can see them if I try. During normal movie viewing, they really don't even come into consideration. That said, I was disappointed to see that the HC3000 still uses the same 4x color wheel that was used in the HC900. I would have liked to see a bump up to 5x to make the rainbow effect just that much harder to detect. It also would have been nice if they had used the 8 segment wheel that is specified by the Brilliant Color spec rather than modifying the algorithm to use a 6 segment wheel. It sounds like there is a color improvement, but probably not as dramatic as an 8 segment wheel would have provided. I've never seen one, so this is just based on what I have read.



I believe you have also mentioned (or maybe someone else has in the thread) that the hc3000 might be as good quality as the optoma h78


That was someone else.



I too am about to pull the trigger on the 900. This will be my first pj purchase ever. Originaly I was going for the h31 b/c of the great price, but after reading so many wonder reviews on the panny, and the fact that it has true hd (vs. the e-def on the h31) I have convinced myself that spending 2x as much is worth it.


I was also struggling over whether to spend a lot of additional money for a higher end projector. Lack of installation flexibility ended up resolving the issue in my case. :) Also, for me, my interest in the higher end units had as much to do with the features such as power zoom and power focus as it did picture quality. As far as picture quality goes, I've little doubt that the higher end projectors will deliver a better picture. However, the improvements will probably be subtle and include the types of things that are usually only picked out in a side-by-side comparison. As such, it's a question of how much money you are willing to pay for a subtle improvement. For some, it's worth the money. Only you can decide if it's worth it for you. ;)

Hope this helps.

--
Bryce

You need to check using the black background on an input that isn't getting any video. The primary colors are not a good test as they will only reveal stuck subpixels which are very bright. Check a black field and then white field. I checked red, green, and blue on my 2 units and thought I was ok...then I found mulitple dead pixels with the black background test which were not initially visible on other colors (but are with normal program material). These even made it past panasonic service techs who had tested using red/yellow/green/blue fields from a signal generator.

Thanks furious. I'll give that a try today and post my results.

UPDATE: Not sure whether to thank you or curse you for that suggestion. :) On a solid white background, I was able to detect what appears to be one single dead/degraded pixel on the green LCD. It's completely invisible on black, blue, and red fields, but can be detected on white, green, and yellow fields, as well as lighter grays. Interestingly enough, it isn't simply a black square and doesn't look like a dead pixel as I've seen them on laptop screens. It's shape is much less defined and it does retain some subtle color. I'm assuming this is a result of smooth screen. Either that or it's not a dead pixel at all. Perhaps a spec of dust on the green LCD?

Either way, it appears to be pretty much completely undetectable in normal viewing conditions. I don't think I would have ever noticed it if I hadn't actually been looking for it. I threw in several movies and watched various scenes of various types. In Ice Age, I thought I caught a trace of it once, but then I lost it. Couldn't see a trace of it in any other movies/scenes that I watched. This in spite of the fact that I know right where the pixel is and was actively looking for it, which I won't be doing when watching movies.

I have about 1 hour left on the bulb before I can no longer return/exchange the projector without incurring a restocking fee. However, I won't be returning the unit for this. Odds are, the replacement unit would end up with VB or 7 dead pixels, which would bother me. ;)

I'll catch the Bronco's game later today for the first time in true HD. :D

--
Bryce

Hi, thanks guys for the reply. I have the DVE disc, is it as good as the Avia one for calibration or should i purchase the Avia one? I will try to make some adjustments to Cinema 1 and Natural and then save them in the settings. With DVE all i can really find to adjust is the Contrast, the black levels, the blues, the tint and sharpness, the brightness and the colour temp. Im not reall sure about the advanced settings.

DVE is fine. For adjusting color temp on anything but Cinema 1 (which is pretty accurate out of the box), put up the grey ramp pattern (not sure what it's called on DVE) and look for blue tinge in the light greys (color temp too high). I wouldn't mess with the advanced settings unless you just want to play around with them. I have some calibrated advanced settings for Cinema 1 on the "Tweaks" thread that may help.

Also, when viewing DVD content, is it better in 720p or 576p, or even 1080i from the DVD player. The DVD player as said is an upscaling Marantz DV7600. Should i set it to do the upscaling and if so, what settings should i have on the PJ since i believe it also offers upscaling to 720p since it is its native resolution. My thoughts are to allow the Marantz to do it since the PJ will probably not alter a signal coming in at 720p anyway?

Thanks
Chris

With an upscaling DVD player, always try to match the display's native resolution when possible. The goal is to avoid multiple processing, so you only want the picture to be scaled once. I use the 720p output of my Oppo with the AE900, letting the player scale and feed a pixel mapped image to the projector, which then doesn't have to do anything to it.

Mine does the same. While I can't say why, if you display a white screen from a source like Avia while doing the flicker adjustment, it'll work as it did on the 700.

So with no source playing, your flicker menu only displays the blue panel, and not red and green? I hadn't read that this was how the 700 operated as well. I'm surprised that I received only 1 reply if that was common on the 700 and now the 900, but thanks!

I can get each color when a source is playing, but it is much more difficult to adjust for flicker that way vs. a solid background. I'll have to see if DVE has a pattern that I can use.

I did the flicker adjustment on my 900, following the instructions on the first page of the 700 tweak thread. I was able to change colors using the up / down buttons as stated there.

DE

Initial impressions of AE900 vs Z2

OK OK I said earlier that I was underwhelmed by the AE900 which I saw uncalibrated in a video store. After reading all the reviews and all your posts, I went out and bought one :D . So all of you are responsible for this :p .

Out of the box this is awesome. The increase in contrast and colour saturation over the Z2 is immediately obvious. On a well-mastered movie, like LOTR, the picture has a real 3D look to it. The Z2 had a 2D look to it. After tweaking a little, the picture was even better. I had trouble setting brightness and contrast, so I used MikeSRC's settings as a start and then my Mk10 eyeballs. The dark scenes showed lots more detail. I sat at 1.5 X the distance from my 110" screen and could not see screen door on my Z2, but with smoothscreen, the picture from the AE900 has a more "film-like quality". I think that SDE may have an effect on PQ, even if you cannot see it per se. I thought it was pretty quiet, but the lamp was on high, on low lamp, what noise? I saw no VB; never saw it on the Z2 either. I am not knocking the Z2. It is a bargain at what it is going for, but IMO the AE900 is better in the same proportion as the price difference (about 40%).

The menus have lots of options for tweaking and I will be doing a Smart III calibration when I get the chance. I will post my results on the AE900 calibration thread.

I am in Canada and I used to consider a good deal as US list in Canadian $. But the exchange rate for our dollar has risen and I got the AE900 at US street (typical Internet price) X the exchange rate. About time we started getting a break.

With a Denon 1600 DVD player outputting 480P over component, I did notice some ghosting even with sharpness set as low as it would go. Today I tried a football game on HDTV at 720P and no ghosting. As mentioned below, the AE900 seems to do beter with a native 720P signal. Time for a DVD player upgrade.

On the negative side, it's about the remote. Is this a joke? It is useless even when I point it directly at the PJ. Are you listening Panasonic -- a great PJ with a useless remote. I'll try getting the functions onto my Harmony universal remote. I do not like the way the menu bars (like for brightness & contrast) disappear so quickly. I want them up there until I tell them to go away like on my Z2. It takes a while to look at some of the test patterns and then do something. The AE900 could do a better job of up-sampling or am I missing something here.

Questions:Would I get a better picture using HDMI at 720P than component at 720P
I need a DVD player that does a good job of up-sampling to 720P. There are lots that will do it, but which one will do it well for the AE900? Any suggestions???

Next week will arrive my new Mrantz Dv6600 player...I can't wait to connect it to the ae900 at 720p HDMI. I'll tell you how does it look. Still waiting the 92" HCCV Screen (one or one and a half weeks)

On the negative side, it's about the remote. Is this a joke? It is useless even when I point it directly at the PJ. Are you listening Panasonic -- a great PJ with a useless remote.

Try new batteries. My remote worked fine for a few weeks, then lost a lot of power. The batteries supplied with the remote suck.

I need a DVD player that does a good job of up-sampling to 720P. There are lots that will do it, but which one will do it well for the AE900? Any suggestions???

Oppo OPDV971H

On the negative side, it's about the remote. Is this a joke? It is useless even when I point it directly at the PJ. Are you listening Panasonic -- a great PJ with a useless remote. I'll try getting the functions onto my Harmony universal remote. I do not like the way the menu bars (like for brightness & contrast) disappear so quickly. I want them up there until I tell them to go away like on my Z2. It takes a while to look at some of the test patterns and then do something. The AE900 could do a better job of up-sampling or am I missing something here.


You must be kidding yourself. The remote is amazing mate, top notch job to be included with a Projector. My projector sits out of sight completely from the remote, yet i can point it at virtually any wall and it picks it up fine. Top-tip, bounce the remote signal off the screen and it will work a treat. Its maybe not as good a remote as my Marantz LCD remote, but since i lost the instructions for it and cant find how to learn other remotes, nor be bothered to go looking on the net, this Panasonic Remote will do me just fine.


With an upscaling DVD player, always try to match the display's native resolution when possible. The goal is to avoid multiple processing, so you only want the picture to be scaled once.

Thanks MikeSRC for the info, appreciated. Got the colour just about right. Tweaked the settings a bit, just hope i have them right and im not losing any black level details.

As for the output from the DVD player, its set at 720p using HDMI, but everytime i turn the DVD player off, I have to go back into the PL menu to reset the HDMI connection on the Marantz. Its a pain in the perverbial a*se.

....Oppo OPDV971H

Does the Oppo upconvert through its component outputs as well as through the DVI output?

Shelly

Does the Oppo upconvert through its component outputs as well as through the DVI output?


No, the component outputs are fairly useless as they don't even do 480p. The output over DVI though is hard to match for $200.

Thanks for the info on the batteries. There is a bruise on the side of my head from whacking it when I read your posts. Dooh, I should have thought of that. :o

To answer my own question, I beleive that component video is bandwidth limited to 480P. Oops, not true my mistake see above post -- got bad info from an AV site.


Oppo OPDV971H
Oppo is out of stock. I read the reviews and went to the Secrets site. The Panasonic S77 got the same score in the Secrets test (both got 94), is about the same price as the (Oppo + $ 45 shipping) X exchange rate, and I can pick one up tomorrow after a 10 min drive.

To answer my own question, I beleive that component video is bandwidth limited to 480P.

No, you can get 720p or 1080i over component video. It just depends on the source.

Is anybody setting up a 2.35:1 Constant Height system with their AE900 using an anamorphic lense from Panamorph (http://www.panamorph.com/), Prismasonic (http://www.prismasonic.com/english/) or Isco (http://www.iscooptic.de)?

I'd like to know if this is even possible with the AE900.

Specifically, I'd like to know if the AE900 will take non scaled non progressive video over the component input and remap it (vertically stretch it) to fill the LCD's pixels completly to use with an anamorphic lense.


AND if the AE900 will project scaled (already vertically stretched 33% by htpc) video from the digital input to be used with an anamorphic lense.

Thanks for the info on the batteries. There is a bruise on the side of my head from whacking it when I read your posts. Dooh, I should have thought of that. :o

Did new batteries help? I put fresh batteries in my remote and there was no change at all. I still have to point my remote right at the 900's IR sensor to get it to work.

Just a note about the remote. Right from the first time I set up my 900 the remote did not work from my seating position (I sit 12' from the screen and my PJ is directly above my head) when I pointed it at my screen. Once I programmed the remote functions into my Home Theater Master remote it works flawlessly. The 900 remote just does not seem to throw out a really strong IR signal like my Home Theater Master remote. The 900 has great functionality however it needs to beef up it's IR output.

Projector reviews just posted a comparison between the Z4 & The AE900. It seems that the Panasonic wins by a small amount. Quote from review. "Meantime, I am highly recommending the Panasonic to several of my friends right now, and it's possible that I may recommend a Z4 to the "right person" sometime soon."



http://www.projectorreviews.com/comparison/z4ae900u/index.asp

Projector reviews just posted a comparison between the Z4 & The AE900. It seems that the Panasonic wins by a small amount. Quote from review. "Meantime, I am highly recommending the Panasonic to several of my friends right now, and it's possible that I may recommend a Z4 to the "right person" sometime soon."



http://www.projectorreviews.com/comparison/z4ae900u/index.asp

The difference shown by the screen shots is quite dramatic. The AOTC scene of the grassy field easily pushes me toward the Panasonic and it appears to have much better black levels as well.

The big thing for me is the light fixture about three feet in front of my projector. My X1's offset allows the image to not hit the fixture while the Panasonic might not clear it with less lens shift capability than the Sanyo. I may have to demo one to know for sure.

Greg

It is also interesting to read the part of the review about the Auto Iris. It seems that you can see the movement on the Z4 and it is suggested that it be turned off. These will reduce the black level which is an important factor to consider. If you also look at the summary it seems that Panasonic wins in more cases. With the current rebate it seems that the Panasonic is a better buy at this time.

Gulfstreme,

You might check on the AE900 and CH thread.

In a nutshell, they say the 900 Zoom1 mode will do the vertical stretch needed, but only for 480i/p (component, I think). Since outboard scalers can be used, I would think one from HTPC would be fine also, but homework on the other thread is wise.

The difference shown by the screen shots is quite dramatic. The AOTC scene of the grassy field easily pushes me toward the Panasonic and it appears to have much better black levels as well.

The big thing for me is the light fixture about three feet in front of my projector. My X1's offset allows the image to not hit the fixture while the Panasonic might not clear it with less lens shift capability than the Sanyo. I may have to demo one to know for sure.

Greg

Maybe the AE900 can produce a more spot on picture "out of the box" than my Z4, but I have done no tweaking and find the picture incredible. Let me say that my picture without any tweaking looks nothing like those dreary looking shots in that comparison. I will not question the reviewer's integrity, but a careful reading of the comparison demonstrates an initial bias to the Panasonic model (I think that I read where the reviewer is associated with a vendor that sells this and not the Sanyo).

For instance the fact that the sharpness is greater on DVDs is downplayed, but my own side by side comparison against an Infocus 4805 for DVD content really demonstrated this. And the Projectorcentral review of the Z4 commented that the sharpness advantage owned by the Z4 was there for all content, DVD, HD etc. Stating that when the new HD formats for movies are available will probably remove any Z4 advantage for DVDs doesn't mean much when these formats are very unlikely to be very relevant in a projector owner's collection during the lifetime of either projector given where the format battle etc. stands.

Of course we all have our own biases/preferences with things, and now I am on here singing the praises of the Z4 :) Read the reviews on Projectorcentral and the comparison between the two models and then the comparisons between them and the DLP models to form a complete opinion.

Thanks for the info on the batteries. There is a bruise on the side of my head from whacking it when I read your posts. Dooh, I should have thought of that.

Did new batteries help? I put fresh batteries in my remote and there was no change at all. I still have to point my remote right at the 900's IR sensor to get it to work.


Wow what a great remote on the AE 900. New batteries and you can bounce it off the screen back to the projector. The batteries that came with it were the problem. But those Panasonic batteries read 1.6V same as the Duracell replacements???

I did some more evaluations of the PQ with good DVDs like LOTR ROTK extended ed., SW AOTC and Spiderman with my Denon 1600 (component 480P). Looks very good. The ghosting I saw on these was around the letters on the intro Titles. I'm not expecting a huge improvement with a 720 HDMI DVDP. But I'll be satisfied if it improves sharpness around edges in scenes even by a small amount. I'll report on the results later.

Originally Posted by rwestley
Projector reviews just posted a comparison between the Z4 & The AE900. It seems that the Panasonic wins by a small amount. Quote from review. "Meantime, I am highly recommending the Panasonic to several of my friends right now, and it's possible that I may recommend a Z4 to the "right person" sometime soon."

I don't think you can put much stock in some of the results of the review. He mentions several times that comparisons were done "out of the box" and that things could be improved with calibratrion. I'm sure most of us could tweak these two good projectors to look better and have yeild pictures much better than those produced "out of the box" even without DVE or Avila. My Z2 calibrated with Avila only will produce better pictures than the ones he showed for the Z4.

I agree that you probably tweak both projectors and get much better results. There are, however, several points that might be very useful.

1. The SDE was quite different for the two projectors.
2. The Auto Iris on the Z4 seems to be a problem this has been pointed out before.

They are both fine projectors and it will depend on individual needs.

The SDE difference will likely sway me, I plan a big 'scope screen. From what I've been reading, "sharpness" seem closer than many indicate. SDE on the Z4 sounds fairly pronounced based on that comparison, and perhaps those sharply delineated pixels can give an appearance of "sharpness"? Or does the 900 somehow soften 480p...a scaling issue that's not a concern with hi-rez feeds? l'll feed upscaled 720p DVD via Oppo DVI or HTPC, so what either does with 480p isn't a concern.
I hear consistent impressions on the color performance of both, and that's another vote for the 900 in my hierarchy. Apparently, one can improve blacks and contrast further with appropriate filters.

Just hooked up my 900 and projected it onto a Da-Lite 106 inch high contrast matte white screen. Picture looks great right out of box. Played some xbox and part of AOTC. Need to work on tweaking the pic and getting the projector at the right angle on the ceiling. My only problem is da-lite screwed up the electric designer contour wall controls. Up makes it go down and down makes it go up. Triple checked and everything looks correct. Reversing the wiring makes it not work at all. Owell. Need to call dealer. Awesome projector though!

AND if the AE900 will project scaled (already vertically stretched 33% by htpc) video from the digital input to be used with an anamorphic lense.

I use the AE700 with an HTPC w/ Zoomplayer+ffdshow to do the scaling over DVI->HDMI and a Prismasonic H1000 Horizontal stretch for the optical correction. Cam Man has answered with regard to the component input on the 900 and his suggestion for the CH forum is a good one.

Be aware that there seems to be some issue with using the 900 and Prismasonic lenses with regard to Sharpness loss. Anssi of Prismasonic has speculated that it is Smoothscreen which is causing this problem. It certainly *is* an interesting assertion and I for one am curious as to why this might be so. Do check this thoroughly if you've interest in the Prismasonic products.

ted

I will not question the reviewer's integrity, but a careful reading of the comparison demonstrates an initial bias to the Panasonic model (I think that I read where the reviewer is associated with a vendor that sells this and not the Sanyo).

No, they sell both models. I think his opinions are well balanced and he points out numerous times that any differences in the Z4's PQ can be corrected with calibration. However, for the majority of people (not necessarily on this forum ;) ) that do nothing, or just set contrast, brightness, color and tint with THX Optimizer, the out-of-the-box performance is important. The other differences depend on your individual needs and taste.

Wow what a great remote on the AE 900. New batteries and you can bounce it off the screen back to the projector. The batteries that came with it were the problem. But those Panasonic batteries read 1.6V same as the Duracell replacements???

It's not a voltage issue. The batteries that usually come with equipment are cheap and sometimes have been sitting in a warehouse for a long time before they're included with a product. This results in short life, even though they're "new".

I did some more evaluations of the PQ with good DVDs like LOTR ROTK extended ed., SW AOTC and Spiderman with my Denon 1600 (component 480P). Looks very good. The ghosting I saw on these was around the letters on the intro Titles. I'm not expecting a huge improvement with a 720 HDMI DVDP. But I'll be satisfied if it improves sharpness around edges in scenes even by a small amount.

I've used my Panny RP82 (the Denon 1600 is a clone of the Panny) via component and the PQ is very good, but it's a step up with the Oppo (as would probably be the S77 as well). Removing a digital-to-analog conversion and scaling by the projector results in a sharper picture. I haven't seen any macroblocking yet, but that's always a concern with Faroudja-equipped upscaling DVD player.

Or does the 900 somehow soften 480p...a scaling issue that's not a concern with hi-rez feeds? l'll feed upscaled 720p DVD via Oppo DVI or HTPC, so what either does with 480p isn't a concern.


Jack, (if I may)

You will still new to feed the PJ a vertically squeezed (aspect adjusted) image for 720p. Neither the Oppo nor the 900 will do that for you if you plan to use an anamorphic lens for the optical correction. So a scaler of some sort is a necessity for aspect control of 720p source.

Be aware that there might be an issue with the 900 and Prismasonic lens. This is an issue which needs exploration as I for one am not satisfied with Prismasonic's explanation of it being caused by Smoothscreen - but I ain't no authority. :o

ted

Jack, (if I may)
Yes, you certainly may. :)

You will still new to feed the PJ a vertically squeezed (aspect adjusted) image for 720p. Neither the Oppo nor the 900 will do that for you if you plan to use an anamorphic lens for the optical correction. So a scaler of some sort is a necessity for aspect control of 720p source.
Understood. Since it's possible to get a 1:1 pixel-map with the 900, I'm leaning toward the HTPC route for the best quality and scaling flexibility. I happen to have the Oppo sitting here, though, so I can at least try the 480p expansion.

Be aware that there might be an issue with the 900 and Prismasonic lens. This is an issue which needs exploration as I for one am not satisfied with Prismasonic's explanation of it being caused by Smoothscreen - but I ain't no authority.

Yeah, I recall. I plan on using it with my Panamorph 752, so we'll see how it reacts. I don't need the vertical expansion of the Prismasonic with the amount of zoom available, and the lens shift along with all that zoom will allow me to remove the lens if desired.

Since this PJ is not natively 720p does it make it a poor choice to use an Xbox 360 to game on?

This projector IS native 720P, 1280X720.

Those using a filter with the AE900 or AE700. Does one have to buy some sort of bracket to hold the filter inplace? If so, what size is needed?

Thanks
Ron

Those using a filter with the AE900 or AE700. Does one have to buy some sort of bracket to hold the filter inplace? If so, what size is needed?
The lens is threaded to accept a 77mm filter or Cokin P holder.

Maybe the AE900 can produce a more spot on picture "out of the box" than my Z4, but I have done no tweaking and find the picture incredible. Let me say that my picture without any tweaking looks nothing like those dreary looking shots in that comparison. I will not question the reviewer's integrity, but a careful reading of the comparison demonstrates an initial bias to the Panasonic model (I think that I read where the reviewer is associated with a vendor that sells this and not the Sanyo).

For instance the fact that the sharpness is greater on DVDs is downplayed, but my own side by side comparison against an Infocus 4805 for DVD content really demonstrated this. And the Projectorcentral review of the Z4 commented that the sharpness advantage owned by the Z4 was there for all content, DVD, HD etc. Stating that when the new HD formats for movies are available will probably remove any Z4 advantage for DVDs doesn't mean much when these formats are very unlikely to be very relevant in a projector owner's collection during the lifetime of either projector given where the format battle etc. stands.

Of course we all have our own biases/preferences with things, and now I am on here singing the praises of the Z4 :) Read the reviews on Projectorcentral and the comparison between the two models and then the comparisons between them and the DLP models to form a complete opinion.

Thanks for the Z4 praise. I like this models lens shift better than the Panny and prefer to buy this one if it will work for me.

I have pretty good eyesight and am somewhat worried about SDE. With my X1 throwing a six foot horizontal image and me seated about fifteen feet back, I can only see SDE in really bright uniformly lit areas. Otherwise, it isn't an issue. When I go to a new PJ, I insist on an 8 foot wide screen which is about 106" 16:9.

What distance are you from the screen and do you see any SDE?

Greg

I have moved this post to the AE900 Tweak thread.

Dunno if this review has been posted yet, (the search feature didnt find it) however, here's another review of the 900

http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/PanasonicPTAE900UProjectorReview1.php

I'm either upgrading to either the AE-900 or the Z4 but a few things are keeping me back from pulling the trigger. Some reviews say the 900's sharpness is worse than the 700 and the Z4 is significantly better, some say they are so close one can't tell. Obviously some of these reviews can be biased but has any AVS member compared these two yet (non bias review). I'm not worried about the OTB colors and levels, I love tweaking my projector and take none of the OTB comparisons to heart. I'm leaning towards the Panny but I do want a sharper picture than some reviews mention.

Cam Man could you post your results with the filters on the AE900 tweak thread when you get your projector. If possible also post your settings. Sounds like a low priced way to tweak the projector.

Well, I did it! I ordered the AE900 today. Now the agony of waiting 5-8 business days begins...

I decided to stretch out my money and buy a cheaper screen to begin with and upgrade to a nice Stewart screen in a year (and keep the gray screen around for bright room watching - superbowl, etc). I went with a 106" GrayWolf hoping that it allows for more flexablility with lights on and better blacks.

My room is as follows: Basement (100% light controlled), 12'6" wide x 17' deep, tan/brownish colored carpet, and I'm looking for some dark (red velvet?) drapes to hang on the walls. I plan on the seating being at about 12'6"-13' and 15'6" (or somewhere near there). The projector will be at about 16' back.

If any of you have the GrayWolf and AE900, I'd appreciate your comments (projector mounting in relation to it, etc). But, if you guys think it's a bad choice, it still might not be too late to change to the Da-Lite (since it's not shipping until tomorrow sometime). However, having read so many posts of people raving about the GrayWolf as a decent, cheap alternative to something 5x-10x the cost, I took the plunge.

Alan

Alan,

I'm in exactly the same boat as you...just ordered the AE900 / GrayWolf combination...just got the screen today, and the projector should ship tomorrow (2 day). I'm hoping to have stuff setup to do some intial setup this weekend. Its a bit complicated as my theater currently has a plasma mounted in it, and I am in process of retrofitting (wiring mostly) to work with a pj.

From what I've read, the graywolf is a great jumping off point, so even if it's not the "best" screen for the ae900, it should be a good starting place.

Cheers,

Rich

Confirming that the AE900 DOES do the vertical stretch required for an anamorphic lens.

I've had a 2.35 ratio set up for years with a Da-lite HiPower and ISCO II lens, and just this evening replaced my (ancient) NEC VT540 with an AE900. Thus far I've only tried a 480p signal, but, at least in that mode, the Zoom setting does a perfect vertical stretch for use with the ISCO.

Alternatively, the range of the projector lens is great enough to allow it to optically zoom and fill a 2.35 screen with a non stretched image, so constant height will still work even without an anamorphic lens, albeit without the brightness gain achieved by such lenses.

I have a beginer question. Do I need to purchase an upconverting DVD player for the ae900, or can the projector upconvert the image to 720p?

You probably will get a good picture with any progressive scan DVD player but if you are looking for a very good picture I would recommend the Oppo or the Panasonic 97S with the AE 900. They are both fine upscailing players. I would also recommend 720p settings with this projector.

[QUOTE=doctormyeyes]Confirming that the AE900 DOES do the vertical stretch required for an anamorphic lens.

.......Thus far I've only tried a 480p signal

QUOTE]

Unfortunately you will soon discover that like the 700 it *only* works with 480 source.

Jackson Brown?

ted

Thomas J. Norton (TJN) of Ultimate AV has a review of the 900 up:

http://www.guidetohometheater.com/videoprojectors/1105panasonic/

I'll let you guys read it for yourselves, rather than paste anything, but suffice it to say, he liked it--particularly the colorspace after full (ISF-compatible) calibration.

TJN also goes into some detail about the possible HDMI incompatibilities with certain DVD players, and the choices Panny made when designing the 900 to conform to the HDMI spec, which requires a constant "flag" signal to be sent for proper colorspace interpretation and setting from the PJ. Interesting. Any probs, however, probably could be fixed (if I read TJN's interpretation correctly) with a manual setting of the digital input's colorspace settings, rather than the auto-sensing employed by Panny--e.g. via a firmware update...interressant...


willdao

Thanks for the Z4 praise. I like this models lens shift better than the Panny and prefer to buy this one if it will work for me.

I have pretty good eyesight and am somewhat worried about SDE. With my X1 throwing a six foot horizontal image and me seated about fifteen feet back, I can only see SDE in really bright uniformly lit areas. Otherwise, it isn't an issue. When I go to a new PJ, I insist on an 8 foot wide screen which is about 106" 16:9.

What distance are you from the screen and do you see any SDE?

Greg

Wow, I am even happer with my Z4 after assessing any SDE this evening. While I know what SDE is and can certainly see the pixel structure when I get very close, I have Monday Night Football on in HD and am sitting only 8 feet from my 116" diagonal screen being projected on my off white wall (yeah I need a screen at some point). There is some SDE visible around the letters for the score and what not, but the video portion is still plenty watchable from this close. There may be some small amount of SDE visible at times in the video portion, but it still looks VERY good at this extremely close seating distance. My point here is to demonstrate that there is not some horrible pixelized grid, even at seating distances that are definitely too close for that large a screen. I could certainly be okay watching closer than I should at times, much better quality than I thought it would be based on all of the SDE talk and compliments of the Panasonic smoothing. You have to believe that the high resolution of these new panels should remove most of this, particularly from the video portions, at all but the most insanely close distances.

Obviously some people will have no room for any SDE, but that 8 foot seating position is not even 1.0x my screen width (102"). I really think this whole SDE thing is WAY overblown on these forums because I can't imagine many people wanting to or even being able to watch that huge a screen from much closer than the standard 1.5x rule anyway. My primary seating is at 12.5 feet (right about 1.5x), and there is NO visible SDE to me. I suppose there is always the possibility that someone who is really trying to look for it could see some TINY hint in a bright area around some text or something, but I am not even sure about that.

Bottom line is I can't imagine this being a huge issue for the average person at all, and I for one am glad that I have a sharper image instead of "smoothing" that would simply permit me to violate recognized seating distances (including THX standards) without seeing a fleeting moment of "SDE" in some bright text area. Just my opinion, others will have a different preference.

This projector IS native 720P, 1280X720.
Thanks, I don't know what the heck I was reading...

I thought I would List all the Reviews for the Panasonic AE900 that I found so far. This might be helpful for anyone considering this unit. If I have left any out please let me know and I will be happy to add it. The Cine4home reviews require translation from German.

http://www.projectorreviews.com/review.asp?reid=50

http://www.projectorreviews.com/comparison/z4ae900u/index.asp

http://www.projectorcentral.com/panasonic_ae900.htm

http://www.projectorcentral.com/ae900_plvz4.htm

http://www.projectorcentral.com/ae900_pe7700.htm

http://www.ausmedia.com.au/panasonic_ae700_vs_ae900_review.htm

http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/PanasonicPTAE900UProjectorReview1.php

http://www.***************.com/htsthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/753610/an/0/page/0

http://www.avbuzz.com/audio-video/200510/ae900-ckl/index.htm

http://www.guidetohometheater.com/videoprojectors/1105panasonic/

Cine 4 Home review

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.cine4home.de/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcine4home%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26rls%3DGGLG,GGLG:2 005-43,GGLG:en

I hope that putting these reviews in one place helps those interested in the AE900. If anyone finds other reviews let me know and I will add them.

Thanks, rwestley!

That's a great resource! :) I've been writing down page numbers on this thread for weeks (for this and other reasons)!

willdao

MikeSRC (and/or anyone, of course! :) ),

A question for you, if I may:

A couple of pages back, a poster mentioned that the 900 ran quite hot; you replied that this was your experience, too (I assume with more than one unit, so there's no unit-to-unit variance, and it's likely a design issue, etc.). I had not come across any mention of a heat issue before in this thread, and, apparently, this is not a big deal with careful attention paid to setup, fan speed on high, etc. But it is preceisely my setup option that I'm worried about...

My question is: I'm going to be running the unit in a closet behind the seating area, which also houses all my audio equipment, including a multichannel receiver, and outboard amp for a sub, sources, etc. The panny will blow to the "short side" of the closet--i.e. closer to a wall--rather than to "the large side," i.e. deeper into the closet, more airspace, etc. There will be plenty of room behind the unit, and, further on the bright side, the closet door will be cracked to permit both the image (duh!), and air, to "escape." I am running this setup currently with a Vidikron Crystal One, with no overheating prob's for well over five years (although this is a big chassis, with a big fan). Do you think the Panny will work well enough in this environment, say, with the fan on high?

Thanks for your advice,


willdao

ae900 runs really hot. I'm in a closed room and now there's no problem, but in summer?
I don't know what to say, willdao. But it's hotter than what I thought.

Willdao,

Do a little more research. Get a Radio shack digital thermometer with "outside" probe, and place several inches above your gear. If you are seeing in excess of 100F, you would be wise to install some thermal managment. What is the volume of the closet? Active Thermal Management makes some great products (System One is my favorite). You can also buy a Fantec in-line duct fan (looks just like the ATM System One) for <$200, place it in another location to isolate the noise, and flex duct back to your equipment closet. Its CFM is on the order of 120 as I remember. You can rig it to turn on when your system comes on.

Arrange air flow in your closet to enter from the bottom, and flow through your equipment to the exhaust vent at the top or over your hottest item. If you just crack the door, the cool air almost completely bypasses the equipment. Even the space under the closet door could be enough to let the fan pull adequate CFM of cool air if it is fairly large as many are.

Id say it will most likely run to hot in that closet, even with high fan. I have it in an open room with a lightweight Digital receiver sitting on top for over an hour until the warning light kicked on and it shut down. Now i keep the unit seperate to the projector, but id still be overly cautious with heat.

As a very cheap alternative. Get a low voltage power supply and connect 4 0r 5 120mm run silent fans to blow the hot exhaust air up and away from the projector and the lens. You could enclose a single fan in a wooden surround and leave one end open. Set it just below the exhaust exit on the projector so that it blows it up. Put another 120mm silent fan at a hole in the top of the unit to eject the ehxaust further away from the equipment.

An other very helpful tip when stacking equipment in close quarters:

- Buy an old broken amp or get yourself a metal slim case of some sort. Even an early DVd player. In our local supermarket you can get one for around £20 (tescos). Remove all the components from the case. Bore out 4 100mm holes (or whatever size) on the top and bottom of the unit and insert four silent running fans (PC fans do the trick) nad mount them so they suck from the bottom and blow out the top.

Its very handy if you have a DVD player sitting on top of an amp to keep it cool...

I use a Cambridge Azur Phono Pre-Amp to sit in the middle of my system...top job...it only cost £39 and seperates the hot components.

Chris

MikeSRC (and/or anyone, of course! :) ),

A question for you, if I may:

A couple of pages back, a poster mentioned that the 900 ran quite hot; you replied that this was your experience, too (I assume with more than one unit, so there's no unit-to-unit variance, and it's likely a design issue, etc.). I had not come across any mention of a heat issue before in this thread, and, apparently, this is not a big deal with careful attention paid to setup, fan speed on high, etc. But it is preceisely my setup option that I'm worried about...

My question is: I'm going to be running the unit in a closet behind the seating area, which also houses all my audio equipment, including a multichannel receiver, and outboard amp for a sub, sources, etc. The panny will blow to the "short side" of the closet--i.e. closer to a wall--rather than to "the large side," i.e. deeper into the closet, more airspace, etc. There will be plenty of room behind the unit, and, further on the bright side, the closet door will be cracked to permit both the image (duh!), and air, to "escape." I am running this setup currently with a Vidikron Crystal One, with no overheating prob's for well over five years (although this is a big chassis, with a big fan). Do you think the Panny will work well enough in this environment, say, with the fan on high?

Thanks for your advice,


willdao

Willdao, I think Cam Man's got you covered. If you've got good flow-through ventilation, you should be fine,especially with high fan mode. Interestingly enough, high fan mode does not change the two temperature readings in the "Self Check" section of the service menu. Those temp readings are at the air intake and LCD panels. However, high fan mode does make the unit cooler at the lamp location, which is where it is the hottest.

OK, Question from a happy HT1000 owner... I've read nothing but stellar reviews of the AE900 machine, and this thread is very informative as well.

However, I'm a bit worried about black level - I can't have an "easy" in-house test with the AE900 here in Belgium.

How would the absolute black level of a HT1000 compare to a AE900? has anyone compared these?

Thanks

Hi guys. I have a quick question for you. I just returned my Z4 projector because it had a problem with progressive scan. Now I am thinking about the Panny. I was concerned about the bulb problem that was so apparent on the AE700. The thing is I just emailed the place that I bought my Z4 from and they assured me that the lamp problem has been adressed on the AE900 and that Panny now states an avg life of 5000Hours in Econo mode. They also stated that panny did not provide an avg life for the bulb on the AE700 so basically the issue has been resolved.

Can any1 confirm this? I would really appreciate it. Also how quiet is the Panny? The Z4 was whisper quiet and I could not hear a thing.

Well, they still do not claim lamp life beyond 3000 hours in the manual, so I'm not sure where the 5000 number's coming from. In "Normal" fan mode, the AE900 is dead silent. It's the quietest projector I've seen to date, so I'm sure it's at least equal to the Z4.

Anyone tried different refresh rates? I'm interested in 72 Hz and 75 Hz (PAL). I've been judder-free for years, and don't want to go back...
If available, is it only available through the VGA input? Or can you also get it to synch this way through the HDMI port?

hmm thats weird. Thats what they told me in the manual, even gave me a number to call the East coast guy from panasonic so he can confirm that the bulb issue has been adressed. Hows the waranty on the panny if I get the 2 years? Do they clean the projector for free because the Z4 has a way you can do it yourself while the panny does not.

Cam Man, Oriphus, MikeSRC, AlexPN,

Thanks for your responses. I just hadn't given any particular thought to "thermal mgt.," having had no problems in a trouble-free installation, for several years (and not hearing aout the 900 running hot over some 1300 posts over the last several weeks). My sub amp is class D ,so not much of a heat issue, but my receiver is a MOS-FET design, and that could be troublesome in the same closet with a hot-tending PJ.

The nice thing is that, even in high fan mode, the PJ will largely be sound-insulated from the seating area (as will any other fans I will have to employ).

Thanks for the tips...and, strangely, I'm kinda looking forward to the project...not at all bummed that I can't/shouldn't just plop the 900 in place of the Vidikron.

Sometimes a guy just needs a worthy project, know what I mean?!

willdao

I know there arre tons of discussions on this matter, but i want to know which projector to buy...the Panny 900 or the Sanyo Z4. I am pulling the trigger today and need someone to tip the scale. I am projecting 13 feet back onto a Stewart Greyhawk. I just saw there is a 200 dollar rebate plus 300 in movies from Blockbuster on the Panny. Is the Sanyo worth 200 more? Any advice is greatly appreciated! THANK YOU

tundraview,

No one can tell you which one you'll like. I just got the 900 on Friday and it's great so far. Only limited by the quality of the signal fed to it. You'll probably be happy with either one.

So dynamic iris is quite noisy in my unit, is this "feature" or is there something wrong in my unit?. It makes sound on dark and bright scenes.

-JaMiR-

PS.Also lenshift joystick seems to move easily on lock position, actually open position feels same...

Seems like I saw someone here who bought their AE900 through AAFES. If so, how long was your shipping time?

JaMiR,

The iris is noisy on mine as well. It doesn't really bother me, but it's certainly audible.

Also, the fan is FAR from quiet on my machine. It's not bothersome at normal level, but it's loud on high setting. The machine is about 3 feet above my head. I can hear it 10+ ft away on normal setting with sound coming from speakers.

I know there arre tons of discussions on this matter, but i want to know which projector to buy...the Panny 900 or the Sanyo Z4. I am pulling the trigger today and need someone to tip the scale. I am projecting 13 feet back onto a Stewart Greyhawk. I just saw there is a 200 dollar rebate plus 300 in movies from Blockbuster on the Panny. Is the Sanyo worth 200 more? Any advice is greatly appreciated! THANK YOU

You have to make the decision as to what is most important to you: If you like to tweak, buy the Z4. The Z4 also comes with a 3 year warranty, the AE900 only 1 year. But you can purchase extended warranty.

If you are not a tweaker, then the AE900 is the projector for you--it comes better calibrated out of the box. Also, if you like to sit closer than recommended and SDE is an issue, that is another reason to go with the AE900. As stated before there is no clear winner with these 2 projectors--either choice is a good choice. IMHO

Greg, I bought and returned a Z4 in part because of SDE. I was sitting about 12 feet back and watching on an 84” diagonal screen, so I “shouldn’t” have been able to see SDE. I was not looking for it, I was not one foot from the screen or using binoculars. My girlfriend didn’t notice it at all. However, it was quite noticeable and annoying to me. I didn’t notice it in most scenes, but solid areas of color looked gritty to me and very un-filmlike on this projector.

If you are bothered by SDE, I’d advise against this projector.

I just picked-up my 900 last night. It's still in the box and I'm going to try and leave it there until my screen arrives and I finish building my theatre room. I can't wait to fire this puppy up! It's going to be a long week or two.

I got my AE900 last week and can't say enough great things about it. I have it installed on a shelf mount with a throw distance of 12'. I am currently projecting onto a white wall, since after reading a ton of forums here I found some useful advice stating that you should wait a few weeks before purchasing a screen as to make sure that you have an idea of exactly what screen size you want. I made the measurements this weekend and I have exactly 102". I'll be ordering a Carada Precision Series screen in the next few weeks and will let everyone know how that goes. I sit about 10 feet from the projected image and have seen no SDE at all... not even a little bit.


I have the lens shift about 3/4 of the way to the right and a little up. I have noticed no difference in the PQ at all with this shift applied. I had it centered
prior to installing the shelf just to make sure there were no strange effects once I applied the lens shift.

I have a room that is mostly light controlled. To be honest if I am watching sports during the day I hate sitting in complete darkness, so even with a little
backlighting on the PQ is still great. Before I get into my impressions... I need to state that I bought this projector specifically for 4 reasons: HD Sports, DVD watching, HTPC and GAMES! I am a huge gamer and I'd say the majority of time I will spend using the AE900 will be specifically for gaming. I will be getting the Xbox 360 on launch day and will let everyone know my impressions after I have it running for a while.

I have about 20 hours running in Low Lamp mode right now and have tried a variety of different input devices as follows:

1) DirecTV standard definition connected via S-Video: I calibrated the PQ
using AVIA and from a color/sharpness stand point have to say that it is really impressive. I started at Cinema 2 and tweaked from there. I don't remember my settings since I am at work and since they will change once I get the screen, there's no sense in posting them anyway. The colors are fantastic though!! Even at SD the color definition while watching. College Football on Saturday was great. However, watching football at SD the overall PQ isn't the greatest to be honest, this has NO reelection on the AE900 though. It's just the fact that SD sports when played through a HD medium, at least in my experience, (be it plasma, RP or whichever) can be sketchy. When larger images are displayed it's great, however when zoomed out to show a larger view of the action the players lose definition and are blurry. I can deal with it until I get my HD DirecTv hooked up, but just don't expect SD PQ to be that great.

2) PC via DVI/HDMI: I hooked up my ATI Radeon 9600 Pro via a 12" HDMI/DVI cable. All I can say is WOW!!! Holy Shiznit!! I was blown away by how great everything looked. get a 720p signal coming off the PC and used the same AVIA calibrations I used before and I turned the overscanning off. The PQ was simply outstanding. The pixel mapping was spot on. Not that I use it to surf the web... but it is a good test to see if plain text on a white background stands out crisp and clear with no shadowing at all. Which of course it does. Star Wars Battlefront II at 720P on a 102" screen is impressive to say the least. If you have this game and you have a DVI port on your graphics card... you owe it to yourself to try this out. The colors fly off the screen and it's crystal clear. Anyone wondering what you can expect to see in terms of what 720p PC gaming should look like, should play the Felucia level or any of the space levels. They are amazing. If you play World of Warcraft, all I can say is seeing Azeroth at 720p and 102" diagonally is crazy.

There was something that I wasn't sure was a limitation or my own ignorance. I found that the only time the HDMI port would sense my PC was after a reboot, I couldn't just plug in the DVI to HDMI cable and go. Anyone know if this is just a regular occurance when connecing a live HDMI source?

If you want to see the Dynamic Iris in action, open up "My Computer" to full screen (if you have a dark background and then close it. You can definitely see the difference between open and shut.

3) Xbox via composite HD: While the PC images were consistently impressive. The Xbox was hit or miss. Some games that supported 480p/720p looked great. X-Men
Legends II looked great at 720p while SSX: On Tour looked just ok at 480p. Kingdom Under Fire Heroes at 480p (which I thought would look great) looked like
poop. It was so bad I could only play for about 20 minutes. I really didn't play that much to be honest as I was playing more PC games than anything else. That will change once I get the 360 though as every game will support ...

4) DVD via S-Video: I have a Panasonic progressive scan DVD player currently. Nothing special but it does a good enough job. I am looking into getting an upscaling DVD player soon, but up until now really haven't had the need. Of course now that I am hooked on my PJ it will be sooner than later. The PQ was again outstanding while viewing DVD's. The first movie I put in was Chronicles of Riddick. I figured it was dark enough to test the blacks and had enough color and motion to get an idea of where my PQ stood. If SD looks as great as it did, I can't wait to upscale!!! I know I have said this a lot, but the colors this PJ puts out are just awesome. The blacks (even projected on the wall) were deep and I never felt they looked anything other than deep black. Never a subtle gray thrown in the corner or anything like that. In the scene where Riddick is getting chased across the snow, I had previously never noticed a subtle pink/purple glow to everything that was given off by the sun. I first thought my color was off, until I saw the sun in the background. The sharpness was crisp and I was completely impressed. I tried some other movies like Batman begins and Dark City and I was never disappointed.

There are a couple of other things that I felt I should mention. The unit does run relatively hot, you can't fry an egg or anything but it's more than warm. If it's well
ventilated I can't imagine there would be a problem though. There is a distinct "electronic" (for lack of a better term) smell that you get as soon as you turn it on. It's in no way permeating, but if you are standing in the exhaust path, you can definitely get a whiff. The remote is by far one of the most functional and easy to use device specific AV remotes I have seen. Everything you want to do can pretty much be accessed by one button. Things like memory loads, color management and aspect are all right there with one easy push of a button.


You can obviously tell that I more than impressed with AE900. This is coming from a guy who swore by RP for the longest time and finally took the leap into FP with the AE900. I can't tell you how many Lumens I have at what setting or my exact color temperature at any given time, (at least not yet ;) ) but I can say that as a technology enthusiast and a PC/Console graphics whore the AE900 is OUTSTANDING!!! I am now forever spoiled. Gaming at less than 720p on a small screen or PC monitor will always be lame from now on...

Now, that is a happy man.

Just got my 900 last week also, Technaught. I have also been impressed so far.

My setup is shelf-mounted 17' back from 92" greywolf. I have all components going through HK AVR-7300 that does component conversion and DCDi.

I agree about SD material. Its not amazing, but it's completely watchable. The colors are fantastic, it's just the definition that suffers. SD sports are a bit tough to watch, but otherwise okay.

DVDs are hit and miss depending on the quality of the transfer. A good DVD transfer looks fantastic. Colors are VERY accurate and black levels are outstanding.

XBOX looks good. I have a modded XBOX and XBMC looks very good except for the letters on album titles/tracks that lack a bit of sharpness. I may be able to tweak better results. Games are also hit and miss as you said.

HDTV.........WOW! :eek: I watched a few football games in HD this weekend and the quality was unbelievable. I'm watching everything I can find with my OTA tuner. I'm very happy that I went with a 720p machine instead of one of the 480p machines.

My only small gripe so far is a slight lack of sharpness around lettering. Its most notable on 480p sources, but also seen on HD. I find myself reaching for the focus knob a lot. I have a HDMI cable on the way. Perhaps that will help slightly. I'm pretty picky however, like most of the people here. I'd rather have a slight sharpness issue instead of SDE. Screen door drives me crazy.

Quick question for other 900 owners: How would you describe the noise level from your projector in low lamp mode? I've heard people say it's completely silent. I'd say it's far from that. Not as noisy as 4805 or 7205 (my only comparison), but certainly audible.

4) DVD via S-Video: I have a Panasonic progressive scan DVD player currently. Nothing special but it does a good enough job. I am looking into getting an upscaling DVD player soon, but up until now really haven't had the need. saw the sun in the background. The sharpness was crisp and I was completely impressed. I tried some other movies like Batman begins and Dark City and I was never disappointed.

Any reason why you did not use the progressive component connection?

Shelly

My only small gripe so far is a slight lack of sharpness around lettering. Its most notable on 480p sources, but also seen on HD. I find myself reaching for the focus knob a lot. I have a HDMI cable on the way. Perhaps that will help slightly. I'm pretty picky however, like most of the people here. I'd rather have a slight sharpness issue instead of SDE. Screen door drives me crazy.

Quick question for other 900 owners: How would you describe the noise level from your projector in low lamp mode? I've heard people say it's completely silent. I'd say it's far from that. Not as noisy as 4805 or 7205 (my only comparison), but certainly audible.

I'm curious to know if the HDMI cable improves your sharpness. I am using component and can put in a HDMI, but that will require removal of the wall trim to get to the conduit I had put in the walls for this purpose. If the improvement is marginal at best, I'd rather just stay with component.

My projector is not completely silent. I can hear it faintly, but its not at all distracting when there is any sound in the program.

Can someone post a pic or two of their installed 900? The idea of a projector hanging 20" from my ceiling on a pole doesn't sit well with me, thus I am favoring the Z4 for its greater usable vertical shift. But I don't want to cut off my nose to spite my face and want to see it outside of my mind's eye.

I'm curious to know if the HDMI cable improves your sharpness. I am using component and can put in a HDMI, but that will require removal of the wall trim to get to the conduit I had put in the walls for this purpose. If the improvement is marginal at best, I'd rather just stay with component.

My projector is not completely silent. I can hear it faintly, but its not at all distracting when there is any sound in the program.

So would you say you're also not completely satisfied with the sharpness using the component connection?? I wouldn't say it's bad, just could use some improvement. I'll fill you in when I get the HDMI cable. Should be Thurs or Fri.

So would you say you're also not completely satisfied with the sharpness using the component connection?? I wouldn't say it's bad, just could use some improvement. I'll fill you in when I get the HDMI cable. Should be Thurs or Fri.

No, its not bad ... but again there is a nagging feeling in some material that it should be sharper. I'm comparing to my 65" CRT RPTV which was razor sharp.
I look forward to your finding. :)

Hello,

I'm in the market for my first pj and have narrowed it down to the optoma h31 and at 2x the cost, the ae900. I love hidef on 720P DLP's that i've seen (the h79) but I can't afford one of those. My question: For those who've seen both pj's in action, which has better black levels, contrast, shapness, 480p & 720p images.
I would assume that the pj would tie in most everything except hidef images b/c the 900 is native 720p, but on the other hand the h31 looks pretty darn good when it downscales a 720p signal. Bottom the line: is the panasonic worth 2x the money? Or should I save my money, get the h31, and buy a 720p 2 years down the road when they're much cheaper?

Any thoughts and first hand experiences are greatly, greatly apprieated! Thanks everyone! :cool:

(P.S. every DLP that i've seen looks really nice to me, even the cheaper ones (hc3 and h31). Also, the only LCD pj that i've seen was the h51, and i must say, i hated the screen door effect and lack of black levels...--but then again i only saw a 480p image on the LCD.)

Seems like I saw someone here who bought their AE900 through AAFES. If so, how long was your shipping time?

Mine was 1 week from order date to delivery from the Exchange Catlog-JPN

guys isnt any1 curious if the bulb issue has been fixed? Im surprised that more people arent scared of their bulb dying at less then 1000 hours like so many people with the AE700 dids

Also I just had a Z4 that I returned and it was completly silent. I could not here it at all although it did get hot if I was in the way of the vent (it was on my table at first plan to get a ceiling mount later). I am now considering the AE900U but am worried about the bulb and noise. When mounted the projector will be about a foot or some above myt head so I want to make sure I wont hear it.

*EDIT* Also, what does the 2yr extended waranty cover? On the Z4 it was easy to clean dust from the LCDs, but this is not possible on the AE900U. Does panasonic clean this for free? How would I go about getting the dust out?

Based on my AE900 and two others I've seen, I'd say that anyone whose 900 has noticeable fan noise in "Normal" fan mode may have a defective unit. I have to put my ear almost right up to the unit to hear anything. I've had a number of projectors go through here and the AE900 is as quiet or quieter than any of them. Even in "High" fan mode it's quieter than many.

One interesting item I've found is that (assuming Temp 1 and 2 are the same as they are in the AE700) the LCD temperature is actually lower in "Normal" fan mode than in "High". The surface of the projector above the lamp is hotter, but apparently that doesn't affect the LCD sensor. I'm getting 146 in Normal mode and 150 in High. Anyone else want to check this? Just select "Self Check" in the service menu.

Thanks Mike. But what about the cleaning of the dust issue that you can do yourself with the Z4? Also the Z4 has an automatic slider that closes the lens when you power off the projector which prevents dust from collecting on the lens. How would I cover the lens on the panny?

The Panny comes with a lens cover like an SLR camera lens cover.

MikeSRC,

I remember reading SOMEWHERE in this epic thread that the temp settings are actually counter-intuitive--that a "larger" numeric value actually equates to a lower temperature--e.g. "150" is more desirable than "146." Maybe, darnit, it was among the ae700 posts (don't rely on my memory--heck, I don't :D ) Anyway, this issue, as you know, has become a little more of interest to me since the recent posts, given my setup...

willdao

Anyone know of a place in the Los Angeles area where the AE 900 is being shown? Home theater store, etc., where I could get a live look at the image quality, etc.?

Thanks,
Scott

what is the response time for the lcd panel in the AE900???

I got my AE900 last week and can't say enough great things about it.
...

2) PC via DVI/HDMI: I hooked up my ATI Radeon 9600 Pro via a 12" HDMI/DVI cable.
...

4) DVD via S-Video: I have a Panasonic progressive scan DVD player currently. Nothing special but it does a good enough job. I am looking into getting an upscaling DVD player soon, but up until now really haven't had the need.
...


I don't understand why you need a separate DVD player, and moreover, why do you have it connected to AE900 with S-video, when you have your PC already connected via DVI.

Try the Nvidia PureVideo decoder which works with Windows Media Player as well as many others DVD player software. It's user's guide can be found here:

http://download.nvidia.com/Windows/dvd_decoder/1.02-185/PureVideo_Decoder_102-185.pdf

and you can download it from here:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder_1.02-185-trial.html

As you will read in the user's guide, the features this decoder has are at par with some of the better upscaling standalone DVD players.

Based on my AE900 and two others I've seen, I'd say that anyone whose 900 has noticeable fan noise in "Normal" fan mode may have a defective unit. I have to put my ear almost right up to the unit to hear anything. I've had a number of projectors go through here and the AE900 is as quiet or quieter than any of them. Even in "High" fan mode it's quieter than many.



well i would certainly not describe my unit as quiet. however, im curious as to what defines quiet.

if i ran the projector during the day, with a window open and ambient noise, i would not notice the projector so much.

but at night when all is quiet and there is not much ambient noise, it is very easy to hear.

i simply cant understand how anyone would have to put their ear right up to the pj to hear it. and in high fan mode, its very very audible.

however, maybe i just have very good ears. when my room is quiet i can also hear my lcd tv fans (sony xbr v series) which many others fail to do.

in addition my normal sitting position is with the projector behind me and to the left, which is roughly the angle at which the ae900 vents. when i sit in a seat on the other side, its a bit less audible.

but then i challenge anyone, when it is late at night, quiet, and with no movie volume, i could definitely hear the projector from 8m away.

can anyone else do that too?

krlock2

Hi guys !

Could anyone tell from the manual of the Panny 900 (or maybe 700 since they seem to be quite identical) how many inches of space I should leave between the wall on the right and left side of the projector and between ceiling and projector as a minimum ?
Since heat development seems to be an issue with the 900 and since I am going to install my Panny in a niche of walls, this information is quite important to me.

Thanx,

prickelpit

So dynamic iris is quite noisy in my unit, is this "feature" or is there something wrong in my unit?. It makes sound on dark and bright scenes.

-JaMiR-

PS.Also lenshift joystick seems to move easily on lock position, actually open position feels same...

yes i also hear this sound too, but im not sure that it is the dynamic iris.

what i do hear is that the noise created by the projector fluctuates very slightly based on the amount of light or dark in the scene being displayed. i cannot really describe the sound exactly.... im trying to think of an analogy but i cannot.

however, it might just be my very good ears again (see last post) and i thought i might be the only one to hear this.

my ae300 didnt do this, and was in my opinion a bit less intrusive in the noise it made compared to the ae900.

krlock2

JaMiR,

The iris is noisy on mine as well. It doesn't really bother me, but it's certainly audible.

Also, the fan is FAR from quiet on my machine. It's not bothersome at normal level, but it's loud on high setting. The machine is about 3 feet above my head. I can hear it 10+ ft away on normal setting with sound coming from speakers.


thanks god im not the only one then!!

thanks god im not the only one then!!

Yep. I hear it too mate. I sit less than 2 feet from the projector and there is certainly an audible noise from the Dynamic Iris when going from a bright scene to a dark scene and when there is little audio coming from the movie. However, in saying that, its not annoying and it certainly does prevent me from enjoying my movie. Its only audible in silent scenes and just audible at that.

As for the Iris working...i have yet to see any real effect of it changing in terms of visibly seeing the Iris lighten and darken the scene. It does do its job absolutely flawlessly in my opinion...excellent feature. I have seen a Z4 and it is obvious in some scenes that the Iris is kicking in...

Still get that whine for about 3-4 minutes at start - it slowly disappears though until its gone completely. Anyone get this as well?

Chris

I got an exchange due a convergence problem that I had with my first AE900.
The first PJ was very very quiet ... the second one is definitely noisier. Its probably a quality control issue with some units being quieter than the others.

And yes ... the startup noise does go down after the initial few minutes.

Greg, I bought and returned a Z4 in part because of SDE. I was sitting about 12 feet back and watching on an 84” diagonal screen, so I “shouldn’t” have been able to see SDE. I was not looking for it, I was not one foot from the screen or using binoculars. My girlfriend didn’t notice it at all. However, it was quite noticeable and annoying to me. I didn’t notice it in most scenes, but solid areas of color looked gritty to me and very un-filmlike on this projector.

If you are bothered by SDE, I’d advise against this projector.
Thanks for the input. It seems that the Panasonic actually lets all the detail through (PJC even said it's better at times on HD than the Z4), but the more pronounced SDE of the Z4 makes for a sharper impression (see AVBuzz review). I'm looking for a theater-like field of view, and it looks like the Panasonic is the way to go.

Just got my panny a couple of days ago, and so far I couldn't be happier. I hooked it up to my Oppo via component initially, and was very pleased. Of course, I'm a first time FP owner, and coming from a simple 27" SD TV, so that's a pretty big jump.

Last night, I hooked it up to a 50' hdmi cable I got from stsi via ebay. I was a little concerned with the length of the cable, but it looks fine from the DVD player, at least. I don't have the HD cable box yet, so that's the next test. I didn't notice a big jump in quality from component to hdmi, but then I didn't do an A/B test. I am aware that the oppo only upconverts off of the hdmi port though, so I thought I'd notice more due to the upconversion, if not the digital transmission. I was watching Ice Age.

My unit is very quiet. It was only when I was messing around with the unit and stuck my face in the vent that I remembered that the fan was even going. Not saying it was totally quiet, only that I didn't notice it even up close. I'll try to listen specifically for it when I get home.

The zoom is amazing. Throwing from about 16', I could blow the image up to the size of my wall if I wanted. Right now, it looks like I'll be "settling" for a 120" image, with seating at 14'. That's 1.6x, as I understand it (14'/105"(width, not diagonal distance)). I haven't viewed either SD or HD yet, only DVDs, so I guess I'll withhold final decisions until I do. I'm secretly afraid that my wife will see some show in SD and it won't look good, and she'll want a smaller screen. I may just have to declare that the projector should only be used for DVD and higher, so that I can keep my big screen. Man, there's a scene in Ice Age when the glacier is falling and the whole screen jumps. Even before I had the sound hooked up, the effect of your whole field of vision jumping made it feel like you were in the picture. Nothing like it!

Now I only need to make myself a screen and put some electricity in the ceiling for a ceiling mount, and I'll be set!

thanks for your response oriphus.... !

i must point out that noise has been a concern with mine, especially since i had to get the first ae900 replaced due to an ongoing whining sound.

on the other hand, i also want to point out that this is a really good projector, especially if you are a first time projector owner, your socks will be blown off by this thing.

krlock2

I would agree with others that this projector is not "dead quiet," by any means. Not even close. Dead quiet infers no sound, and to describe the 900 this way is completely disingenuous, so let's clear this up once and for all. It's got a fan (or fans), so it makes noise, and you don't have to place your ear on it to hear it if you have hearing anywhere in the range of normal. The fan noise in normal mode is audible anywhere in my theater room, and certainly audible during quiet to normal passages, but not distracting. On high fan the noise is distracting (to me) with the unit 4' above my head.

Whether the fan noise of the 900 is 'distracting' to anyone in particular is what's relative. Silence, however, is not relative. I've heard much louder projectors, and I've also experienced dead quiet, and this ain't it.

MikeSRC,

I remember reading SOMEWHERE in this epic thread that the temp settings are actually counter-intuitive--that a "larger" numeric value actually equates to a lower temperature--e.g. "150" is more desirable than "146." Maybe, darnit, it was among the ae700 posts (don't rely on my memory--heck, I don't :D ) Anyway, this issue, as you know, has become a little more of interest to me since the recent posts, given my setup...

willdao

Thanks for the tip. That explains a lot, including why the number would be higher at the intake than at the LCD panels. I found the post on the AE700 thread and its reference to a post here (http://www.avforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1360113&postcount=29).

Just got my panny a couple of days ago, and so far I couldn't be happier. I hooked it up to my Oppo via component initially, and was very pleased. Of course, I'm a first time FP owner, and coming from a simple 27" SD TV, so that's a pretty big jump.

Last night, I hooked it up to a 50' hdmi cable I got from stsi via ebay. I was a little concerned with the length of the cable, but it looks fine from the DVD player, at least. I don't have the HD cable box yet, so that's the next test. I didn't notice a big jump in quality from component to hdmi, but then I didn't do an A/B test. I am aware that the oppo only upconverts off of the hdmi port though, so I thought I'd notice more due to the upconversion, if not the digital transmission. I was watching Ice Age.

My unit is very quiet. It was only when I was messing around with the unit and stuck my face in the vent that I remembered that the fan was even going. Not saying it was totally quiet, only that I didn't notice it even up close. I'll try to listen specifically for it when I get home.

The zoom is amazing. Throwing from about 16', I could blow the image up to the size of my wall if I wanted. Right now, it looks like I'll be "settling" for a 120" image, with seating at 14'. That's 1.6x, as I understand it (14'/105"(width, not diagonal distance)). I haven't viewed either SD or HD yet, only DVDs, so I guess I'll withhold final decisions until I do. I'm secretly afraid that my wife will see some show in SD and it won't look good, and she'll want a smaller screen. I may just have to declare that the projector should only be used for DVD and higher, so that I can keep my big screen. Man, there's a scene in Ice Age when the glacier is falling and the whole screen jumps. Even before I had the sound hooked up, the effect of your whole field of vision jumping made it feel like you were in the picture. Nothing like it!

Now I only need to make myself a screen and put some electricity in the ceiling for a ceiling mount, and I'll be set!

This is good to know as I'll be using the Oppo with the 900 via HDMI, but my cable will be less than 2 meters long. I'm a bit perplexed by how many people are using extremely long cables between their DVD player and projector. I was always told to try and keep any AV cables as short as possible.

Good news that you're happy with the 900, though. I can't wait to try mine out thios weekend.

Just received my 900 yesterday (my first projector!) and what follows is a newbies observation!! First. let me say this forum rocks!!! I've been lurking for three years now and I jus couldn't find a post about a projector that didn't have mixed reviews. I came to the conclusion that no projector will make everybody happy, but the reviews of the Panny 900 seemed to be fairly positive, even by the people who supposedly know everything about projectors!!! So, I finally took the plunge!!!! And all I can say is "WOW"!!!!!! I couldn't wait to get this baby hooked up, so I unhooked my "oldy but a goody" Sony DVP7000 from my antiquated RCA TV and took it downstairs to my theater room and hooked it into the Panny using S-video!!!! Put the PJ on a tray table and flashed it up on the wall with no screen. Shoved ROTK into the DVD player and off we went! To keep this post from getting to long I'll summarize my experience by saying this projector has got to be the best price to performance electronic device ever made!!!!!! The picture was stunning! And sharp!!! I just don't see how or why the picture has to be sharper!!! The detail was incredible!! Color fantastic!!! SDE; never saw any, but my eyes contain smoothe screen technology as well, being over 40!!! :) :) :) Vertical banding; you can't see something if you don't know what it is!!! Fan - quiet; bulb at low level!!! For all of you out there on the fence; jump off!!! Your PJ has arrived!!!! :D :D :D

My AE900U arrived yesterday to serve as an upgrade to a Benq PB6100. Here are a few random thoughts based on my concerns about the projector before I bought it, and some of the concerns of others in this thread.

Though I haven't run all the tests to explicitly look for dead pixels, I didn't see any, and I was doing enough PC stuff that I would have seen them. Dead pixels were my biggest fear about going to an LCD, and it looks like I got lucky.

SmoothScreen was a huge concern specific to this projector - the idea of giving up any sharpness almost stopped me from making the purchase. Like anyone, I don't want to see any pixel structure at normal viewing distances, but I also expect to easily see discrete square pixels when close enough. Since most of the time my projector is HTPC driven, any issues with this would be obvious. Fortunately, I was shocked by how sharp the image was. The projected pixels are discrete squares and the screen door is visible when close up, but you notice that the screen door is partly dark grey and partly the color of the adjacent pixels. Enough screen door to keep the picture looking sharp, but just enough smoothing to keep it from looking pixelated when you don't want it to. I'm very impressed by how subtle the SmoothScreen effect is.

Black levels seem fine. Black areas are not as black as with the 6100, being slightly blueish and a little too bright, but they're black enough for me. I think this will work out sort of like the RBE did on the 6100, where if I thought about RBE it would annoy me. The black levels on this projector won't annoy me unless I conciously think about black levels.

Though I don't have prior experience with LCD projectors to be sure, there does appear to be some VB. Didn't notice it anywhere except my Windows desktop with a solid blue background. Not very obvious, so I don't expect I'll ever notice it while watching video content.

When it comes to noise, this projector is nearly silent, even in high fan mode. It makes the 6100 sound like a hair dryer. I'll never hear the projector over the noise of whatever devices I have driving it.

Screen geometry leaves a lot to be desired, and I think that is because of the lens shift. With the 6100 I just flipped it, ceiling mounted it only a few inches from the ceiling, and I got a nice square image. There was no control of the lens shift, but the standard shift was fine. With the AE900U, you really need to have the projector centered on the screen, and that is just absurd. Who is going to have a setup where they can put the projector in the middle of their screen? I placed the projector as low as I could on the shelf where I mount everything, and only shifted the image down enough to get it to the very top of my old 4:3 screen, but I can see the effects of the lens shift. I'm seeing keystone and distortion of the image the farther you shift it. I wanted to put the image in the center of my screen, but the distortion was just too much. I don't know what I'm going to do for a permanent mount, as I need to move the image down at least a foot, I already have too much distortion, and it isn't practical to put the projector in the center of the screen. This is by far the most problematic aspect of this projector.

One disappointing thing I experienced is that when my HTPC output changed from 1280x720 to 800x600 (like with many games), it stretched the image to fill the screen. There must be a setting to prevent this from happening, but I would have expected that to be the default behavior.

After a few hours of use, overall I am pleased with the projector. A few of the things I was most concerned about turned out to not be issues, and a few things I never thought would be a problem turned out to be significant problems. For HD content it is nice to know I have a more capable display, but I didn't see a huge improvement over the 800x600 (or 800x450 in 16:9) PB6100. If this was my first projector I would be raving about it, but since it is my second it is just an incremental improvement. If you have something like a X1 or a 4805 and are thinking of upgrading, you really need to see it to determine if it is worth it. If you have an AE700 or something comparable, I can't imagine why you would consider an upgrade.

I would agree with others that this projector is not "dead quiet," by any means. Not even close. Dead quiet infers no sound, and to describe the 900 this way is completely disingenuous, so let's clear this up once and for all. It's got a fan (or fans), so it makes noise, and you don't have to place your ear on it to hear it if you have hearing anywhere in the range of normal. The fan noise in normal mode is audible anywhere in my theater room, and certainly audible during quiet to normal passages, but not distracting. On high fan the noise is distracting (to me) with the unit 4' above my head.

Whether the fan noise of the 900 is 'distracting' to anyone in particular is what's relative. Silence, however, is not relative. I've heard much louder projectors, and I've also experienced dead quiet, and this ain't it.


great post, very expressive of my views also. believe it or not, im actually glad to read this post, and a few others like it, otherwise i was convincing myself that i had bought a defective projector. my mind has been set at rest, which is actually quite comforting.

krlock2

Not to harp on the sound thing, but I never said the 900 was silent or dead quiet. My point was that ii is as quiet or quieter than any of the 25-30 projectors I've heard, most of which cost much more. If you've had other projectors and the AE900 is louder than them, I'd look to a replacement.

Mounting position and the acoustic characteristics of the room can make a difference as well. In my case, I also have it in an acoustically "dead" room and the seating area is on the opposite side of the exhaust, making it even more difficult to hear.

Originally Posted by kingpong
When it comes to noise, this projector is nearly silent, even in high fan mode. It makes the 6100 sound like a hair dryer. I'll never hear the projector over the noise of whatever devices I have driving it.

If you've ever had an InFocus projector, you'd say the same thing as well. ;)

Goforward,

Thanks for the reply. Not bad considering point of origin. Did you get the rebate?

what is the response time for the lcd panel in the AE900???
I'm waiting for this before I buy, and I need to order from a place in Japan.

Also, what are the chances of getting a Panasonic unit with a dead or stuck pixel???

didn't I hear about Panasonic having a zero-bad-pixel guarantee? Would that be for Panasonic Japan too?

Sorry about the last minute questions, but I have been researching frantically for a month to get an HD display for my xbox 360 party, and unfortunately, my school grades are suffering now. More time on PJ's and LCD's than school work.

I don't believe there is a zero-dead pixel warranty. I haven't seen anything stating that.

What are you asking re: response time? Rate of decay for fast moving scenes?

Not to harp on the sound thing, but I never said the 900 was silent or dead quiet...

I wasn't referring to you Mike. I've read several of the reviews on the links provided in this thread, and at least one of them referred to the 900 as being "dead quiet." I could have sworn I saw one that referred to the 900 as "silent," but I couldn't find it readily, which is why I edited my previous post. Neither statement is accurate, and I hate it when reviewers qualify such subjective observations with such objective statements.

I was a little worried about your hearing though. ;) I'm glad that you explained the acoustic characteristics of your room, because that's important. I would consider my room pretty typical (not acoustically inert, but not lively either).