I have been bouncing around between pj's and keep shying away from the 5000 because of all the talk of the auto iris problem (too noticable). Has anyone disengaged it. Does it kill the black level? If you are in a controlled lighting room are you going to notice that much of a difference? Compared to my Panny 900 how would you say the blacks would look? Sorry if it's been posted. I have been wading through all the difference discussions and it get's pretty muddy in there.

Thanks, I hope to finally make up my mind by Monday. Not having a pj is killing me. :D

I have to say that I can't live without auto iris function on the HC5000. Make sure you have firmware 3.0, set autoiris in mode 1 and you really have to look for it to notice it. Of course, if you feel like you want to see it, put it in mode 2 (the most aggresive one) and then put your complaints about it on this forum like some people do. :)

My setup: High lamp mode, a grey screen with 1.0 gain and autoiris on 1. Great black levels thanks to the grey screen and autoiris - and still good "punch" thanks to the high lamp.
mode.

Once again, autoiris (dynamic iris) on setting 1 - see it before you make any judgements about it.

Thanks for the reply. The problem is I live in a small podunk town that has no HT places except for Vanns, and all they show is Yamaha. So I really have to wade through all of the posts and weigh everyones opinion.

My choice is coming down to either the Panny ax100 (I know it's a 720 pj, but it will be a stopgap until 1080p drops a little more and with the savings I can buy a PS3 for blu ray and some more room treatments), the Mits HC5000, and the Epson TW1000. Each has it's pro's and con's of course. It seems right now the Epson is the most neutral of them all (it doesn't excel at anything but really doesn't seem to do anything bad either).