Hi, as you will see I'm new to these forums. I'm moving to North Carolina and am planning to get my first projector (: . I'm thinking of getting either the Sanyo Z6 or the new Panasonic this holiday. I have a few easy questions:

1: I want a large (~118') screen. How much does the zoom feature on a projector degrade the image? Does it just make the image dimmer or does the image become blurry?

2: Can polyurethane be applied to a laminate like the designer white one that everyone talks about?

3: Assuming that a projector can be placed anyware in a room, is it ideal to have the projector positioned at ceiling height pointing slightly down at an angle...or have it level with the screen.

I'm excited! Looking forward to a 9 foot wide, high-def Master Chief! thanks.

1. The image becomes dimmer but does not degrade.
2. Not sure what your talking about so I'll leave this one to someone else.
3. All projectors have their own placement limitations and all rooms do, too. The Sanyo Z series pj's have typically offered a great deal of flexibility so a "Z6" likely will too. The way you ceiling mount them is to place them projecting directly onto the wall and then use the lens shift. Just as zoom lets you shrink or enlarge the image, lens shift lets you move an image up or down and side to side as you need with little or no distortion. (If you angle the image you'll have to use a keystone correction which will degrade the image...lens shift makes this unneccesary)

I agree with ArtT's answers. Your #2 question is better answered in the DIY section of the Screen Forum.

The Sanyo series of PJs (there is no "Z6" yet) are not bright enough for a 118" screen (at least the Z5 is not) - especially the DIY ones.

You always want to mount the PJ so it "is square" (not angled) with the screen – eliminates distortion. The advantage of the current crop of LCD PJs is their generous lens shift capabilities. This allows you to shift the lens so the picture will fall squarely on the screen. However, you don’t want to use up the entire lens shift range, since these lenses will start to show aberrations at their shift extremes (and using vertical lens shift reduces the amount of horizontal lens shift available, and vice versa).

I recommend that you go to www.projectorreviews.com (Art Feierman has both a Carada 106” Brilliant White screen in his testing room and a 128” Stewart Firehawk G3 screen in his personal HT) and read up on the PJs that you might be interested in. Then come back to these forums to see what kind of problems, if any, owners have had with their models.

Since you haven't owned a PJ, I recommend you do a lot of reading about them before you jump in. Remember to take a lot of reviews with a grain of salt. I think the review site I linked to is the best, IMHO, since he tells it like he sees it (and tells you what his biases are and what his point of view is). BTW, Art Feierman is also an AVS member (member name = presenter).

I agree with ArtT's answers. Your #2 question is better answered in the DIY section of the Screen Forum.

The Sanyo series of PJs (there is no "Z6" yet) are not bright enough for a 118" screen (at least the Z5 is not) - especially the DIY ones.

You always want to mount the PJ so it "is square" (not angled) with the screen – eliminates distortion. The advantage of the current crop of LCD PJs is their generous lens shift capabilities. This allows you to shift the lens so the picture will fall squarely on the screen. However, you don’t want to use up the entire lens shift range, since these lenses will start to show aberrations at their shift extremes (and using vertical lens shift reduces the amount of horizontal lens shift available, and vice versa).

I recommend that you go to www.projectorreviews.com (Art Feierman has both a Carada 106” Brilliant White screen in his testing room and a 128” Stewart Firehawk G3 screen in his personal HT) and read up on the PJs that you might be interested in. Then come back to these forums to see what kind of problems, if any, owners have had with their models.

Since you haven't owned a PJ, I recommend you do a lot of reading about them before you jump in. Remember to take a lot of reviews with a grain of salt. I think the review site I linked to is the best, IMHO, since he tells it like he sees it (and tells you what his biases are and what his point of view is). BTW, Art Feierman is also an AVS member (member name = presenter).


I just set the Z5 up displaying on a 120" DIY DW 354-60 screen. The throw distance is 19`Ft. and the brightness is ONLY diminished in the Pure Cinema Mode.

I primarily like the Living Mode which is really bright at even this 19` Ft. throw distance on the entire 120" DW screen. I also do not have a bat cave environment but do have dark panel on all sides of the hanging DIY screen and still using a white painted ceiling. I plan on painting it a darker color at least 5 to 6` out from the top of the screen.

The Dynamic & Vivid modes are too bright to use even at the 19` Ft. throw distance.


This Z5 is well worth the money for the sharpness and PQ compared to projectors I have seen costing thousands more. I have seating distances of between 10 to 15 ft. and absolutely NO sde until 6 ft. from screen.

The Z5 is mated with two hdmi cables for a Tosh XA2 or Oppo 981 & the other hdmi input fed with the SA 8300 HD DVR from TWC. I watched the Jay Leno & David Letterman shows last friday night and the PQ was outstanding ! :D

Seabiscuit & King Kong in HD DVD were Tens times better then what you would ever see at the Big Movie Houses ! The detail was incredible even only using this 720P Z5 ! :eek:

These comments coming from me are with only 18 hrs. on a Non- Calibrated out of the Box Z5 with minimal tweaking using the factory defaults.

Another Review: http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/sanyo-plv-z5-1029.shtml

Regards ;)

Hi, as you will see I'm new to these forums. I'm moving to North Carolina and am planning to get my first projector (: . I'm thinking of getting either the Sanyo Z6 or the new Panasonic this holiday. I have a few easy questions:

1: I want a large (~118') screen. How much does the zoom feature on a projector degrade the image? Does it just make the image dimmer or does the image become blurry?

2: Can polyurethane be applied to a laminate like the designer white one that everyone talks about?

3: Assuming that a projector can be placed anyware in a room, is it ideal to have the projector positioned at ceiling height pointing slightly down at an angle...or have it level with the screen.

I'm excited! Looking forward to a 9 foot wide, high-def Master Chief! thanks.


For the answer to #2 I would go to the DIY Screen forum. I have a DW screen but it's in it's original state (unmodified) and I love it. I has a 1.2 gain and very much resembles a Stewart ST130 screen in performance but cost 100s less $s.

I have just had a bad exerperience (and eye opening) so I will try to clarify a little on one comment above.

A dimmer picture IS a degraded picture at the lumen/brightness levels we get to deal in.

It causes you to lose real visible contrast, color saturation and overall clarity. Dimmer pictures tend to look "washed out" and faded, much as if you introduce ambient light into a darkened theater. If you aren't used to front projection, a great big screen with a dim projector will be very disappointing to you.

Having said that, do not fail to research the Da-Light High Power over on the screens forum here. It will make a projector look it's best (brightest) with high gain and essentially no side effects (other than you can't sit outside the width of the screen and maintain the gain).

Joe, I agree. I have a 106" Da-Lite High Power screen (bought through AVS Sales for a good price). It would make the Z5 a very useable PJ in my room (my PJs sit on a shelf 12.5' from the screen - at the wide angle end of the Z5 zoom range). My current, cheapo, PJ has a ND2 filter on it (50% cut in lumen output) but it is still too bright for me. The Z5, with the iris closed down, would be just about right for me.

The new Sony VPL-AW15 is due out in a month or so and is reported to be a real competitor to the Z5 (http://www.projectorreviews.com/sony/AW15/index.php). The Z5, of course, has a longer warranty (especially with the present perks offered by the AVS Forum Alliance Members).

Silverfox1 -- According to the reviews: although the Living Room mode is bright, it is not the best for accurate calibrated video, but is acceptable for TV viewing. The Dynamic & Vivid modes are even worse for picture quality. Once you go through the calibration, you'll find out.

Having said that, do not fail to research the Da-Light High Power over on the screens forum here. It will make a projector look it's best (brightest) with high gain and essentially no side effects (other than you can't sit outside the width of the screen and maintain the gain).

Another note to add to the Da-Lite commentary:

They have a screen they call the Insta-Theatre Deluxe and it comes with a material called Wide Power. It's like a High Power but with a wide viewing cone. I picked one up as an open box sale and it really works great! I don't know why Da-Lite won't sell Wide Power with any other screen but I can't find the option so I'm glad I found the Insta-Theatre Deluxe when I did.

Joe, I agree. I have a 106" Da-Lite High Power screen (bought through AVS Sales for a good price). It would make the Z5 a very useable PJ in my room (my PJs sit on a shelf 12.5' from the screen - at the wide angle end of the Z5 zoom range). My current, cheapo, PJ has a ND2 filter on it (50% cut in lumen output) but it is still too bright for me. The Z5, with the iris closed down, would be just about right for me.

The new Sony VPL-AW15 is due out in a month or so and is reported to be a real competitor to the Z5 (http://www.projectorreviews.com/sony/AW15/index.php). The Z5, of course, has a longer warranty (especially with the present perks offered by the AVS Forum Alliance Members).

Silverfox1 -- According to the reviews: although the Living Room mode is bright, it is not the best for accurate calibrated video, but is acceptable for TV viewing. The Dynamic & Vivid modes are even worse for picture quality. Once you go through the calibration, you'll find out.

CT, Thanks for the tips ! I figure I need to wait until I have close to a 100 Hrs. on the lamp before I do any decent self-calibration. I did order the new AVIA II HD version of the new disc coming out but it may not be here for another month, so I will just jug along until then.

Like I said even with a throw of 19` ft. I am very satisfied with this Z5. I only use it for viewing SD DVD, HD DVD, & a few HD broadcasts. I know the grandkids really like it and that is one of the primary reasons I got it in the first place !

Once I do get it at least self-calibrated I will probably run it in Creative Cinema, Brilliant Cinema, & the Living mode.

This is my first FP and maybe in a few years I will step up to a 1080P, but by then we may be seeing 1440P on the market !!! :eek:

Regards, ;)