BUILDING A NEW HOME IN QUEENSLAND AUSTRALIA I HAVE A ROOM 17 feet x 20.5 feet with a 9 foot ceiling.
I am considering a panasonic 1000 ( in Aus about $ 6500 ) with a 100 or 110 inch screen with a gain of 1.0 from a projection distance of about 12 to 13 feet in a fully dedicated and light controlled room.
I would appreciate any feedback as to the projection distance or the screen size as after reading the various threads, i worry about wether the 110 inch screen is to large for the brightness level required.
I am new to all of this so any advice would be greatly apppreciated. :)

Wow. That is expensive with the exchange rate around .84. If you have a friend in the US, have him buy a pj here and bring it back. If he opens it and turns it on, he can say it was used for business purposes and you escape the import tax. Hell, flying into LA from sydney is around 1,100. You could fly yourself and still be a couple of grand ahead. Get a voltage converter and you're good.

Hi Rob,

Is your screen going to be 2:35 or 16:9? There are a couple of guys I know in QLD who could help you out. Look out for CAVX (Mark) on here. He is in Bris and a friendly guy. Knows his stuff too.

Send me a PM if you want contact details.

Cheers,

Chris

Your proposed setup will work for the first 300 hours as the light output of the PJ will be still at its optimum brightness. After 300 hours, lamps looses their output by an average of 30%. In short, you have to have a gain of around 2.0 and above if you want to maintain 12 footlamberts of brightness in your HT. If you want a 1.0 gain screen then you can go as big as 92 inch diagonal only. The reason is, the Panny puts out around 190 calibrated lumens. They claim a light output of 1000, but that is only for its dynamic mode. using cinema 1 will decrease light output dramatically but you will have a very accurate greyscale.

Hello Fellow Aussie

You should consider the JVC for your set up. Screen size, distance etc and any other questions should be easily answered by a local retailer. However, the guys on the forum are the ones with the real knowledge.

Send us a PM and we can talk further.

Good to see another Aussie here.

Thanks

Ben

Retailers suck here for sure. Have you thought of saving money and going with **********?

what does *********? mean??

Hi Rob,

Is your screen going to be 2:35 or 16:9? There are a couple of guys I know in QLD who could help you out. Look out for CAVX (Mark) on here. He is in Bris and a friendly guy. Knows his stuff too.

Send me a PM if you want contact details.

Cheers,

Chris
thanks for the support it will be an elegance 16:9 format white with a stated gain of 1

sc2005 where abouts in Melb are u? Sanctuary Lakes here. Send me a PM if you want to talk shop. Great to see more Aussies on here.

I'd suggest you repost your question on the Aussie forums here:

DTVForum Australia (http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showforum=63)

You need 5 posts before you can start a new thread (there's a dummy thread set up for that) but it's worth your while.

There's a lot of local knowledge there with respect to what's available locally and where to get the best deals. Not allowed to talk about that stuff here.

i live on the gold coast and i have looked at the aussie site but the responses are very slow and infrequent. why cant we talk about things that can help fellow members????? seems to me that that is the point of such a site?

what does *********? mean??

hmm seems the system blocked it out, it means "price" + "the country that Tokyo is in" .com

i live on the gold coast and i have looked at the aussie site but the responses are very slow and infrequent. why cant we talk about things that can help fellow members????? seems to me that that is the point of such a site?

Rob, buddy, DTVForum may be an aussie forum but it's not slow. I've been a member there for years also and it really helps to be able to talk locally about HT products there, particularly TV's. I can see where you may think the HT section is a little lacklustre but it's not that bad actually. I love it here at AVS but more for discussing upcoming products and getting first hand fresh info along with tips&tweak on the latest gear.

Given that the next 2 Sony SXRDs models are out soon also, it may pay you to wait just a tad. I'm hoping to see both of them, (hopefully in action) at the yearly Sony Product expo tomorrow in Sydney. I may report back here, but will definitely post on DTVforum providing I do get some good info. Also, if you are going to pay that much for the 1000, then it would pay for you to consider a JVC RS-1, even if you import it yourself from p.japan it won't owe you that much more. One of those will leave the 1000 for dead.

You should also consider an LP Morgan Novares screen, they are a very nice locally made option specifically for 1080p projectors. They're not super cheap(approx $2k for a 110" fixed), but no where near the cost of similar a Stewart Studiotek for example. My mate who does all my calibration work and is a qualified installer reckons they are the go for locally produced screens.

Edit: I just got an updated recommendation from that friend of mine who formally recommended the LP Morgan. He just viewed a new screen by Australian manufacturer OZ Theatre Screens called the EVO3D. He says it now sits above the Novares in his estimation and has an even smoother surface along with being slightly thicker. It all depends on your screen budget. You could import a Carada, it did cross my mind when I set up my Pearl, but in the end went for a locally made Screen Technics, which in it self is a pretty decent price/performance level for the Pearl and the app I use it for ie. holiday home.

Hi Rob,

It's a global market and I suggest you explore it. Personally I wouldn't restrict myself to the shores of Australia, as I just don't think the market here is up too it. I've imported a fair bit from the US and UK and find, especially with the US, it can be substantially better value than purchasing local (even after freight, insurance and GST/tax).

If you're considering 2.35 (scope) then I'd suggest you look at Carada (www.carada.com) for exceptionally good value and a quality screen. They also do 16:9, but go 2.35 and live a little - experience the movie how it was intended. I'm pretty sure you can stretch the image on the Panasonic pj's, so you can live without a lens and scaler and if you love the picture (which I'm sure you will), you can always grab that gear later. If you want to move up market a little, then next I would suggest Stewart and then one more step, Screen Research, but this is for acoustically transparent screens where you place your centre or front speakers behind the screen (and you pay for it).

I'd second a look at the JVC RS-1. However, it's worth noting that although 1080p, the on-board scaler will not do 2.35 and you would require a lens - budget for another $2k for a cheaper option.

No issues with going 2.35 and using an RS-1 to fill the screen with a room that size and controlled lighting. As for size, 17ft is just over 5m wide. 110" in my opinion, for your seating distance, may even be a little on the small size. I have room 5.2m long and 4m wide that I am in the process of building, and I've got a Screen Research 120" wide TheatreCurve 2.35 screen. I'll be using 1080p (with ISCOIII lens and scaler), at a seating distance of just over 3.5m. It will be big and very involving... and no, never too big, as long as the quality is there :)

Best of luck and PM me if you need anything or contacts.

Cheers,

Chris
PS. DTVforum who? ;)