I have been very happy with my Panny so far. Only one trip to Heartland for a new Optical Block and she is humming right along. I have only been feeding her either 720p signals from my Denon DVD player or 720p/1080i from my Sci Atl cable box. Material that is mastered well looks absolutely amazing. My question to all of you is "Is it worth the upgrade to 1080p (Blu-Ray/HD-DVD) if I don't have any compatible displays?" I sit between 14-18 feet from my screen so I have been thinking that I would not be able to discern a difference between the source material. Any thoughts?

are you asking whether you should upgrade your projector or dvd player?

Right now you have a perfectly matched player and projector -- both 720p. You'd have to update BOTH to see the difference of Blu-ray or HD-DVD. (Your current project can accept 1080p signals but it will downconvert them to its native 720p).

$3000 would be about your minimum upgrade cost for doing both. (Blu-ray...probably $3300).

Absolutely, it is worth getting a bluray player. There is a big difference between native 720p and native 480 especially on a large screen.

In addition, you get significantly improved audio quality via uncompressed PCM assuming your receiver can handle that.

When I added a Blu Ray player to my AX-100 setup, it made a huge difference over standard DVD. I don't even watch them on my FP setup any more.

I was pretty impressed with the projector out of the box with an LG upconverting DVD player. My wife surprised me with a Blu-ray player and several Blu-ray movies. The difference is night and day. The Sony BD-301 will upconvert standard dvd's. Some look good, some only so-so. Depends on how well it was transfered. However... Blu-ray at the 1080p/24 setting looks so damned film like its unbelievable. :D I recommend getting one. If not now, maybe Black Friday? Its not that far off, and I think that will be the time to look for some once in a lifetime deals.

Blu-ray is a definite improvement over DVD with a 720p front projector. I think it is worth it, but I am sure most people don't since so few own Blu-ray. I do continue to watch DVD more than Blu-ray and HD DVD combined with my projectors.

Chris

are you asking whether you should upgrade your projector or dvd player?
My main question was whether or not a BR/HD dvd player would yield any improvement. I am viewing on a 106 inch Draper Salara (1.0 gain) from about 16 feet away. If the way to improve from here is both a player and pj upgrade it will surely need to be a little while before a change is made. If I could get away with just a player upgrade and notice an improvement then I might be able to swing something. Additionally, I would need a player that outputs over analog as my preamp (Emotiva LMC-1) will not decode any of the new codecs.

Go for the BD/HD upgrade - I got the Z5 which is also a 720p PJ and there is a BIG diff
between that and regular DVDs. I only watch HD content now - I cant watch reg TV
I'm spoiled now.

I only watch HD content now - I cant watch reg TV
I'm spoiled now.
I wholly agree there as when I feed the panny some HD from my cable box it looks fantastic. I assume this would be the case with BR/HD content and even better as it would not be limited by any cable company compression scheme.

You assume correctly - I have both a PS3 and a 360-ADD-ON for my HD viewing, and of
coarse a HD-DVR from TWC. Are you leaning towards BD or HD-DVD?

I have the HD-A1 and it really puts out a great pic with the ax100.Keep the ax100 get a HD-A2 and you will see much improvement.BOB

I wholly agree there as when I feed the panny some HD from my cable box it looks fantastic. I assume this would be the case with BR/HD content and even better as it would not be limited by any cable company compression scheme.

Absolutely. HD DVD (Toshiba HD-A2) and Blu Ray (PS3) look great on my AX100, as does Discovery HD Theater on digital cable.

There's no substitute for great source material and you certainly don't need to have a 1080p display in order to see the difference. Of course 720p is roughly "halfway" between 480p and 1080p, so while you don't get ALL of the benefit of a 1080p source, your projector still has a lot more resolution than standard SD DVD. On top of that, many SD DVDs are poorly transfered and riddled with compression artifacts. I can hardly stand to watch them anymore.

My personal plan is to wait another year or so until 1080p projectors become a bit cheaper and brighter. Until them, I'm happy with the AX100.

Bradley

Are you leaning towards BD or HD-DVD?
That war is part of the reason behind my dilemma. I would have purchased a 1080p source by now if not for the nagging feeling that I am buying the wrong format. (I can post a pic of a few hundred beta tapes my father-in-law owns ;) ) If I had to choose I would vote BR only because of the PIXAR studio releases. That and that I could grab a PS3 and play games on it :D .