Hey,

in the same approximate price range, give or take a couplehundred bucks. What in everyones opinion would be your ranking for BRIGHTNESS next to the panasonic ax200. Top three choices?

1.
2.
3.

Thanks.

Mits HC1500 does over 1000 lumens.

Otherwise, I might look at Optoma's business models, like the EP1690.

The Infocus 7210 does around 1000, as well, but is probably too good for you if brightness is your top consideration. ;)

Just curious why brightness is your bugaboo...are you sure you need the AX200's 2000 lumens? Your average $700 business LCD will often do at least 1500 lumens, FWIW.

Could be the Epson HC720 but we may never know.

thanks noah,
yeah i don't want a business projector as i am primarily looking for an HD 16:9 projector to hook to HD equipment. I would prefer more lumens as I sometimes like watching with some ambient light. I have currently tried the sony AW15, but this wasn't bright enough for me.

any other opinons? thanks

w500 is pretty bright. Rated at 1100 it puts out right at 1000. (Most projectors do half to 70% of there ratings.

i had the aw15 for two weeks and same thing wasnt bright enough i went with mits1500 was cheaper and plenty bright used the extra cabbage to get a screen and still had extra cash

The Sharp Z3000/Marantz VP4001 has also been tested to deliver well over 1K.

Mit hd4000u comes to mind with say 2500 lums and 2000 to 1 contrast ratio.

thanks for all the suggestions... but some people are listing projectors that are WAY more expensive compared to the panasonic ax200

No actually these projectors can be found at cheaper then ax200 prices if you look around.

Http://www.woot.com is running a special on a projector better then the ax200 right now.

The in76 is a great projector for that price and puts out about 650 lumens when calibrated to D65 but it will dim to about half that within a couple of hundred hours.

The Epson 400 spec'd at like 1100 in their living room mode which was watchable unlike the radioactive dynamic. Cinema mode settings were significantly darker.

Considering everything heads to half brightness for most of the life of the bulb, besides the 200 and Mits, is there anything else in the way of home theater pj's that can do a 1000 plus lumens for the first hundred hours?

Does anyone know how bright the Marantz was in watchable settings?

Dino

PS- Panasonic issued a 400 dollar rebate for purchases between now and 11/31 so it is the same price as the in76 on woot.

Hey,

in the same approximate price range, give or take a couplehundred bucks. What in everyones opinion would be your ranking for BRIGHTNESS next to the panasonic ax200. Top three choices?

1.
2.
3.

Thanks.

Why not just get the AX200 ?

Davyo

The Marantz/Sharp is watchable in the brightest settings.

I underestimated it. Here they got 1500 lumens:

http://www.projectorreviews.com/sharp/xv-z3000/performance.php#brightness

You need apples to apples light output, i.e. calibrated for each of these. You can't use the numbers on the box.

PS That $400 rebate on the Panny is acutally a blockbuster card for 52 rentals, "up to $400 value". Did you find a different rebate?

I've heard good things about Hitachi's HDPJ52 LCD PJ. Claimed 1200 lumens... Sub 1000 price tag... HD looks amazing...

Don't forget about the Epson HC720, it has a comparable brightness to the AX200

Don't forget about the Epson HC720, it has a comparable brightness to the AX200

I will have a HC720 tomorrow. Having owned an AX200, I'll be able to give a report on their respective brightnesses.

I will have a HC720 tomorrow. Having owned an AX200, I'll be able to give a report on their respective brightnesses.

Cool! Look forward to any info you can provide about that projector. That's the projector I'm currently most interested in, but I want to hear some feedback before I pull the trigger.

I jut received my HC720 from VA. Setting it up tonight with PS3, HD-A2, DishHD and HTPC HD2400pro/BD/HDDVD. We shall see how it goes. I got stressed out by the panny's potential problems, and the last epson I owned was great, especially when it came to warranty service: I sent it back twice for blue polarizer degradation, and each time got a refurbished unit that looked like new the next day. This essentially reset the lamp life each time, as refurb units don't have many hours on them. I needed the brightness of the panny, the reliability/warranty of the epson, and maybe closer to the sharpness of the Z5. The epson has the same light engine has the panny, and can output 2200 lumens. Only potential downside: might be louder. I'm upgrading from a very reliable Z1 (4000 hours on its first lamp), which still looks fantastic with HD thanks to its 1/4HD aspect ratio, despite having lost some of its color balance due to blue polarizer failure. But the Z1 is still under warranty, so I'll give it a try, knowing how difficult it can be with sanyo and long hours. I'll post my comments, keeping in mind I project on a matte white wall, which may or may not affect this projector. The VA offer with extended warranty and bulb warranty was a great deal, and I don't need a blockbuster rebate as I use netflix for most things.

cheers

J.

I jut received my HC720 from VA. Setting it up tonight with PS3, HD-A2, DishHD and HTPC HD2400pro/BD/HDDVD. We shall see how it goes. I got stressed out by the panny's potential problems, and the last epson I owned was great, especially when it came to warranty service: I sent it back twice for blue polarizer degradation, and each time got a refurbished unit that looked like new the next day. This essentially reset the lamp life each time, as refurb units don't have many hours on them. I needed the brightness of the panny, the reliability/warranty of the epson, and maybe closer to the sharpness of the Z5. The epson has the same light engine has the panny, and can output 2200 lumens. Only potential downside: might be louder. I'm upgrading from a very reliable Z1 (4000 hours on its first lamp), which still looks fantastic with HD thanks to its 1/4HD aspect ratio, despite having lost some of its color balance due to blue polarizer failure. But the Z1 is still under warranty, so I'll give it a try, knowing how difficult it can be with sanyo and long hours. I'll post my comments, keeping in mind I project on a matte white wall, which may or may not affect this projector. The VA offer with extended warranty and bulb warranty was a great deal, and I don't need a blockbuster rebate as I use netflix for most things.

cheers

J.

I will have a HC720 tomorrow. Having owned an AX200, I'll be able to give a report on their respective brightnesses.

jmuffat & darthclem,

I just ordered the Epson HC720 from VA today as it looks to be a great deal. I opted for the 2 day shipping, although it won't ship out until tomorrow, so I expect it to arrive next tuesday. Counting another poster who seems to have dissapeared, that makes 4 of us.

I initially wanted the Panasonic AX200, but I just can't overlook all the reported issues. On the other hand, no one knows if the Epson will have it's own issues, since it is a new model with no user reports of any kind. However, Epson's customer support seems to be second to none. I guess we're the guinea pigs!

Perhaps one of you would be interested in starting a users thread so it will be easier to find, instead of random posts in various other threads?

The Epson is listed at 1600 lumens not 2200 but is still bright. Epson's are reliable but dust bunnies are a bummer if you are in a place that is particularly susceptible.

Dino

ah yes, ratings. Epson is extremely conservative with lumen outputs, and if the tests on the clones of the HC720 are any indication (TW700, maybe CP810), these are also rated at 1600 lumens, with the same lamp, and nonethless are routinely tested at 2100+ in dynamic mode. Of course, that would not be the preferred choice for good color and gray scales, but it wouldn't be for the ax200 either.

first impressions: needless to say it is a light cannon compared to my aging Z1, and it deals very well with significant ambient light in a white walled living room. I had forgotten what certain colors looked like: I had managed to get wonderful flesh tones out of the Z1 with blue polarizer problem, but many other colors had shifted tremendously (as you can imagine, all blues were green). Set to Theater Black 1 mode, with everything set to 0, iris ON, boosting the reds a bit to +15, I was hard pressed to make any other modifications to get the best out of the SD DVE, coming out of the HD-A2 in 720p through HDMI. Other modes look like they will need some work, and even the TB1 did not have all its parameters at 0 to start with, I believe. Mind you, I do not have a Spyder or any hardware help to calibrate. But I usually use several movies and TV shows to see how it looks. The HD-A2 on Shawn of The Dead looks absolutely stunning. Pixel structure is invisible on 106" at 12 feet. Zoom range is insane, and so is placement flexibility (the Z1 was already nice, but this is something else). The beast is quite large, but then again most projectors (LCD) have inflated in the past 4 years. Pretty pearl chassis, would look very good on ceiling :) No light leak. Now the things I was worried about: heat and noise. I was worried for nothing. Virtually every piece of hardware in my house is louder than this, and my nearby HTPC is as quiet as it can be. Heat does not seem to be a much bigger issue than with the z1 (140-172W, not much of a difference I guess). Games on PS3 look gorgeous, I have yet to try a bluray disk. SD video from the HTPC scaled through 8500GT or 2400Pro look fantastic, and so do they using the HD-A2. The test clips from DVE look fantastic, with none of the artefacts one could worry about. I am getting HD DVE from netflix to get this to be even better.

Don't worry, this post will easily move to a more appropriate thread once it exists. But as for brightness, i believe it's a true contender.

I know this will sound a bit anticlimactic, but this test also emphasizes how good the Z1 was. The single quantum leap for image quality is the brightness, and associated contrast increase (if I forget about the color shift). While that will be fantastic on darker movies, on any outdoors shooting it matters less, resolution is what always catches my eye. And I have to say the 540p matrix of the Z1 already had fantastic definition. A well calibrated Z1 in a dark environment goes a very long way, even facing today's crop of projectors. Maybe I'm less sensitive than others to SDE at 12 feet, who knows? What I know is that I needed lens flexibility and lack of rainbows! And there I have all that :)

Dust bunnies have to be lived with, but I became quite good at clearing them (again a perk of being a sanyo owner :) ). I forgot to mention, no red/green or blue fringing, indicating proper alignment of the panels. Life is pretty good.

Brand new Marantz VP4001 owner and can say I'm amazed with the claimed 1200 lumens! Last night when I set it up, I watched the entire Ghostrider again without even realizing that my dimmers were still on and bright!

Frag

This should be brighter than the AX200...

http://www.gizmag.com/go/7487/

New Optoma HD71

http://www.optomausa.com/PressRelease_detail.asp?Press_id=42

This should be brighter than the AX200...

http://www.gizmag.com/go/7487/

I doubt if many people interested in a $1,299 projector will be willing to jump to a $30,000 projector.