For a living room in a walkout basement. Some ambient light from a sliding door with vertical blinds. It will be ceiling mounted in a 16x24 room and will be primarily used for movies and some gaming.

Panasonic ax200
Marantz vp4001
Epson hc720

Which of these projectors perform well in some ambient light and very well on movies at night in a light controlled environment.

IS the Marantz bright enough? Are the issues with the ax200 as common as it seems in the forums? Does the Epson take a serious amount of tweaking to get good picture and color?

I would appreciate any first hand experience and reccommendations. I really want to order one of these this week....

If you are not sensitive to the DLP anomalies (rainbows etc.), and don't plan to sit very close to the screen (like less than 1.4x), choose a DLP projector (like the Marantz), hands down.

I second the marantz.

The sharp 12000 is better than all you listed and under your price range.

Ditto for the Sharp/Marantz. I have the DT-500 (which I understand is very similar to the Marantz)- very nice PJ and can handle some ambient light. I have indirect ambient light, and I've watched and enjoyed many movies in the daytime.

any reccommendations on places to buy the sharp or marantz? Anyone have any pics of their setup with these pj's?

The sharp 12000 is better than all you listed and under your price range.

If you would be willing to PM me with some information I would be forever grateful. I see posts all over this forum with people saying that the Sharp 12000 can be had for less than $1500 or less than $1200, even less than $1000, but I haven't seen them available anywhere, much less for those prices in some time. Is there a secret stash and people are just holding out on me?

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=205562980&dcaid=15975

I just ordered this for $1328 with the $500 rebate :D

http://projectorusa.com/cart/products.aspx?pid=5793

good luck with buy ive had a sharp on order since 10/30