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Panasonic PT-AE4000 MSRP $1999

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#2,580 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by mit_hd /forum/post/17771030


wizman2378,


I too have Z4 for the past 3 years and am seriously consider upgrading to AE4000. I'd love to hear your take on the improvements AE4000 have over Z4 after you receive your unit, especially in the area of sharpness, brightness, and black level. Thanks.

Just replaced my aging Z4 with the AE4000. Was close to getting the Epson but found a deal to good to pass up and pulled the trigger. This projector is definitely in a different clase then the Z4. Brightness is the first thing I noticed was drastically improved. Even when the Z4 was on a new bulb I could never watch with my main lights on but the Panny has no trouble. The throw distance is 22 feet onto a 133" Da-Light HP screen. With no ambient light I have the bulb on "ECO" mode and the picture is very bright. I'm not sure if I would repurchase the HP screen if I was buying new right now. Black levels are also much better especially the dark detail and contrast in low light scenes. I wouldn't say sharpness is as big an improvement and the picture is a little different then what I'm used to. I think the colors are a bit over saturated right now but I only have about 5 hours on the projector and haven't really played around with any calibrating yet.
 
#2,583 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by neverfaithful /forum/post/17770955


How is the detail, can you see a person pores in their skin on close ups?

Absolutely. Below is a picture of the image my 4000 projects on a 100" screen taken with an Olympus 3MP camera. Will take others soon.


Been watching all my Blu-rays again as there is so much more detail to see now and the colours, especially the reds & oranges, are so more vibrant with the 4000s Red Rich lamp.


 
#2,584 ·
Finally plugged it in and watched for a long evening. Did a lot of channel surfing and played in the menu. Edit: After a couple of nights of watching a lot of different things, for a long time:


Replaced an AE2000 with about 1800 hours on the bulb/projector.


Watching it on a High Power (133" diag.) in a totally light controlled room.


Set on low lamp it is a fair amount brighter than the 2000 was on the normal/high lamp.


Contrast is obviously better and that really stuck out on "El Dorado" which is probably Technicolor, but shot very brightly. Some folks might think it has too much contrast given what they are familiar with, but I have no doubt I will get used to it.
Yep, already used to it. After a couple of days I have seen so much new detail that it is actually a little distracting sometimes.


Color 1 seemed best at first, but I have decided Cinema 1 is a more realistic. I looked again at the Evan Powell review and compared them. The color seems more vivid than on the 2000. Not over-saturated, and apparently quite accurate, but certainly noticeable.


At first, in the first few minutes, I thought I saw the dynamic iris pumping. So I turned it off. Hours later, I turned it back on and couldn't see it. Maybe it just had to get "warmed up" or "loosened up." Haven't noticed it again after probably 30 hours of viewing. It might have been the bulb's arc hopping around to find a sweet spot. Who knows.


The frame interpolation adjustment is a hoot. Put it on 3 and it is absolutely scary weird on the clearest material, like Technicolor movies on the best HD channels. It's like you jumped into the actor's environment with them. You feel like you are intruding. In that mode it is extremely 3-D (eerily so) but yes, it looks just like an HD Video Camera took the video, which really looks odd on movies from the 50's since you've never seen those scenes shot like that. It's not "film-like" at all and very distracting but extraordinarily realistic in an odd way. We laughed a lot. On some material 2 is acceptable, but not very often. 1 seemed OK for pretty much everything, and you can forget it's working but if you watch for it you can still see a little of the 3D effect, but it certainly isn't objectionable and maybe superior. 1 and 2 really smooth out the pans, it just depends on what your "creepy" threshold is. I did finally notice the voice delay on 2 and 3. My setup runs 1 ms delayed normally, which matches the off and 1 settings. Setting 3 requires 4 ms.


So, overall, is there a night and day difference between the 2000 and the 4000. Close call, but probably not. But as you continue watching material you have seen before, more and more clarity jumps out at you. I'm expecting that phenomenon to disappear after a while so I won't get so distracted by it. If you don't get the 4000 and stick with your 2000 or 3000, you'll never miss it. But if you upgrade, you will be extremely happy with how it looks and you will see a lot of subtle differences that add up. I suppose some will always think any difference or improvement they see is earth shattering, and I'm still not one of those. I can clearly see several improvements now, which I am pretty surprised by, because I didn't feel like I was really missing anything that affected my viewing pleasure before. I'm glad I did it now.
 
#2,586 ·
What settings do you guys recommend for watching sports in regards to the frame interpolation option? From what I have read it seems mode 3 is the best? Does this bring in any audio lag at all, and if so how do you fix that? I have been reading and hearing so much in regards to this frame interpolation mode that I have honestly no clue what to expect. Luckily tonight my Cavs don't tip off until 10:30pm because they are on the West coast so I will have a few hours to tinker with the projector until its game time.
 
#2,587 ·
I have now tried sports, and on an NFL game using stage 3 Frame Insertion, and surprisingly, I couldn't really see all that much difference, so it certainly isn't objectionable on sports, and since you don't see anyone's mouths moving, you don't have to change the audio delay on your receiver.
 
#2,588 ·
For those of you with a CIH set-up (without a lens), how does the auto zooming between 16:9 and 2.35/2.40 work for a movie like Batman-Dark Kinght? How quickly does the switch occur, is there a lag, are there any pop up messages from the 4000 as it's switching, noise level when re-zooming? Does the projector have to be mounted dead center to avoid shift? Thanks
 
#2,589 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by kmoore88 /forum/post/17774966


For those of you with a CIH set-up, how does the auto zooming between 16:9 and 2.35/2.40 work for a movie like Batman-Dark Kinght? How quickly does the switch occur, is there a lag, are there any pop up messages from the 4000 as it's switching, noise level when re-zooming? Does the projector have to be mounted dead center to avoid shift? Thanks

It's frustrating on a movie like Dark Knight, it constantly switches between the AR. It takes just a couple of seconds to detect 16x9 and slightly longer (depends on the brightness) while switching to 2.40. You get the processing message in both cases. Noise level from the pj is low but audible, in my case my curtains (masking) make much more noise. My PJ is centered horizontally but not vertically. It's mounted just below the top of the screen. Once you set it up once properly, no need to shift anymore.

Thanks,

Wojtek
 
#2,590 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by wizman2378 /forum/post/17774744


What settings do you guys recommend for watching sports in regards to the frame interpolation option? From what I have read it seems mode 3 is the best? Does this bring in any audio lag at all, and if so how do you fix that? I have been reading and hearing so much in regards to this frame interpolation mode that I have honestly no clue what to expect. Luckily tonight my Cavs don't tip off until 10:30pm because they are on the West coast so I will have a few hours to tinker with the projector until its game time.

I see about a 60ms increase in lag in mode 3 versus mode 1. See the posts here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...4#post17683284
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post17455489


The second link has delay values that are consistently higher than mine, I think that's because my Blu-ray player is connected directly to the projector, no receiver in the video chain.


You fix the lag by adjusting audio delay in your receiver. Some newer receivers will interrogate the AE4000 and automatically adjust the audio delay.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...8#post17686768
 
#2,592 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by mit_hd /forum/post/17773891


Do you mean the projector is bright enough that a regular matte white screen should suffice, and the HP is an overkill?

This is exactly what I'm saying. Most of my viewing occurs with little or no ambient light and the HP screen may not be necessary under these conditions. It definitely helped the Z4.


Quote:
Originally Posted by mit_hd /forum/post/17773891


This would have me worried as Z4 is only a 720p projector.


I'm not saying the sharpness wasn't nicely improved; it's just not as much as the brightness and black levels on a relative scale.
 
#2,593 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by HiDefHT /forum/post/17774081


Absolutely. Below is a picture of the image my 4000 projects on a 100" screen taken with an Olympus 3MP camera. Will take others soon.


Been watching all my Blu-rays again as there is so much more detail to see now and the colours, especially the reds & oranges, are so more vibrant with the 4000s Red Rich lamp.



Wow, PORES, absolutely magnificent. I think you just made me make up my mind to choose the 4000 over the 8500. The blacks look good as well.


Now my question is what type of screen to buy, Matte White, CineWhite from Elite, I dotn know if Cinewhite and Matte white are the same, or should I get a High Gain screen. I have a room that is light controlled in the evening and I can make black in the evening or just a little light in the day time by closing the drapes. Thanks for any advice. Oh and thanks for the pic, feel free to post more.
 
#2,595 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by jwakaruk /forum/post/17775160


I'm not saying the sharpness wasn't nicely improved; it's just not as much as the brightness and black levels on a relative scale.

From looking at HiDefHt's picture the sharpness looks fine to me.
 
#2,599 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by kriktsemaj99 /forum/post/17775382


CIH = Constant Image Height. I was going to say see the FAQ here , although reading it you might get the impression you need an anamorphic lens, which you don't. You do need a 2.35:1 screen though.

the 4000 has a auto zoom to fit a 16x9(2:35:1)picture to a 2.35:1 screen. to get a true 2.35:1 picture you need a anamorphic lens
 
#2,600 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by osofast240sx /forum/post/17775453


the 4000 has a auto zoom to fit a 16x9(2:35:1)picture to a 2.35:1 screen. to get a true 2.35:1 picture you need a anamorphic lens

Let's not have that old debate again here in this thread. A scope movie zoomed optically by the projector is as "true" as you can get. It shows all the pixels that are recorded on the disk with a 1:1 mapping. It's the anamorphic lens method that degrades the picture by first digitally resampling it, then adding aberrations from the extra lens
.
 
#2,601 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by kriktsemaj99 /forum/post/17775538


Let's not have that old debate again here in this thread. A scope movie zoomed optically by the projector is as "true" as you can get. It shows all the pixels that are recorded on the disk with a 1:1 mapping. It's the anamorphic lens method that degrades the picture by first digitally resampling it, then adding aberrations from the extra lens
.

Agreed 100%, the only real benefit of A-Lens will be visible with real anamorphic material (DVD sources)

Wojtek
 
#2,602 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by JHouse /forum/post/17774210


The frame interpolation adjustment is a hoot. Put it on 3 and it is absolutely scary weird. It's like you jumped into the actor's environment with them. You feel like you are intruding. In that mode it is extremely 3-D (eerily so) but yes, it looks just like an HD Video Camera took the video. Not "film-like" at all and very distracting but extraordinarily realistic in an odd way.

That effect can be fun and kool at times especially when watching animation films.
 
#2,603 ·
Thanks for those who gave me the meaning to what CIH means.


So just to get a quick understanding for now, if I get a 16:9 screen will I be able to take advantage of 2.35:1? Will it expand to fit the whole screen without the black bars on top and bottom?
 
#2,604 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by neverfaithful /forum/post/17775740


Thanks for those who gave me the meaning to what CIH means.


So just to get a quick understanding for now, if I get a 16:9 screen will I be able to take advantage of 2.35:1? Will it expand to fit the whole screen without the black bars on top and bottom?

No, you need a 2.35 aspect screen if you want to watch 2.35 content without bars above and below. Or you need a 16:9 screen if you want to watch 16:9 content without blank pillars on the sides (that's CIW = constant image width).


The reason many people prefer CIH is because it makes 2.35 movies bigger/wider/more spectacular than 16:9, as God intended. With CIW, 2.35 epic movies are smaller/lamer than 16:9.


The AE4000 can automatically zoom to fill a 2.35 screen. I always recommend people get the largest 2.35 screen they can fit. Make sure it's tall enough so your 16:9 content will be plenty large. If your wall is wide enough, I guarantee you'll be happier with CIH than with a 16:9 screen.
 
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