Planar 8150 follow up impressions - Page 19

the runco lightstyle are meant to ship november. the lower model ls3 ie. 8130 equivalent is 5000 bucks. is this the same as the planar 8130 was ? i think the 8150 equivalent ls5 is about 7000.

the runco lightstyle are meant to ship november. the lower model ls3 ie. 8130 equivalent is 5000 bucks. is this the same as the planar 8130 was ? i think the 8150 equivalent ls5 is about 7000.

the runco website rather boldy claims the ls3/5/7 are 'built from the ground up' . well when they were planar they certainly were !

This would indeed be a price lowering from $6000 to $5000 for a Planar 8130 rebranded as a Runco ls3. This would indeed make marketing sense since the 8150 was only $1000 more than an 8130. Silly not to get the better machine for only a $1000 differential at this price level. Now there is some meaningful price separation between the 8130\\8150 or ls3\\ls5.

too bad there won't be a blowout. that would have been an excellent chance to get an awesome machine for a great price. question now is... should one buy the planar-brand that technically no longer exists, or get the runco.

I don't really see how it would be any different, it's the same machine, same company. Only question is if you care if there's a "Runco" label on it (which is probably more recognized by lay-people).

And it really makes a great deal of sense IMO. Runco is a brand stores around here carry (they actually have Runco machines on display). Runco is a name people know. Planar isn't. Plus Planar's distribution model was not sufficiently more "lax" than Runco to be beneficial IMO (ie didn't make them significantly easier to get).

As it stands, the only people who are likely to have heard of a Planar projector are those of us who live and breath projectors. I think this could be a good move. You'll now be able to walk into a store and get a great "Runco" projector at a price that's more competitive with the "internet brands", but with the better service buying locally should bring.

the ls pj's use runco's trademarked SuperOnyx DMD, the SuperOnyx trademark are used in their higher end pj's too but what all this means in real life i am not sure, seeing as its TI who make the DMDs. it could all just be marketing spiel. still, good news for US consumers if this means the 8130 has effectively had a price cut, though it seems few went for it given the historical price differential. No doubt there will be more ls3's/8130's sold now though.

Any word on a Planar 1080p 3 chip?

There are Runco three DLP chippers now. There will be no Planar three chipper. The Planar HT line is going away over the next 6 months and the same models are available for the same price in the Runco line with the model numbers LS3 and LS5..

How does the 8150 compare with the Lumis? Is it 80% of the performance for 20% of the price?

Maybe 50% of the performance for 25% of the price in street price terms. Very subjective performace judgements here.

It will be interesting to see if Runco releases any FW updates to the LS3/LS5. I'm guessing they would be able to be loaded to the 8130/6150. I wonder how Runco historically compares to Planar in the frequency of updates to FW with new features.

Mike

The Runco LS7 is a 720p 3 chip DLP that is the presumed rebadge of the Planar Viper. The LS7 is supposed to ship early December a little over $15k.

Planar purchased Runco from Sam Runco several years ago. The only differences in the HT lines were that the Planar line of two projectors were below the one that was the entry Runco. The two ower planar models are now the twolowest models in the Runcoline. Everything is still the same.

I dont think so I think they will have to do a better job with the auto iris and the lens, going back to Marantz has reminded me of the shortcomings of the 8150. Great brightness and colors from the 8150 but I think they have work to do in order to play with the bigger boys such as the lumis

Soon I will get a 8150 for a few days to test it in my place and compare to my Jvc HD750.

The unit is an "old" demo unit so I am not sure if it has the latest firmware applied. But aside from a little more on/off with DB enabled iirc there were no major changes?

If I read the review from Cine4Home correctly the unit is only as bright as my HD750 if I enable Brilliant Color. Does this have any drawbacks like artifacts or color (temp.) problems?

Right. They have started a $1.5 million R$D project designed to beat the $37,000 MSRP LUMIS host at the 8150`s MSRP of $7000. You heard it first here. Sim2 is shaking in their sleek Italian boots. Funfvr makes extremely valid observations about the 8150 and the 11S2 in another recent thread.

Its funny how someones question about how does one $7000 model compare to a $37000 model starts a discussion about their desire to compete with the $37000 model and what they have to do. Of course as funfvr points out in the other thread the optics in the planar are not as good as the optics in the $15000 marantz 11S2. Optics cost money. Lots of good features don`t cost much. Great optics cost and cost and one must be prepared to pay for them.

what he said .... well said Mark....great proj but like anything else has room for improvement but it willl cost-ya

One proud owner of a PD8150 , as of yesterday.

Congrats, please let us know if you see artifacts such as dimming down or flickering of the image when using the DI. I would be curious to see if they have done any work in further tightening up the iris.

Nice. Hope you like it as much as I like mine.

Re: The DI. I'm running the latest FW. I have it on all the time and it has never been an issue for me. Except at first I wasn't positive mine was even engaged! A while back I discovered that if I bring up the small menu of my video processor while watching a movie, I can see the dimming / brightening of the image by watching the menu options. I was surprised how often it was occuring - changing every 10 seconds or so in some cases - but of course the frequency is dependent on the particular film/scene. Never did see it flickering in any way, and its action was always a slow progression so I don't think I'd say it was pumping either.

YMMV.

Mike

Rick,

I bought a similar lenscap and it fits just fine. In fact the planar lens lid can still fit over it too.

how does everyone with an 8150 describe sdtv performance. i just went back to a dealer with one on display to see exactly how it looks and thought that sdtv (even through a dvdo edge) looked pretty bad on a 100" screen. bluray was exceptional, but the cable box was very displeasing. now i know many will insist its the box, but i use the same one at home and sdtv looks pretty good on 55". obviously, bigger screen is no comparison but i just thought i'd ask here and see some impressions.

thanks.

IMHO SD TV image quality on the 8150 and a 100 inch screen is like SD on other HD projectors, basically lacking resolution. I did not build a HT to watch SD content. Up-converted DVDs via the Oppo bluray player are acceptable.

SD is acceptable on a tiny screen like 55"....At a medium size like 100" it doesn't look so good. At a larger size (160" and larger) it looks simply terrible. If you watch a lot of SD then I recommend staying with small screens (60" and under).

I think it does a pretty good job, but you have to accept SD for what it is. I think a lot of people expect miracles and that's just not going to happen.

true, i just keep remembering seeing an rs10 and the sd looked great. actually, it was proabably a little more than great. i think that is whats clouding my judgement for the planar. i will be seeing an rs15 next week and hopefully i can look closely at sdtv through a cable box and see how the 2 units compare.

my screen is 126", hence why im a little scared to pull the trigger... seeing that 100" looked pretty crappy. but, im also concerned that most of my dvd collection is sd and will be upconverted through an oppo bd83 player. is the upconversion considerably better and much closer to bluray... or still a ways away?

Depends on the transfer some SD DVD 's look great but some are terrible. Both are far better than SD cable its just awful.

FWIW, good SD, like a good/clean DVD or the somewhat rare clean SD broadcast, looks quite good through my Planar. But it's SD so it's still noticeably softer than Blu-ray.

As far as upconverting I haven't seen the Oppo, but the Planar is at least as good as my Pioneer 51FD.

But from what I can tell it's very hard to tell what to expect for SD reproduction on FP systems based on other people's descriptions. What I mean is I think some people just simply won't be happy with SD on anything bigger than a 27" tube, while others (like me) have accepted SD for what it is and can be reasonably happy.

Final FWIW, I don't think the Planar does anything "wrong" when it comes to SD, though I suppose it's possible that a being a DLP and having the high MFT/ANSI/etc the deficiencies are more apparent than they would be on something softer.