Panasonic PT-AE4000 MSRP $1999 - Page 71

I have mine right aginst the back wall, i cutout the drywall and was able to push the projector right aginst the wall. The other side of the wall is my office so i have also cut the drywall on that side and installed a cold air return wall plate so you dont see the back of the projector at all. this seems to work well plus i dont even hear the system running.

Has anyone paired this thing up with an A/T screen yet, either SMX or Seymour? I think they're both about 1.1 to 1.2 gain. I'm going to be using one of those screens at 115" wide 2.35:1, with a throw distance of about 17 feet, and I'm about a week or two from being ready to order my pj. My room is in the basement with the ability for total light control, so ambient light shouldn't be an issue. I've also been kicking around the Mits HC 6800 as an option as well. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated as this will be the first projector I've ever owned, and to say I'm a bit confused is putting it mildly .

Thanks for the demo video. That's the best demonstration of that feature I've seen so far.

And, no doubt about it, Panasonic needs to give users the option to defeat that incredibly annoying and unnecessary "PROCESSING" reminder in the middle of the screen on the next model. Or a firmware fix to eliminate it altogether on this model. I'll bet the first competitor to add the Lens Memory feature won't neglect to offer an opt out on that reminder.

I'm in San Diego. Shoot me a PM if you're interested.

For all those Canadians out there, Panasonic has posted the Ae4000 on their Website. I also received an e-mail from Panasonic Support that they are now shipping in Canada.

I picked up mine in Regina, Sask today.

I'm trading up from a 3000 so I will post my views later once I have a chance to hook it up and burn it in so to speak.

PM sent! Thanks - could be some work issues though

Guys,

I got my panny last wednesday. Loving it, first projector ever. Holy smokes is it nice. I cant seem to zoom out to make the picture fit my screen. Here are my screen measurements:
126 W
138.5D
58.5 H
The pj is 19' back.
Using the calculator pro, that gives me a screen ratio of 2.17. My initial plan was to get the biggest 2:40 screen, that's why my numbers are off. I thought I could just zoom out and fill my screen with a 2:35 or 2:40 content on my screen, but I can't seem to make it fit. Last night we watch UP and I had about 6" at top (black bar). Then we were watching football (16:9) and I still had the same 6" at top?

If I use the lens on the remote control it zooms out too much.

What am i doing wrong?

My other issue is blurr. Watching football, the close up of the players looked incredible, but when they pan out and show the players on the field or the stadium it looks really blurry. I also noticed some while watching UP on DVD.

I cant seem to find 2.35 ratio on the menu only 16.9 and high fit.

I appreciate any and all help.

Thanks in advance

This is some what a repeat of the question I put in the Bluray players section.

I wanna know whether I should let my Pioneer BDP320 upscale my DVDs or pass it source direct to the Panny for it to scale it using its inbuilt scalers.

What I really wanna know is who has the better scaler, the Pioneer bdp320 or the Panny 4000?

What do most of you guys do in here? Do you let the Panny upscale your DVDs for you, OR you let the Bluray Players do the upscaling ?

Thanks for your help.
Vik

Same boat...first projector, SeymourAV AT screen, 130" diag, the PJ should be arriving this Friday or Monday...photos of the room in my sig

You really should do this simple experiment yourself FIRST. And then report your results and conclusions here! Then if you wish to ask your question, it could lead to a more useful discussion.

I wanna know whether I should let my Pioneer BDP320 upscale my DVDs or pass it source direct to the Panny for it to scale it using its inbuilt scalers.
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I've got a UPS installed for my projector, just for that reason. If you've got a ceiling mount you might have to do some electrical work in order to get the UPS power to it and remain code complaint (search around the Dedicated Theater Design & Construction forum for "power inlet.") As far as I know there's no direct way to have the unit go into standby, as it doesn't know the power went out! But you may be able to use the trigger input connected to the trigger output of an AVR that's NOT connected to the UPS. That way, when the power goes out the AVR quits, and that loss of trigger signal tells the projector to turn off. Just a guess, I haven't tried it myself.

Those ARE some tasty screenshots! You mind if I have some of your tasty beverage to wash this down?

Edit: Sorry, the following procedure won't work as written, as kriktsemaj99 pointed out, using the H-AREA POSITION will crop some of the image. If you can't center your projector horizontally on the screen, then you'll have to live with the 16:9 image being off-center within your 2.35 screen.

Except for adjusting H-AREA POSITION, the rest may be helpful. When I get some time I'll write up a more general procedure for setting up zoom lens memory.

Alas, my face is red.

* * *

I had a PM request for help setting up CIH lens memory settings when the projector is not centered horizontally on the screen. Posting it here in case it helps others.

I haven't done this myself, since my 4000 is centered horizontally, but the procedure should be similar to the vertical positioning procedure which worked for me. Please let me know if this procedure has problems and I'll edit.


First, Don't use the H-POSITION setting in the POSITION menu, leave it at zero. This is a global setting that affects all aspects, you don't want that. Instead, use H-AREA POSITION in the LENS MEMORY menu.

1. Display some 2.35 content with bright edges (press LENS button, then ENTER until input is shown). Zoom until image height matches the screen. Put four Post-It notes just outside the screen to make it easy to see overspill. Adjust H-AREA POSITION to get the image as close as possible to being centered, then back off a few points from the limit of 63 to give you room to adjust later.
2. Use the manual horizontal shift dial on the projector to finish centering the image. Leave the dial at this position from now on.
3. Fine-adjust focus, zoom and H-AREA POSITION until the 2.35 image fills the screen. Save the 2.35 setting in lens memory.
4. Now display some 16:9 content and zoom out to the size of the screen. Do not touch the manual horizontal shift again. See if you can center the 16:9 image using only the H-AREA POSITION setting.
5. If you cannot center the 16:9 image in the previous step, then the projector needs to be moved closer to the centerline of the screen. If that's not possible, rotate the projector slightly until the image is centered. If you do either of these things, then reload the 2.35 lens memory you created earlier and start over at step 1.
6. Fine-adjust focus, zoom and H-AREA POSITION until the 16:9 image is centered and fills the height of the screen. Save the 16:9 setting in another lens memory.

You may have to repeat the fine adjustments several times to get them right with various input sources.

I don't see how that can work. You can move a 2:35:1 image vertically because the black bars at top and bottom leave some room to move the picture area, but horizontally it's already filling the frame. Changing H-AREA POSITION will just cut off some of the picture (except for a 4:3 picture which has black bars at left and right).

I'm just hoping for powered lens shift on the AE-5000.

Ah, you're right about that, thanks. H-AREA POSITION will simply crop the image, I'd never tried that. Only the manual shift will work.

But if you have manual lens shift already set up on 16:9 material before you even try to zoom to 2.35:1, then it will work w/out having to use H-shift. I did it and it worked fine.

All,

Pulled the trigger on one of these after seeing it in a local shop. It projects a very nice image straight out of the box (was watching Dark Knight)

I'm in a bit of a debate with myself now on the screen and would welcome any input people may have.

For a long, long time, I've wanted to go 2.35:1. I think I still do but I'm worried about resolution loss associated with lens memory and zooming for this kind of setup. My understanding is 16:9 material would be true 1:1 pixel mapping as the panel is 16:9? So I'm starting to wonder if I'd have more resolution (or the image would appear more clear/well defined) with scope material on a CIW setup vs CIH setup.

Could those using this projector with a CIH setup (or not) please convince me I need to go scope vs 16:9? Will I really notice the resolution difference with scope movies between a CIW setups and a CIH setup?

**EDIT: not explicitly stated, but this is my first projector and therefore I have no screen to test on (or I would!)

Cheers,
HTfanatic

there is No Way you can go wrong with the Panasonic 4000, with all the features and the high quality; no one can beat it; the Epson is very nice too but otherwise, no one is offering this kind of quality at that price

You still have 1:1 mapping when zooming because it's an optical zoom, not a digital zoom.

Once you go to a 2.35 screen its impossible to go back to a 16x9 screen

The projector is in what I thought would be it's final mounting location, shelf mounted to one side of the room in an adjacent rooms closet, using a 104inch diagnol that could still be zoomed up to about 112 if i had wanted to.
I suppose it's to be expected but using both the horizontal and vertical lens shift to this degree wrecked the focus uniformity on the pj. Only about 1/3 of the screen can be in sharp focus at any given time, have to lower the focus to compromise for the total screen and i am less than thrilled with the result. Had to double check this was the issue by moving it a foot and a half closer and projecting without any shift and sure enough it shot a beautifully focused image.. that was now way too small.
First projector, so even a soft 104inch image is nice to have.
I did some searching and the only other option seems to be ceiling mounting in a centered location without using the shift and using a seperate wide angle conversion lens. Some old posts around here led me to the navitar screenstar lens which seem like they would do the job just fine. Only problem is the screen star mini would be $650 and the screen star hd would be $1595 (msrps). Both would work with the .7" lcd panel in the panny according to the site. Anyone have any insight into how big of a difference the optics in the two lenses would have?

Nice pics. and screen shots, that looks great! Love to see more owners post some screen shots.

Thanks for the post.

No matter which technique you use with the AE4K you will have exactly the same resolution. Even though you zoom the image to fill a 2.35 screen you will only be using the same image area on the LCD chips as you would if you were showing the 2.35 movie on a 16x9 screen.

The only thing you "really" gain with a CIH setup is that using a wider screen for movies and filling the screen without bars makes the movie "experience" more impressive.

Let me explain... if you have a 120" wide 16x9 (1.78) format screen and a 120" wide 2.35 in screen and you are showing a 2.35 movie... the image area is identical on the two screens... it is just that on the 16x9 screen you have black bars at the top and bottom of the image... but the image is identical in size and resolution.

What scope does for you is it makes the movie experience more "impressive" by going to the wider screen...... so that psychologically the movie experience is much "more impressive" than the TV experience. Those of us who use a 16x9 screen actually have a more impressive TV experience than we do when we watch movies... as the TV image fills the entire frame of the screen.

So we are talking really about psychology and presentation... we are selling the "sizzle" not the "steak."

Now the one caveat to this is that if your room is height limited then you can improve your movie experience by going to a 2.35 screen where your room height would not allow for the same width screen in the 1.78 format.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about the combination, and of course any screen shots you can provide . That is the screen I'm probably going with as well. I'm not quite ready for it yet though.

So for those of you in Canada, like me, waiting for your pre-ordered Panny from a certain dealer who's price was mentioned in this forum... surprise, they've been cancelled... yay

Anyone else found a good price in Canada they'd care to share with me via PM?

Thanks,
Chris

With the AE4000 you have the same resolution watching a 2.35 movie on a 16:9 screen as a 2.35 screen. You lose about 25% resolution of the whole 1080P panel with this method but it is a LOT less expensive.

If you use a proector with an anamorphic lens you gain some resolution. Because the whole 16:9 panel is filled by stretching the image vertically and the anamorphic lens stretches it horizontally to make the 2.35 screen. So if you use an anamorphic lens you do use the whole 1080P resolution. But, this solution is more expensive.

Bob

Well, In case of Bluray material actual resolution is the same as there are no anamorphic disks in this format. Your statement is true if you use anamorphic titles in DVD format.
In case of bluray, what you "gain" or should I say do not loose is some brightness if you use an anamorphic lens, but on the other hand you add extra optical elements which will not improve picture quality....
Wojtek

This is not quite true, Bob--if that is your real name. Using an anamorphic lens will use the entire height of the LCD panels, all 1080 pixels, but it won't have increased source resolution.

2.40 aspect Blu-ray images are about 800 pixels high. Stretching those 800 pixels to 1080 will increase brightness by 25%, but it can't create resolution that's not there.

Also the stretched image can introduce artifacts on test patterns, although on normal images it's not noticeable.

Thanks.

Here you can see another video that I've made, now using two screens commanded by the triggers of AE4000. The sizes are 128" (2.40:1) and 100" (1.78:1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BkMkzk3P3w

The screens were made by a local brand: www.avaprojecta.com.br