Question about the PT-AE4000 and my setup

I may be wrong about this, but as far as the brightness is concerned, you are actually getting a dimmer picture by having it close to the screen. You will get the brightest picture by having the zoom all the way out and projecting from farther away. As far as the calculator goes, it will work if it says it will work. The calculators are pretty acurate.

Adam -Divine :
I have pre-ordered panasonic ae4000u. I am confused about mounting the projector for maximum brightness. According to projector calculator I can mount anywhere between 10 feet and 20 feet. I always thought that the closer would give the brightest picture. Could you please explain if my thinking is flawed. btw, I have no problem with light control in the room.
Thank you

Actually the opposite is true, if the PJ is closest to the screen, then it has more light output.

In theory the closer it is the brighter it is. The further away it is the better the contrast is. Most people mount it as close as possible for the brightest image. The AE4000 should have great contrast even very close to the screen.

Closeness will not affect AT screen.

I strongly agree with decision to go that route - I absolutely love having my speakers behind my (home grown) AT screen.

Unfortunately, I didn't read your question until after mounting my PT-AE4000U, or I'd have done an exact measurement at 10'.

Mine is mounted 10'8" from the screen (distance between the two, not to center of mount or any such thing, and the projector is 12.5" lens-to-back without cables), and I'm displaying on a 92" 16:9 screen with a good bit of zoom in and out capability.

When I zoom as big as it can get, I measure 107" diagonally (verified using the nice center crosshair pattern as 2x half the distance since my tape measure bends a bit going the full distance). So I have 10'8" = 128"/107" widest throw ratio of 1.1963:1. multiply that by 100" (what you want) and you get 119.6" or 9.96'.

Page 14 of the manual confirms my calculations, showing minimum distance for 100" 16:9 screen is 9'10", and the widest throw ratio of 1.189:1 (plus an adjustment of .04 m?).

I am totally thrilled with my AE4000U ... Just took down my 6 year old Sanyo PLV-Z2 (720p) and love the improved contrast, brightness, darker blacks, detail,... I also had a Viewsonic Pro8100 for a couple of days before it died and the PT-AE4000U puts that to shame overall (though the image quality of the closeout $1300 Viewsonic was closer to the Panasonic than my old Sanyo). The user interface on the Panny is phenomenal.

Only issues so far are : (1) motion compensation/frame creation caused 2 baseball "ghosts" during some scenes of the World Series (bummer the Phillies couldn't pull it off )... Fortunately it could be turned off easily enough. And (2) default color settings cause a lot of purple lips and slightly off reds at times... But side-by-side comparison of image should make it easy to fix that when I am not busy watching stuff on it!

HTH,

Bruce

I have just a couple inches over the absolute minimum for a 114" screen. It looks great and because of the brightness, I can run it on Eco-mode and get very satisfactory results while extending the lamp life. I was going to move it back a few feet because I can see the PJ in my peripheral vision, but I decided to wait a few weeks and see if I got to the point where I wasn't "seeing" it anymore.

Perhaps they transposed the Panny numbers incorrectly? Here are the specs right out of the owner's manual:

For 16:9, you take the diagonal (in meters)x1.189 minus 0.04 for minimum distance. For max distance use diagonalx2.378 minus 0.05.

For 2.35:1 use diagonal x 1.256 minus 0.04 for minimum distance and diagonal x 1.899 minus 0.05 for max distance.

This should be considered the bible, since it's straight from the source.

I also have my speakers behind the screen and I love the clean look. Alas, my screen cost more than the PJ, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Another thumbs up for the AT screen.

A home theater should be like a real theater, with the voices coming from faces, not above or below them. You'll love it.

Tagging this post for later to help with measurements..

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