OWNERS Thread for the Panasonic PT-AE7000U 3D Projector - Page 126

Good point. So when does the memory lens come in handy? I ordered the screen and now I’m trying to find the right projector. I really thought that you could fit the different sizes in the screen and save them but now I’m lost on how the memory lens works.

You need the lense memry to switch from 16:9 to 2.35. When you have a 2.35 movie it basically zooms out the image for you and the black bars are projected above and below the screen so you don't see them. I would never get a projector with out it.

I think I’m sold on the 7000 just wish they had one without 3d for 500 less lol (I know that’s the 4000 but hard to find new).

I wonder how much better the 7000 is than the 4000 in 2d?

You won't ever get the word "Focus" absolutely perfect. At least that's what I've been told.

The focus will get better the longer you use your Panny.

Your screen must be flat and perpendicular to the PJ for best Focused image.

Do you have Frame Interpolation set to "1" ? If not, it'll make most movies laggy and unfocused. You will find that option under Advanced Options. Check your Manual.


Ray

Once you fire up the jvc45 I seriously doubt you will consider the Pana ae7000 again.

Why is that?

Because the JVC has amazing black levels and contrast. Not only that, the picture has a very film like quality to it which is beautiful to see in person. Its just excellent for 2D blu-ray movies! 3D is another matter though as there are many projectors that can do better 3D.

Is JVC worth the additional $1,000 over the panasonic? Also, how does the JVC do with sports and video games in rooms that aren't completely dark?

I thought the panny was more than the RS45, well at least in the US. I thought the 3D was just ok, but not great from what I read. So, I would choose the RS45 because its cheaper, and 2D movies are better. To conquer any brightness limitations with projectors, get a HP screen. For sports, the JVC is decent, but I only watched sports on a JVC projector with a HP screen. Motion was about the same on my RS40 and 55 as my Panasonic ae4000. I couldn't see a noticeable difference with sports.

Right now, I'm using a Benq W7000 and sports are a lot better, a noticeable difference, and 3D is in another class. It really depends on what you watch more. There really isn't one perfect projector for everyone. Some people watch strictly movies, others sports, etc... For me, I watch everything, I have been through almost 10 projectors in the past 3 years, trying to find the right match. Good thing is that they are easy to sell with little lost. I am able to do a 3 projector set up, so I don't have to worry about finding the right projector, just the right combination.

I also have a cheaper $400 Acer H5360 for use when friends or family wants to enjoy something on the big screen because I am not going to waste hours on my main projectors so my brother can watch sportscenter or my nephew can watch cartoons. So, if you can do a 2 projector set up, you can get the best of both worlds. But the panny is overall a better projector than the RS45. My panny ae4000 got me close to 3000 hours and I'm sure the JVC will probably max out at 1200. If you are not willing to do a 2 projector set up, you will miss out on the things that the panny does better than the JVC. The JVC is strictly, imo a 2D projector for HD material. The panny also handles lower sources better than JVC. I don't know why but my Benq does too, I would assume the JVC would but it doesn't.
Edited by blee0120 - 7/12/12 at 11:35am

Well, I just did a quick 1 hour demo comparison of the panny7000 and the jvc RS45.

My initial impressions are: Both are nice projectors for blu-ray.

BUT, at the moment the Panasonic doesn't hold a candle to the JVC in set-up (the motorized lens on the JVC is so easy to use and manipulate, it's ridiculous. The Panasonic's joystick feels cheap and unrefined) and image focus/sharpness.

As I said before, I am having a hard time getting the Panasonic to really focus. I have tweaked it for hours and always seem to end up with a picture that is slightly out of focus. The JVC, on the other hand, is dialed-in (focus wise) in a noticeably better way.

The panasonic has better color/picture controls (that much is evident)... but, I have to say, I didn't notice myself feeling like the JVC was missing something.

I get the fact that the Panasonic is a better "jack of all trades"... but the last hour just told me that the JVC pretty much trumps it for 2D BluRay playback.

I have both of these on my short list, and check the pricing regularly. The Panny is $1K less than the JVC on pretty much every site I've checked.

I am finding the same thing...hard for me to justify spending an extra $1,000 for the JVC unless it just blows away the panasonic on every level.

Right now I believe I am going to order the Panasonic and not look back...the problem is the more I read on this site the more confused I get and second guess things.

If you want to PM me, I can send you the info about the place I bought mine. I can tell you this, I paid about $250 more for the JVC... took 1 day to get to me. Bought the panny for the lowest price I could find from Visual______.com



Just wanted to mention one other big difference (and, mind you, I am listing positives for the JVC here because I believe the positives for the Panny are widely known ----).

I have the Panasonic ceiling mounted about 2 ft behind and 4 ft above the primary listening position. It's fan is noticeable (but not invasive during movie watching). The noise (that I believe) the Iris makes is noticeable. IT's a high pitched whirring sound. I find that it is noticeable even with movie sound. The JVC is pretty much dead quiet.

I've had a chance to view many more things using the Panny. I don't own the JVC nor have I ever demoed it.

My main complaints about the Panny are the 3D crosstalk (MUCH worse than the 65" Panasonic VT30 plasma I own) and the focus issue. I thing the lens memory is fantastic (although I wish there was a discrete IR code to recall Lens Memory. I had to research and program an IR to RS232 solution).

Brightness at full zoom is not an issue. 24p looks film-like to me. 2D Blu-ray is great. I have no complaints on that. I just wish the 3D for this projector is better.

This projector allows for adjustment of the parallax (via the 3D View Monitor), but it is NOT saved and gets reset anytime the input is changed of the power is turn off/on. Here's what the manual has to say about it:


I also wish I had waited a little bit for the non-lamp version that has been announced, but there is not enough info out there on that new projector to make any kind of conclusion on it.

Honestly, it's possible that active 3D just doesn't make me as happy as polarized 3D. It's virtually impossible to eliminate crosstalk with active 3D.

Non-lamp version?

So you, also, can't get the picture entirely focused --- by that I mean 100% satisfyingly dialed-in?

That's because the LCD lenses never turn off completely, so at any reasonably bright levels, each eye sees a dimmed version of what the other eye sees. No way around that until the active LCD technology improves.

Yeah. I have used multiple calibration discs and I'd say that I can get the projector 99.5% focused. The .5% is due to a tiny bit of ghosting to the right of any 1 pixel crosshairs. But, I don't let any of those kinds of things bother me when watching actual content. It is a bit weird going from watching this screen to my 65" plasma because the plasma is so crisp and sharp (it is pixel mapped perfectly).

I can also recommend using the Detail Clarity feature under Picture > Advanced Menu. If set too low, the image will be soft. If set too high, you will get halos around items on the screen. Mine is perfect at +4, but if I go to +5, the halos occur. It is the same effect that happens when the blu-ray authors add edge enhancement when encoding the video.

Exactly. I have been able to minimize it by adjusting the parallax manually, but the parallax can only be set at one point along the z axis. So, you can have only one of three points in perfect parallax. The foreground, the middle (where most of the movie exists) or the background. All three are important for perfect 3D viewing.

How is the lens memory with the jvc compare to the pany?

Thanks for the tip... I'll try that out.

One big bummer I discovered... if you want to use the horizontal/vertical lens shift feature, the camera needs to be almost completely centered. Mounted up high, or low, and that horizontal shift can only go so far.

I have the PJ mounted from an 8 ft ceiling hanging 20 inches down. If I keep it, I'll need to drop it even lower.

The lens of the projector shouldn't be any higher than the top of the screen. Then, you shouldn't have any problems with lens shift/memory.

could you share with us all of your calibration settings for the PJ? i.e. what do you use for 2d bluray and 3d bluray viewing? I just got this PJ and I have no idea where to start. thanks!

It's unfortunate that the cross-talk is such an issue that users are tempted to use the parallax control to try and minimize it. Really, this should be used for optimizing the 3d effect for the size of screen you have and to compensate for problems with the 3D cinematography in the source material. It can only ever zero the cross-talk for objects/features at a precise distance. You could end up giving yourself eye-strain if there's too much parallax for near or far objects.

Edit: Just to add that the horizontal lines in the parallax control show you the comfortable viewing range assuming you've set the correct screen size in the menu. This is the only thing the screen size control affects, as far as I can tell.

Absolutely (but it doesn't have to be exactly at 100 hours). The reason is that if you don't, you can wind up with dust blobs on your panels. These can only be cleaned off by disassembling the PJ (should be done by a factory service rep).

This is a normal maintenance function which applies to all LCD PJs.

Not all in my experience... Some Sanyos have a port to 'suck' blobs and dust out of the insides with a pump they include. Mine has is (Z2000) but I have never needed it!

I used to play with the Parallax control thinking I could get the best 3D and then leave it alone for the rest of the movie, it doesn't work that way as others have found. It only succeeds at making you crazy and miss most of the movie. I've since made a pact with myself to never touch that control again and have been happy ever since. It's the other adjustments and the warm up period that improves the 3D experience. That control does nothing for me except to make still images perfect.

I've gotten som PMs from folks asking for my impressions of the Panny 7000u vs JVC RS45.... so here is a recent response I sent back:




My room: 108" 2.40:1 Carada 1.0 gain screen. Light controlled room. All black/very dark surfaces.

I'm almost 100% 2D blu-ray movies, and prefer getting the picture as close to the REC709 standard as possible (I really find the brightness of a normal/vivid picture to induce headaches!). Just quickly, I did look at regular HDTV and sports on both PJs... nothing remarkable to report. Looked fine, again, my main use for my HT is 2D blu ray.

Also, I'm not a gamer. Those of you who are should look into the lag time, etc, on your own!

I had both the 7000u and the RS45 set-up at the same time and watched a series of movies... switching the HDMI cable to re-watch scenes and/or look at paused images.... from a throw distance of 13.5 feet.

Frame interpolation for both PJs was off and left off!



Here's a very brief review of my findings... You all can look up specs, etc (such as bulb life... blah, blah, blah...;-) :

Build Quality

Both are attractive looking PJs. Black finishes, robust in size. The panasonic's lens is off-set from the center of the PJ, JVC is centered. The JVC is larger, physically, than the panasonic... it also weighs about twice as much. Both are ceiling mountable. I have a Peerless PRG-EXB universal ceiling mount (Which, by the way, is a very sturdy/well made mount) and it fit both projectors.

The finishes are very similar... however, to the touch, the JVC feels sturdier and more solid. The RS45 also has a very attractive gold ring around the outer part of the lens (I believe the X30 is silver).

Just in handling the two units, the JVC feels much more substantial.

The RS45 comes with a plastic shipping lens cover... it can be used everyday, but is a white plastic. The Panny comes with a black lens cover that is attached to the PJ with a string. My understanding is that lens covers aren't totally necessary because of anti-static coatings on the lens. But I don't know that as fact.

Input/Controls

You'll have to look up specifics, but I believe the Panasonic has slightly more input options... I believe it has 3 HDMI inputs vs JVC's two. Also, the JVC lacks a yellow/video RCA input which may or may not be important to you. None of this really mattered to me as my AVR manages all of my HDMI inputs and I only have 1 HDMI cable going to the PJ.

The panasonic's controls (such as zoom/focus) are on the side of the PJ. JVC has their's on the back of the unit.

One big downside to the Panny, I think, is that the lens shift is accomplished by manually manipulating a joy stick on the front of the projector. It's flimsy, inexact, and for those of you ceiling mounting your PJ, the projector (itself) moves around while you manipulate the joystick. So, while you are moving the joystick the image on the screen is moving not only because the joystick is shifting the lens but also because the projector is moving. The end result is a very awkward process that feels like a bunch of guess work. The JVC does the same process with a motorized lens that can be operated via remote control.

Both remote controls are well laid out and easy to use - and both light-up. One nice feature on the JVC remote is that the "light" button glows green and is easy to find! The light on the Panny remote is activated by touching any button.

Set-up

Both PJ's come with fairly cryptic user manuals. The Panny's is more extensive... but, neither give you plain commonsense information.

I was able to get both projectors up and running fairly quickly, but the JVC's set-up process (such as saving various aspect ratios) was quicker and more intuitive.

At the end of the day, I found the JVC much easier and quicker to set-up from lens shift all the down to setting up the zoom to take advantage of my 2.40:1 screen.

The Panny has about double the amount of lens memory save slots as the JVC (I believe it's 6 to 3).


Noise Factor

While operating the two cameras I found the Panasonic - while relatively quite - to be louder (both PJs were about 4 feet from the center listening position in my HT). It's fan runs slightly louder, yes, but not significantly. BUT, I was able to hear the auto iris in the Panny (remember, the JVC doesn't have an auto iris... nor does it need one!) which was a constant high-pitched whirling sound. When the action in a movie is hot and intense, you can't hear it, but the second the sound dies down... you can hear it. I found it livable... but mildly distracting.

The RS45 is pretty much dead-quiet.


The Nitty-Gritty

Here's a real quick review of the PQ and my final decision. First off, I ended up running the panny in it's REC709 mode with some tweaks to the settings as suggested by projectorreives.com... and the JVC in Cinema mode (and a user 1 mode) with specs set forth by projectorreviews.com and the reviewer at home theater.com.

For the Panny: Auto Iris On. For the JVC, the manual Iris pretty much at its lowest setting. Lamp mode on both was left in Eco/Normal... not high.

Bottom line with these projectors: Both are ultra high contrast PJs and it shows. I don't think you can go wrong with either one. I guess if 3D is really important to you, the Panny would have an edge (just based on reviews of the 3D quality)... but I didn't review the 3D capabilities of either PJ. I find 3D distracting and headache inducing! I also didn't look at these PJ's with lots of ambient light. Most all of my viewing was done in the dark in my light controlled HT.

Here's the quick and dirty on performance:

The JVC, as is common knowledge, simply has better blacks and shadow detail... and that's exactly what I saw with my own eyes. One example would be the camp fire scene in 3:10 to Yuma. The Panny simply couldn't hang with the JVC. The nighttime blackness around the fire scene, on the Panny, appeared more grey. Pretty much any scene - from other movies - involving outer space and the such had the same result. The JVC's inky blacks are simply pleasing and robust.... not to mention any brightness in dark images on the JVC had tremendous pop without greying of blacks. Mind you, I say "greying" without intending to imply that the Panasonic has grey blacks. The blacks on the Panny are very much black... but not as black as the JVC... especially in scenes where there is a lot of black on the screen! The difference is less obvious with images that are predominantly bright with few blacks.

The difference in contrast between the two was also evident with the JVC being the clear winner. Please note, this is not a slam on the Panny at all. It has a very nice image... and, all things being equal, if I had never seen the JVC, I would have been very pleased with the Panny.

Color on both PJs is very nice. The Cinema mode on the JVC was close to the REC709 mode on the Panny... but with slightly more vibrant colors. Red on the JVC has a boldness and pop not seen on the Panny.

Remembering that I only had these side to side for about 3 days (and haven't completely dialed in the PQ settings), but I felt the panny has slightly better skin tones than the JVC. The JVC on the User 1 settings I took form projectorreviews.com had a slight green-ness to them... and the Cinema mode has a little more rosiness (I only found this to be a problem on 3:10 to Yuma, where I had to switch to User 1 mode to tame down the skin tones).

The Jvc has an overall better sharpness/focus factor to it's image.

In terms of fine detail, I paused movies on high detail/contrast images so many times my eyes almost fell out. This is what ultimately sold me on the JVC. Just as an example: In the opening scene to MI4:Ghost Protocol, there is a fly over of a city. When paused there is a tremendous amount of detail and color and opportunities for contrast to shine. The image produced by the Panny simply wasn't as detailed (more jagged lines less sharpness, less visible detail) as the JVC. In fact my wife (who would be the first to admit that she doesn't care about HT tech and really doesn't have an eye for noticing fine detail) was quick to point out the striking difference between the images the two projectors produced on this paused scene and others (mind you, I demoed scenes and paused images to her in a blind fashion, meaning she didn't know which projector was being used). In the end, the image differences were really obvious.


I wanted to like the Panny more as to avoid a restock fee on it's return. But the JVC (for my purposes) simply performed better and throws a sharper, more detailed, higher contrast image - I also found the lens controls and menu controls easier to use/more intuitive. Again, this is not to say that the Panasonic's image isn't high contrast and very pleasing. It is. In fact I had the panny for about 1 week prior to getting the JVC -- the first movie we watched was the Incredibles. My entire family was stunned by how beautiful the image was.

So, at this moment the JVC is hanging upside down in my HT. I'm very happy with my choice. I hope this helps. If you are leaning towards the Panasonic 7000u, I don't think you'd be making a bad choice. It's a very nice PJ. If you leaning toward the RS45 -- and you think your watching habits are similar to mine - I would highly recommend taking the plunge and buying it! You won't be disappointed --- not in it's price range!

Great review, and thanks for all the info!