Originally Posted by
zombie10k 
Panasonic 8000 - I had a chance to spend more time with the Panasonic 8000.
For those looking for a deep dive, this is an excellent review that I agree with many of their points. A+ for David to discuss 3D calibration which is often overlooked in the various reviews.
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/panasonic-pt-at6000-201211052339.htm?page=Picture Quality
White field uniformity - some notes from their review that I saw as well on this copy.
The only real negative we could find – other than the lack of manual control over the iris – related to white field uniformity. On our unit, when we ran full-screen greyscale test patterns, there were cases where the right side of the image was visibly redder than the left. In real-world usage, that typically wasn’t a problem with colour film material, but we had a look at Warners’ new Blu-ray release of Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train and did sometimes see some unwanted tinges creeping into the black and white visuals.
During calibration, this is an issue which becomes obvious once you hit ~70 IRE. There is poor color uniformity in this particular copy. It's been mentioned in the review above and also by a number of 8000 owners. This is going to vary between different samples, but it's talked about too often to think the next copy is going to be day/night better.
To test it, I played Roy Orbison's 'Black and White Night'. I could see some of the red color leaking into the image from the top. Also during a number of scenes in the Art of Flight. I am not happy to see this, I find it distracting on my HP screen. The 5020 has a bit of white field distortion, but it's very minor in comparison.
Color Calibration - This was a challenge since none of the default modes are the best starting point. The REC 709 is definitely not REC 709 / D65. The Red was even lower than the sample in the review above, with high dE's from the factory. Red was in the ~80% range and required large changes with green and blue to compensate. I also saw a similar issue with heavy green saturation that needed to be tamed.
This projector needed more 'work' to get a good calibration than any of the other models so far, with the HW50 being on the opposite end (gamma is usually near perfect, good R709 color space and relatively mild tweaks for greyscale tuneup).
The CMS is also a pain to use. It works, but I much prefer the Epson in comparison.
Post Calibration - It looks good overall once calibrated, but the black floor is not as good as the Epson 5020 or the HW50. This is noticeable on my 142" 2.8HP. It reminds me of the Sony HW30 - good, but not great compared to the other models. On the HW50, this improved quite a bit and there is no doubt the HW50 has better appearing contrast and black level performance in comparison to the Panasonic. Same thing with the 5020 which stands side by side with the HW50 in this area.
3D impressions - I watched a number of my favorite 3D clips, it looks fairly bright but I haven't measure it yet. The color is off by a mile in 3D mode and needs a heavy calibration for the colors in 3D to look correct. Ghosting with the glasses set to the 'normal' mode was pretty good overall although you could easily see the outline of the tree in Grand Canyon.
Also, flicker performance is as good on the Panasonic 8000 as it is on the Epson 5020. This makes sense since both use the 480hz panels. The image overall is very solid for those sensitive to flicker.
I still have more to look at with this projector, but those are some early first impressions. It has very nice build quality overall for this price range, but it's the PQ that counts. I see the RS46, HW50 and 5020 trumping this model in most areas of comparison.
The JVC RS55 eats the 8000 for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 2D PQ. Smooth screen would not be mistaken for e-shift 1. The JVC also has near pefect white field performance and signficantly better contrast / black levels.
Just bite the bullet and enjoy and if the picture quality is not up to expectation, drink one extra beer and all the color uniformity, noise, ghosting, screen door, pin cushion effects will go away. LOL
