Panny AE900 Official Thread- Please post here! - Page 10

What you say may be true for some but for others the logic does not hold. You ask why calibrate and use a filter. Some of us are looking for the best possible picture out of our equipment. I would love you to try one of the disks and compare with results with just using your eyes. I was surprised how much a difference there was. I was also surprised with how much a difference there was when I used a filter on the AE700. It is your equipment and if you are happy leave you settings as they are. I would also try to understand why others are trying to get the best possible picture out of their equipment. "Trusting your instincts alone is not a scientific way of doing things."

When i received my Panasonic PT-AE500, everything was far too green. I messed with the settings a good bit myself, but the vast majority of people cannot just play about with it and get it right.

In comes the DVE disc. Half an hour spent and the picture i got from the projector was soo much better than the one i had managed to get myself.

You have to remember, a projector comes from the manufacturer and is set to be used by all sorts of people, with all sorts of tastes, on all sizes of screens and in all environments. You talk about using filters and state that you dont understand why. Well, im someone who is considering a filter. I have a 77" screen and will be projecting from as close as possible. I will be projecting on to a 1.1-1.3 gain screen (havent decided yet) and it will most certainly be nice and bright. However, i believe that by using a filter, maybe not a Neutral Density on, but some sort of filter, that i can in fact still have the image at a decent brightness level, but get a better contrast ratio. This will work for me.

However, there will be other people with say 120" screens, gains of only 0.8 and possibly projecting from a table from distance. They may not be able to use a filter because they would need a larger amount of light because of the distance/size of the screen.

So, in reality, because everyone is different and have needs/tastes that are different, Panasonic cannot make a projector that is 100% suitable for everyone. They have made a very good one, that for most will be fine. However, some of us may want to go that step further and get brighter images, better colours, higher contrast ratio, darker images, etc etc... and thats where the AVIA/DVE discs and the filters come in to play....

Chris

Why use a filter and why calibrate? Not trying to sound harsh, but this is a hobbyist site for home theater. IMHO, being a HT hobbyist means (among many things) trying to eeek out the max. performance from your equipment, in other words tweaking. If you find that odd, then I'm surprised it's taken you this long to question "needs" of the members of this site. Why do you think they have all the settings on the projector to begin with...they understand it's not a "plug and play" device.

Ron

Darin.

This is precisely the findings on the early evaluations that were done with the 700 - right down to black balance.

The low Gamma adjust seems to be quite good in that black point seems to be maintained well without interacting with the mid-level IRE's. I have a filtered 700 and generally run low gamma at +2 (effective gamma lower - I haven't calculated the curve) . I find it gives a somewhat better low black range (more film-like) without affecting black clip.

Looking forward to your findings.

ted

Mike,

Apologies if this is redundant.
Early calibrations with the 700 (and with Darin's comments - greyscale presets seems similar) determined that VIDEO mode was the best for filter calibration. I would venture that DYNAMIC has a pretty wild gamma curve - at least to my eyes with the 700 - and puts some of the adjustments at the extreme of their range. On the 700 VIDEO mode seems to provide the Gr & Bl gain with the deficiency in Rd without an extreme gamma. It allowed for enough range to optimize with an 81EF.

thanks for all your efforts (though I've no plans to purchase),
ted

I'll be receiving my 900 on Tue. or Wed of next week. Would someone please post a punchlist of things to do in the first hour while I can still return if necessary. I'm thinking things like checking for stuck pixals, and how to do that.

Thanks.

because human eye+brain is realy bad calibration equipment since they are easyly fulled .

My brand new Panny just arrived!!!!

I set it up in a temporary location and ran it for about 2 hours last night.

I'm happy to say I saw no evidence of any VB or FPN. I was intently looking for it for the first hour on several movies. Also, the contrast was great, although it does benefit from a dark room, but you already know that. I have not taken the time to calibrate yet and it still looks great. In fact I enjoyed watching so much, that I might not find time to calibrate. I haven't even put the batteries in the remote control yet, but I'm sure it will suffice. I didn't have any problems with the lens shift joystick, so that was good as well.

As reported in the forum, the picture quality on the Panny is fantastic. My wife was very surprised. I don't currently have a HD source, but intend to acquire soon. I was projecting on a primed 100 inch wall-board screen at this point with dark plumb walls all around. I intend to use a paint solution for a screen at this point due to my kids being ages 5 and 2. I'd hate to buy a nice screen only to have crayon or marker on it when I'm not looking!

Overall I'm very, very happy and impressed with the picture quality of my new Panny.

Oh, by the way... I got the 700 not the 900. Being a newbie, I decided to get a brand new 700 based on all the reviews. The posts here almost convinced me to spend the extra $700 and get the 900, but I'm glad I didn't. Now I've got a great projector plus an extra $700 to put towards new bulbs, equipment, etc.

I do want to thank everyone for their posts and commentary on this site. Very, very helpful and informative. You're excitement about HT is very contagious. I'm already excited about upgrading to C2FINE, and I don't even know what that is!!!

Final word: If you're a newbie like me, and on some kind of budget, don't be afraid to buy the 700. It is truly fantastic. Just go back and read the initial reviews when it first arrived on the scene. I know I'm happy, and I'm sure you will be too.

-Steve

I taught a Psychology course before I retired. One major unit was on perception. Yes the eye/brain is really bad at calibration. Thanks CROC your example is excellent.

That all seems to be the case, though I'm looking at Normal for filter use. I took some measurements last night with each mode, in 10 IRE increments from 20 to 100 IRE. Lamp was on low. Setting it to High adds about 10% to the output. Only contrast and brightness was adjusted for each mode, otherwise the results are straight from the box. Gamma tracking is not great with any setting, though Cinema 1's the best. None of them (other than Dynamic) are wildly off though.

Normal appears to me to be the best candidate for a CC30R filter, with Video second. I may go back and play around with them a little, though I only have a CC20R filter to try at the moment.

Cinema 1

R%=96, G%=102, B%=100 at 100 IRE
Ave. color temp=6600
300 lumens

Cinema 2

R%=85, G%=104, B%=97 at 100 IRE
Ave. color temp=7000
325 lumens

Cinema 3

R%=80, G%=104, B%=105 at 100 IRE
Ave. color temp=8400
375 lumens

Video

R%=72, G%=105, B%=108 at 100 IRE
Ave. color temp=10,200
525 lumens

Natural

R%=91, G%=102, B%=101 at 100 IRE
Ave. color temp=7500
300 lumens

Normal

R%=76, G%=105, B%=105 at 100 IRE
Ave. color temp=9300
525 lumens

Dynamic

R%=70, G%=105, B%=108 at 100 IRE
Ave. color temp=10,000
575 lumens

A CC30R filter with Normal mode might just do the trick. I am disappointed at the lumen output. Given bulb aging, it is pretty evident that the Panny 900 will not fit my needs.

Talk about a bummer. There are bright single chip DLP projectors that offer less SDE and much better contrast than my Epson Cinema 500, however, I suffer eyestrain and get headaches from single chip DLP. The D5 LCD projectors are all probably going to offer less light output than my Cinema 500 (perhaps the upcoming Hitachi may be brighter). I could splurge for the upcoming Sony Ruby, but it will most likely have insufficient light output for my 10' wide Screen Research screen. The Canon SX50 offers a smoother image, higher resolution, and greater light output, but it has less contrast and requires extensive calibration in comparison to my Cinema 500. Then there is 3 chip DLP which has come down significantly in price, however, I am unwilling to spend that kind of money on a 720P projector which I will want to replace with 1080P in a year or two. I guess I will live with my Cinema 500 for another year.

Yes, it came late Thurs. Not a hint of VB.
Quick impression, there is a marked improvement in CR but the image seems a little softer than the two 700's I have here. Now don't draw any conclusions from that "softer" statement, I have not done a direct comparison with the two models running at the same time and with the same program material.

It seems the 900's "tech" sub-menu has dropped the crosshatch and some other patterns in favor of only a 0 to 100 IRE 10 stepped patten (one for each primary, not gray-scale). I hope It's just that I haven't found the internal crosshatch, without the built in crosshatch stacking is going to be quite a bit more difficult ...unless I had a second AccuPel that is(Tom).

For comparison, I get just about the same lumen output from at Toshiba MT700 or Optoma H31, so the AE900 fits right in with other projectors advertised at around 1000 lumens. It's plenty bright for me, but I've only got a 92" screen.

Mike,
My Epson Cinema 500 put out about 650 lumens with a fresh lamp and in the Natural colour mode which uses the internal colour filter. This was OK with a fresh lamp, but with 300 hours on the lamp I am wishing for greater brightness. I would really like to see at least 700-800 lumens with a fresh lamp which really limits the projectors to choose from.

I understand Scott, I was just trying to give others a comparitive reference.

The new Epson 550 or 800 should give you the output level you need, but we don't know for sure how good they are yet.

From the Cedia info reviews I think someone said Panasonic had included adjustments for the Smoothscreen enabling you to sharpen the picture if so desired. I'll sift back through those and see if that's the case, then maybe we can find it in the menus somewhere.

The only adjustment I'm aware of is the Sharpness control, which is not specifically tied to the Smooth Screen.

UPDATE ON VB

After a few more hours on the 900, and with some minor adjustmesnts on the flicker menu(green) and minor on panel adjustments (green and blue, just one click lower on each) I am happy to report the VB is reduced to the point, that it really, in the grand scheme of things(ie: all projectors have some issues)is now nothing to loose any sleep over, or shouldn't be any deal breaker for those wanting to buy one of these. Is it (VB) still there, YES. Is it still bothering me, NO!. You can still "kind of" see it, every now and than, however is a much less issue for me , than say the screen door on a SONY HS 51, or any RB issue on a single chip DLP.

I am now using the "NORMAL" picture mode, and do prefer it over my previous favorite (CINEMA 2). Was able to reconfigure my DVD player,(wrong ire level was set),and now the picture really has blossomed. Over all color saturation, smoothness(this thing really does mimick a CRT look in many ways, and may be why some think it is a little soft looking. I personally don't think it looks soft. Just looks natural), and the lack of artifacts are really quite surprising for a projector in this price point. I just sold a very expensive 3 chip DLP, and, no I am not going to say this 900 is as good, or better, however, let's just say I am getting just as much enjoyment from watching it, as I did the 3 chip DLP.

CHEERS, TC

"I just sold a very expensive 3 chip DLP"// TC
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Which 3 chip did you sell ? If it starts with an "M" you ruined my day thank you.

Jimmy is the 900 still looking soft to you vs the 700?

I haven't done the side by side with two identical sources yet Tom. I have to cut and put connectors on a long sat cable so I can feed two (same) "D" HD receivers to the 700's and 900 at the same time for simultaneous viewing on one (split) screen.

I use my AE900 through a PC. Although DVDs look soft, I believe that is due to their lack of resolution given that HD does not look soft. The PC desktop looks very sharp. I'm actually amazed as to how sharp it is compared to the AE700 that I had. Yes a single chip DLP will be sharper, but what do you expect?

This is with the sharpness control turned down to the lowest mark. The zero setting still applies sharpening which I find annoying for PC use.

I was just wondering about this and it's good you used the higher quality HD source for a comparison. I sold my AE700 but am waiting to see how more of the new competitors stack up. Otherwise I was going for the AE900. There's going to be more reviews on some of the other new Epson 5 panel LCDs this month.

Ok, As I said before, this is my first projector...but I have a question

I have been watching some movies, and just the regular startup screen on a blank wall, trying to get an aprroximate screen size i will need, At first i had it closer, and measured ~ 72" x30" which..is a 2.35 screen width. I thought maybe i was just doing something wrong, so backed it up to where i will be mounting, and again 96" x 40".....which is also ~2.35, from all my research i was anticipating a 96" x 54" @ 1.85 aspect ratio.

I knew the projector was able to do 2:35 i had read, but i thought it was a 16:9 native (1.78) ?? Is there a setting i need to change or something wrong? Im confused!!! I mean I enjoy 2.35 but was in the process of ordering a screen.

This is a 16x9 projector. Something is certainly wrong. What are you feeding it as a source?

Assuming the zoom is not on, the most likely reason for what you're experiencing is that you do not have the projector squared with the wall you're projecting on. Try rotating the projector horizontally. If it's off, going in one direction will make it worse and going in the other direction will improve the aspect ratio.

Michael, make sure you source has it's aspect ratio set correctly, i.e. 16x9. Nothing to do with zoom or being off center from the screen.

I tried to take some photos of 700 vs. 900 but my damn camera doesn't like to focus very well on the images on the screen. All the pics came up little blurry so I decided not to post them. Sorry.

My opinion is still that if you already have 700, it is not worth it upgrading to 900. To be honest, 900 "straight out of box" is a little closer to satisfactory settings than 700, but after minor tweaks (they both need it anyway) both machines (brand new) look almost identical. 900 has slightly better blacks and 700 has slightly better sharpness. 700 I used for test has the latest firmware and has absolutely no VB while I had to tweak 900 "just a little" from flicker adjustment menu.

900 has much nicer remote control with learning for your other bits but in reality 700's remote works better beacuse you can point it to just about any direction and it still works.

Finally, my two cents on filters... I am 100% convinced that if you know how to use all of those colour brightness and colour contrast settings from advanced menu on both 700 and 900 you can mimic efect of any filter out there, but one thing for me that goes dead against filter use is loss of brightness.

Cheers

If you're seeing this problem on the startup screen of the AE900, it doesn't matter what the source is. Otherwise, your source settings could be the culprit.

"Finally, my two cents on filters... I am 100% convinced that if you know how to use all of those colour brightness and colour contrast settings from advanced menu on both 700 and 900 you can mimic efect of any filter out there, but one thing for me that goes dead against filter use is loss of brightness."//3D Quadrium
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You shouldn't be 100% convinced, leave yourself a little wiggle room.

With the "proper filter" your end result can be more brightness than adjusting those controls without a color filter. Calibrating the (any) projector to 6500K or preferably D65 should be your goal when doing adjustments either with or without a filter. I'm sure you know, instruments and a color sensor are needed because our eyes just can't come close balancing six gray scale controls (not counting Brightness, Contrast, Color saturation and Tint).