Official AX-200 Owners Thread - Page 5

A couple of teaser pics for ELmo at 10 feet from the screen. Keep in mind that the screen is currently nothing more than a wall painted with an off white eggshell paint and I can't believe it's just my basement wall. I have BOC for my next screen to use while I build the room and designer white will come after the BOC.The pics on pause are nowhere near as clear as they are while the movie is playing because it' s just a cheapo non upconverting DVD player. I have to bring the HD player down to check it out. The first pic is with no ambient light and the second is with full light on the other side of the room. The projector is currently on a shelf 16 feet from the screen and the image is 102" diagonal. No calibration has been done at all.

ok I'm teased!
tease mesome more!!!

yes, thats it.....

go and take the HD-DVD

There's nothing in the user manual that suggests that it can. Seems it can only do /24 when given a 1080/24p signal, and this has been confirmed by others to do the proper job of reducing judder (can't find the link right now, but I've seen this from one poster and the PC review confirms). Wish I could confirm with my own test, but my unit is still in transit. I'm curious though. What source provides 720/24p?

I was supposed to hear something back directly from Panasonic by today: nothing.

Don't need to. It's the best $1200 720p currently being sold today. You better hurry before they get so back-ordered you won't be able to get one for months!

When it comes to panasonic I would rather wait and see.
If you tell me its strengths in five words over Sony's then I will take your words as it is the best 720p in the price bracket. We already know it has the top lumen in torch mode. I need four more.

Ok, I have been watching the PT-AX100U for a while and was soon to pull the trigger, but now that the AX200U is out...I have 2 comments.

1) Do I have this right? PP has the AX100U for MORE $$$$ (that's 4 big ones more and no rebate offer) than the AX200U.

2) I am not sure why I am thinking this, but the label "Game Mode" and the statement right off the bat that describes the AX200U: "The Panasonic PT-AX200U is an innovative new projector that is poised to revolutionize projectors for video gaming" has somewhat reduced the appeal of this projector being well suited for viewing movies.
Has the direction of this projector changed (meaning more for gaming than watching movies)?

Holy crap, the ambient light pic is very comparable!

Torch FTW! Now blow that pic up to 120".

O.K. I pulled the trigger and got one overnighted to me from PP. The two year extended warranty is fact per the sales rep.

It will be here on Friday; I'll post up some screen shots using my PS3 for high-def and gaming shots. i will be shooting this onto a DIY 106" Roc-Lon screen (1.0 gain) in a dedicated and light-controlled theater. I expect a huge improvement over my Mitsu HC110 (480P) pj.

Stay tuned.....

Cheers,
JD

Well, on my notebook's LCD screen I can barely make out the difference.. Any chance you can give us some shots with even more light in the room? I'd be really interested to see your best effort at washing it out - i.e. all lights on

I just wanted to put my 2 cents in. I just got my AX-200 from P People today. I am still in the middle of getting all my components and room put together, but I just had to plug it in. I hooked it upto my new Dish Network 722 Hd DVR and aimed it at just a white painted wall. Set the zoom all the way out, foucused, and at 14' I was putting up a 136" diaganal image. Give or take a couple of inches. I changed the channel to Stars Wars Episode III in HD. The picture nocked my socks off! The picture is incredble. It is super bright, no screen door affect. Many sales people at different high end shops told me I needed to spend at least $3000 - $5000 for a decent projector and that one could not go past 100" without spending even more. It is all BS. I think this project gives you a great BANG for the buck! I am sure I will find it's faults in the future, but I will also keep in mind the price point and the POP this projector provides. Tomorrow I will order the 134" screen! Thanks to all the posters on thsi site that helped me make this decesion. I am glad I got off the sidelines and jumped in!

stop looking for its faults, it's $1300 - you win.

Just hope that the AX200 is still in stock by the time I pull the trigger sometime early next week now that my new house is in Escrow Day 1 from today!

Frag

howmany escrow days are there?
i close on nov 28

when i actually move in?

Mark, I have an HD70 and I am considering this panasonic and the sony aw15. I love the idea of the light sensor and the extra brightness, but I am terrified the actual ansi contrast of this unit will bit the big one so to speak. I had purchased a Benq W500 which is lcd and rated the same 6000:1 contrast, and I was extremely disapointed with the contrast compared to my HD70. In darker scenes it was really no contest, the HD70 ate the W500 for breakfast, my wife said no way (and she's not ussually that vocal), and yes, it was calibrated. I guess what I am asking is how does the HD70 really stack up against the AX200? Particularly in the areas of dark scene contrast and overall sharpness.... Thanks for your help!

There's nothing in the manual for my current PJ (Sony HS60) which suggests it will do this either, but using the PC/VGA/RGBHV input it will accept 1280x720 @ 47.952Hz "native". Unfortunately it will not accept this or any other multiple of 23.976 on the HDMI input.

I was happy using the VGA input (using a HTPC for SD DVD) until HD DVD and Blu-ray came along. I bought a Lumagen HDQ so I could IVTC 1080i60 (59.94) and scale down to 1280x720. Problem here is HDCP, so I had to also buy a Vision FC4 to "convert" the HDMI output from the Lumagen to VGA as the Lumagens analogue output switches off when the source is encrypted with HDCP. Yes I could use component (from HD DVD/Blu-ray) into the Lumagen, but to my eyes this is too soft compared with HDMI. I've found it best to keep everything digital until the final output stage...

Using the VGA input on the HS60 is very good, but the image is slightly softer and lacks a bit of punch when compared with the HDMI input. This to my eyes is actually preferable of poorer sources (SD DVD, SD TV etc) as it seems to hide some of the noise/MPEG artefacts etc, but more and more all I watch is HD.

As reio-ta has said a lot of shows (Lost, 24, Prison Break, Heroes etc) are (mostly) broadcast at 720p60 (59.94), but can be IVTC'ed back to 23.976 fps/Hz.

I could upscale non 1080 line sources with the Lumagen to 1080p24 (23.976) and let the AX200 downscale, but would prefer to 1:1 pixel match and perform all scaling in the Lumagen.

Hope someone can try this out for me (please...)

Rob.

Why are you concerned? You have a PJ that you love, why are you in here trying to debate the pro's/con's between the 2?

What's a bench test going to do? Tell my eyes that what I'm seeing can't be true because the numbers say so?



That's just FUNNY right there!


Dern, are you sure that the black in the screenshot above is black and not.. off grey black? Is that photoshopped to add black into it? Yeah, I think the lack of black issue is overly done myself. My eyes aren' the best though.

I can give you 1 more and that should be all you need, SONY. They CAN produce some great products but they are still Sony and those products work great until they masticate your glutes one day. Now at the price for the AW-15, you can throw it under a bus when it does but I would rather bet on Matsushita/Panasonic/JVC to come through in the pinch. Sure the AX100u gave Panny a black eye, but that's small potatoes compared to Sony's history.

If the AX200u can't be calibrated to match the Sony so that 99.6% of the population can't tell the difference, you can grind up the AX200u and I'll drink it for breakfast!

These are $1K PJs, come on!

That's why I will continue to say at this price point buy the brand, color, shape, WAF preferred model and go with it. Only the discontinued, once overpriced models are going to do better and you have to deal with the slight increases in heat, noise, $500 replacement bulbs and problems the top three of that category seem to be exhibiting in order to enjoy that increased performance.

Of course, my statement was just a blatant attempt to generate some heated conversation but it can be fun too!

Good points their Recon.For what these FP are going for how could you lose buying any of them.Hopefully one day soon all the 1080p will be below $2k,I am waiting on the new Sanyo and epson and panny 1080p to see what happens their.Hopefully my ax100 will last intill they come dowm in price.BOB

1) as far as what they advertise on their site, you have that right

2)the direction of the projector has not changed, it has just become more versitile, it's "game mode" is just an addition to all it's other movie modes, and now that I've been playing halo and metroid on it all week, i can definitely vouche for the game mode, it's perfect for games

The 2 year warranty question never seemed to be answered above, so I will answer it. There is a form to complete to get the 2 year warranty. Here is a link to it: http://www.projectorpeople.com/SLIS/...nty_103107.pdf

I'm a little confused, however, over all the references to other models AX100, AE1000. Makes me wonder.

That pdf form looks bogus. There's some problems with the kind of form it is and the program that it is sent to. Has anyone called the phone number on it to ask about it? "For Questions Call: 866-795-3383"

The document properties say it was created today at 1PM from a Word Document whose author is www.

Hmmmmmmmmm..........

My salesperson at PP contacted me personally to give me the warranty form. I do not see any references to those other models. Now , I am dyslexic but...

Since the 2 yr warranty seems questionable, I might just get the Mack extended warranty instead, for a little bit more

Frag

I can not seem to find the User Manual for the PT-AX200U. I went to Panasonic.com and found the PT-AX200U but not any manual (PDF).

What is the first line of the address you have to mail it to? See it now???

For anyone interested and have a broadband connection, here is the marketing Powerpoint file for the AX200u - quite informative!

ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasoni..._PT-AX200U.ppt

Looks like they've (PP) corrected the posted .pdf rebate form.

However, instead of stating the Standard is 1yr/90 P&L, it states the standard is 1 yr or 2,000 hours, and then this rebate gives you another year extra without extending the 2,000 hours part. If you turned the PJ on every day, and to stay under warranty for the full 2 yrs, that's 2 3/4 hours per day, every day of usage.

I'd still wait for it to hit Panny's site myself or an official response from Panny.

You guy's crack me up. "The warranty seems questionable" "That PDF form looks bogus"

How many of you have purchased from PP? How many of you got bogus forms or were lied to about your warranties? Okay then. They're a forum sponsor for a reason - if they manufactured fake warranty forms and lied to their customers AVS would pull their name off the site just like they did with TV Authority. Call Panasonic and verify it or stop posting. Bashing a manufacturer or dealer based on theories seems pretty stupid IMO.