Panasonic PT-AE2000u review - Page 2  

Here is a humble question: what type of screen (120" 14ft away) would you recommend for the AE2000? That is for a total dark (light controlled) room.

Yeah, I'm an amateur...sorry to be a distraction.

These are issues that are common to LCD. Inoperative pixels are becoming less common to the point that it is almost a non-issue, unless of course you have them. Colour uniformity has never been that great on any of the LCD projectors I have owned - I am not sure if the AE1000 was improved in this regard. Without a means of converging the LCD panels, there will be convergence errors, the only question is how obvious are they. BTW, I am following the reports on the AE2000 with great interest as I will certainly consider purchasing one provided the light output is sufficient.

I would think the DaLite High Power screen can work for that size screen.

reio-ta,

Thanks for reporting back on your review.
Sounds like the Ae2000 should be a great all around projector with all these improvements.

I recently had a good opportunity and sold my RS1 at a great price.

I'm ready to order the Ae2000 when it comes out.
Any idea when that will be ?

Joe

It looks like Reio-ta beat me to the punch. I have been really busy lately and was going to put up my own review tonight.

Lets start with some specs. It includes 3 hdmi that are 1.3. Projector is brighter at 1500 lumens and contrast has been kicked up to 16000:1

Has some nice new features, they updated the Waveform monitor so it will adjust the projector automatically for you unlike last years units which had to be done manually

They added a interesting calibrating feature. What you do is freeze the picture and select a portion of the picture you want to adjust. It will then put up the image twice either as a mirror image or as a duplicate. Then when you adjust color, brightness or whatever, it will do it to one of the images only so that you can see where you started out and where you are going

Another interesting option is that you can freeze a picture and using a targeting feature, you can adjust the color of the object. So for example we chose a blue house. They targeted the blue and were able to adjust the blue so that the entire house was modified.

I think like before the internal color filter can be disengaged depending on what mode you are in. I didnt ask about that , but if i remember from the older units, you had that option

I asked about Anamorphic lens and whatever the AE1000 had so does the AE2000

The people from Panasonic have seen our comparision of the AE1000 with other projectors using the picture of Gandolf and they have added some time of feature that sharpens the picture. Do be honest, I had nothing to compare with so I have no idea how much of a difference it makes or not


Price, as mentioned before, they didnt know. Best they could tell us was that it wouldnt be more than the AE1000

When I asked about the ability to take off smoothscreen, I was told no. From what I gather, they seemed to be concerned with screendoor so my guess is that they will have smoothscreen for a long time. According to them, they have a new smoothscreen system Although they havent said anything, i think they are trying to remove the issue of lack of sharpness

As for my opinion, the picture and colors are beautiful and has a nice sharp image. Is it DLP sharp, no, but I have always thought that while I love DLP sharpness, it doesnt have to the standard. Black levels are very good and I actually like Cinema 1 unlike my companion and I enjoy bright pictures so the 1500 lumens worked well with me. Plus since so many of us are going with large 2.35 screens, the extra lumens can be used

How they compare to the Pearl or RS1, well it definitely brighter than either one of them. I havent seem the Pearl in a long time so I am going by memory, but I would think the AE2000 has better colors. I own the RS1 but I am embarrased to say that I havent put it up yet as I have been working on the room. Being that people have been saying that the RS1 doesnt have accurate colors, its easy to say that the Panny has better colors.
As for black levels.again without a direct comparsion it would be hard to say. On the other hand, I cant imagine their would be a huge difference.

One think you can say about the Panny is that it has an amazing number of controls and how you can adjust just about anything you want. Like previously mentioned, it has 16 memory options which you can name yourself.

ric 97

assuming you had dark walls and light control, you should have no problem using a 1.3 gain screen. You can go with a 1.5 or possibly the High Power, but assuming you get close to a 1000 lumens, 1.3 should work fine

November's only a few weeks away.
I hope that it'll street at around 2.5k where the competition is priced at with no rebate nonsense. I wouldn't pay 4k for it and I won't bother with ridiculous $1000 mail in rebates.

Thanks Daniel!

I cant believe the advancements they are making at these price points. Un heard of just a few years ago. I am going to order this for myself Daniel based on your say so. Panasonic owes you a kick back

If it hits that price with rebates, i'll be stoked! I dont mind a rebate when its a thousand bucks.

I dont like the 2 dollar or 10 dollar rebate things...they aren't always worth the time. But 1000 dollars? then its worth it!

I think at this point the lamp life and price are my only concerns.

EDIT- BTW, THANK YOU DANIEL! I really really wish i could have made it out. Its only about a 20 minute drive from my place in south pas.

you would think after all this time they would send me a free one

Actually they are very kind and I really appreciate they they invite me ever year. They really seem to listen to what I have to say. One year, I complained in front of a large group that they only had one dvi or hdmi connection on their unit, the next year when they introduced their new model they mentioned in front of everyone that they had added an addtional dvi\\hdmi input because I had complained the previous year. While I am sure it wasnt added because of me, it was still a nice thing to say.

I did tell them this year that they should come out with a 2.35 projector next year. If they do, I am going to claim responsibility on that next year

You're welcome
Finally they admit (indirectly) that the SS implementation on the AE1000 was poor.


Unfortunate for those that already bought the Ae1000, but I do look forward to seeing this improved version in action.

Joe, they also said they would be sending you a check

Most excellent. It'll help fund my planned scope setup and lens.

Personally I'd prefer a longer term plan like a royalty on every unit sold

Daniel will the AE2000 still retain the motorized focus and zoom ?

I would guess 3000 hours, as that is what i've seen on other projectors with a 2000 hour lamp life and normal and eco modes.

Here's another question:

Is the body the same to the point where the same ceiling/projector mounts can be used?

Wow...that is pretty cool, thinking about it...really if it truly works, then there isn't a need for a 24P player...does it only work at 1080i60 or also 1080p60?

That is also very cool...from initial impressions in the Sanyo thread it sounds like this is a huge difference in favor of the panny.

I just bought an AE 1000 a few weeks ago. Is the AE 2000 going to make me wish I had waited?

From the talk coming out of this thread, I would have to say yes...

does the 2000 have the holy grail, cms?

can you honestly say ALL units have 100% correct?

always unit variance...

I had a Panasonic 1000 for a few days and thought it was a nice projector, but my complaints were: 1) not enough brightness (seems to have been corrected in the 2000) 2) too loud in terms of acoustic noise 3) typically mediocre LCD ANSI contrast. Can you address the last two points. Thanks.