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So I broke down and upgraded my Sanyo Z4, after only slightly more than 100 hours on the bulb, to a Z5. I was looking forward to seeing if the increase in brightness and contrast were really noticeable.
I set both projectors up in my multiuse room. The Z5 was straight on with the screen and the Z4 was off to the side. However with these projectors, that is not an issue. The screen is a 119" Da-lite Cinema Vision screen. The content was American Idol in HD from two Scientific Atlanta 8300HD cable boxes.
The Z4 was originally calibrated with the Avia CD using just the basic setup. Since I did not have the Avia CD with me, I used the same settings on the Z5.
Brightness:
I looked at several scenes to compare brightness. I looked for the punch whites give and the pop that colors give. The Z5 was noticeably brighter on every scene.
That being said, I had my girlfriend who was not part of the test, walk into the room and view one projector. Then walk out of the room, back into the room, and view the other projector. I asked what was brighter. She could not tell. Point of bring that up, is that the brightness difference while noticeable in an A\\B comparison, it is not a significant difference.
Contrast:
Again, I looked at several scenes. It was hard for me to determine if it was because of the extra brightness or increase in contrast, but the darker scenes did have more detail on the Z5 vs. Z4. This was evident also when looking at dark objects in normal scenes. Again, I would argue that this is only a minor difference.
Overall:
My opinion: Overall I feel the improvements align with the moderate increases in brightness and contrast that Sanyo states are there. However, without performing an A\\B comparison, it is not likely that you will notice the difference.
There are other benefits of the Z5 which I have yet to take advantage of (if I ever will). It has a second HDMI port. The lamp iris is supposed to be smoother. However, with how I like to view the projector - with the iris wide open - the range the iris can change is pretty great. This results in a very distracting experience when you go from a normal brightness scene to a dark scene. I have not been able to tell if the iris changing is any smoother and I will likely turn this off (as I had on the Z4)
What I don't like on the Z5:
I have two main complaints (any I will likely also post these in a separate thread if no one has any feedback for me in here). My two issues, I can only describe by calling the first an HDMI sync issue and the second as a loss of signal issue.
HDMI Sync Issue:
With the Z4, I could watch cable TV and flip between channels like a normal TV. As long as I was sending the same signal type to the Z4 (480p vs 720p), everything was good. If I did change between a 720p signal to a 480p signal you saw a small delay and lose of signal as it negotiated the new signal type.
With the Z5, every time I change the channel (no matter what the signal type is) there is a delay and signal loss of 3-4 seconds. This is VERY annoying.
I am using the same cable, cable box, AVR as the Z4. I would love to hear if any other Z5 owners have experienced this.
Signal Loss Issue:
I still have not convinced myself this is an issue, but I am putting it down anyway. Every now and then (3-4 times in 15 hours), the image starts to fade out and it looks like a black test pattern with white dots starts to fade in. As quickly as that occurs, the picture returns to normal. The picture never really fades out completely, but something is definitely happening. The whole process takes less than a second. I never noticed this with my Z4. Anyone else with a Z5 notice this?
I set both projectors up in my multiuse room. The Z5 was straight on with the screen and the Z4 was off to the side. However with these projectors, that is not an issue. The screen is a 119" Da-lite Cinema Vision screen. The content was American Idol in HD from two Scientific Atlanta 8300HD cable boxes.
The Z4 was originally calibrated with the Avia CD using just the basic setup. Since I did not have the Avia CD with me, I used the same settings on the Z5.
Brightness:
I looked at several scenes to compare brightness. I looked for the punch whites give and the pop that colors give. The Z5 was noticeably brighter on every scene.
That being said, I had my girlfriend who was not part of the test, walk into the room and view one projector. Then walk out of the room, back into the room, and view the other projector. I asked what was brighter. She could not tell. Point of bring that up, is that the brightness difference while noticeable in an A\\B comparison, it is not a significant difference.
Contrast:
Again, I looked at several scenes. It was hard for me to determine if it was because of the extra brightness or increase in contrast, but the darker scenes did have more detail on the Z5 vs. Z4. This was evident also when looking at dark objects in normal scenes. Again, I would argue that this is only a minor difference.
Overall:
My opinion: Overall I feel the improvements align with the moderate increases in brightness and contrast that Sanyo states are there. However, without performing an A\\B comparison, it is not likely that you will notice the difference.
There are other benefits of the Z5 which I have yet to take advantage of (if I ever will). It has a second HDMI port. The lamp iris is supposed to be smoother. However, with how I like to view the projector - with the iris wide open - the range the iris can change is pretty great. This results in a very distracting experience when you go from a normal brightness scene to a dark scene. I have not been able to tell if the iris changing is any smoother and I will likely turn this off (as I had on the Z4)
What I don't like on the Z5:
I have two main complaints (any I will likely also post these in a separate thread if no one has any feedback for me in here). My two issues, I can only describe by calling the first an HDMI sync issue and the second as a loss of signal issue.
HDMI Sync Issue:
With the Z4, I could watch cable TV and flip between channels like a normal TV. As long as I was sending the same signal type to the Z4 (480p vs 720p), everything was good. If I did change between a 720p signal to a 480p signal you saw a small delay and lose of signal as it negotiated the new signal type.
With the Z5, every time I change the channel (no matter what the signal type is) there is a delay and signal loss of 3-4 seconds. This is VERY annoying.
I am using the same cable, cable box, AVR as the Z4. I would love to hear if any other Z5 owners have experienced this.
Signal Loss Issue:
I still have not convinced myself this is an issue, but I am putting it down anyway. Every now and then (3-4 times in 15 hours), the image starts to fade out and it looks like a black test pattern with white dots starts to fade in. As quickly as that occurs, the picture returns to normal. The picture never really fades out completely, but something is definitely happening. The whole process takes less than a second. I never noticed this with my Z4. Anyone else with a Z5 notice this?
