We had a great day out, and had a fantastic meal a "The cross Keys" pub!
I echo Neils (Messiah) points about the ambient light preventing serious reviewing, but all credit to both Andrew and Liam for at least trying.
The news is if this proves a success, they will be willing to tour around the country giving customers a try before you buy type demo!
This is good news because the main complaint from people dipping their toe in the market is lack of demo facilities.
Please note, most of the PJ's were set "out of the box", so with more time maybe a better picture could be obtained.
I will start of with the Epson TS10:
Never even knew this existed before today, so i don't know how much it costs etc.
Boring Beige/white case, but looked very well built.
I thought it was almost identical to the Z1 in the picture stakes, except to say the colours didn't seem as saturated. So i will skip any further comments.
Sanyo Z1:
Smart black and silver case.
Image was bright and punchy, with well saturated colours. Struggled to give convincing images due to low resolution panel plus screendoor. Don't get me wrong for it's budget price these things are to be expected. I would rate it above the AE100 for example, but although highly saturated, the colours didn't look "real".
As with most LCD there was much vertical streaking/banding on the light scenes, but viewed from an appropriate distance the image did look good.
Couldn't judge the black level as it was too near the door.
I feel this PJ just needed some careful setting up and a slight defocusing to make it a great budget projector.
Panasonic AE300:
I had mixed feelings about this projector!
I was demo-ing this one for a friend, so was trying to see how black the blacks were.
This projector was in the darkest part of the room, so a slight greyness to the blacks was noticable.
The projector was pushing blue, so maybe this was what i was viewing.
Considering this PJ is selling in the budget range, it stood up well to the pricer Epson TW100!
The Micro Lense array really did reduce the screendoor to about the same as the TW100, without noticable softening of the image.
But it didn't have the detail level being shown by the TW100.
Colours weren't as "in your face" as some LCDs, but after watching a range of material, it endeared itself to me.
I would be happy to install this projector in my freinds budget install.
Again i feel the PJ has more to offer with some tweaking.
Epson TW100:
Case same as the TS10.
This PJ seemed to change my mind, every time they changed the film!
I do think this PJ is more fussy what you show on it, ie garbage in garbage out. Or maybe the type of film source, brings out the best and worse.
Detail levels on this machine were very high, confirming the above statement maybe!
Colours seemed fine on the whole, and i think it needed a darker room to shows it's ermm "true colours"..... sorry!
Biggest let down was screendoor+vertical streaks. On a projector in this price range i would expect better. As i mentioned above the AE300 was similar but that PJ costs a lot less.
I think this PJ just needs a price reduction.
Toshiba MT5:
I don't like Toshiba anymore after grief with a TV, so will not help sell any of their products...
NEC HT1000:
Case is a bit boring in white/beige, but looks very very well built.
I can't tell you if this Pj was the quietest there, but in high and low lamp mode it was really quiet!
Screendoor = Nil (from any sensible distance)
Vertcal banding/streaking = Nil
The above two factors are very important to picture quality, and in their absence it left a stunning picture!
Very smooth and film like, in fact nothing like normal digital pictures!
The black level from what i could tell compaired to the other projectors looked very low.
There are a few negatives i must point out, but compaired to the LCD niggle pale in comparison.
Rainbows are still present, but i am very sensative to them. In fact Amanda saw them for the first time!
But after demo-ing for a while i became aware that i hadn't seen any!
Just shows that i look for them etc
There was also some dithering in the backgrounds and on fast moving objects, but to be honest it was more than acceptable.
The last point was image brightness. Since this PJ is native 4.3, it loses a lot of brightness when veiwing 16.9 (2.35-1) material.
So in lower power mode with the "Iris" shut i feel you might need total blackout conditions!
Overall i think the HT1000 is a stunning machine and well worth every penny. Even with the slight rainbows/dithering gives a truely cinematic image.
I very much would like to see this PJ again in a better enviroment, on a larger screen.
I often get asked if digital Pjs are getting closer to CRT PJs, and the answer with the HT1000 is yes...... Closer but not there yet.
The main points about a CRT image is the total lack of Image!
Ie the image is so much more vibrant and alive, nevermind image depth and 3Dness.
A well setup CRT with good tubes and lenses can give sharp highly detailed image, just as much as a cheapo poorly setup CRT can give a soft bland/dark image.
So i will be sticking with CRT for the time being!
I asked Neil to come with me and view the plasmas, as everytime i review them i always come up with the Panasonic 42 as the best.
There is a list on av-sales.com site what plasmas are on offer.
After having a fresh look at what's on offer i still mantain the Panasonic it still tops.
But i would ask Neil to fill in with his thoughts on what looked the best, as he has the sharp-PIoneer clone.
Right thats it!
I'm having a beer and maybe some sleep as it been a couple of days now!
Linear Mode
