Another Panasonic

[Hoglet]

Hi Joe and others,

For a while now I've been interested in the £2,500 Panasonic PT-L702E. This is XGA resolution, 500:1 contrast, 960 ANSI lumens (1200 in high power mode), 4000 hour lamp life and 28dB fan noise. The standard lens is short throw, and there is an optional extra-short-throw lens.

The brochure on the PT-L702E can be found here:
www.dmcc.co.kr/display/ds/L701X/PDF/L712nte.pdf

In the US this PJ is known as the PT-L701XU, and there have been some good reports on AVS forums of it, and it's big brother the PT-711XU (brighter and has an MLA).

Joe, I'd be *very* interested in your comments on the AE100 wrt the Panasonic PT-L702E, in the areas of fan noise, contrast and screen door.

It's screen door in particular that I'm concerned about. I borrowed a Mitsubishi SL1U SVGA projector from a local dealer in Bristol. This can be had for about £1,630. We were viewing a 6 foot screen from 16 feet away (2.7x). Any closer and the pixelation was very visible. I really want to be able to get closer than this! For this reason, I'm currently leaning towards XGA resolution. But, there is a big price jump!

I've been told the same story by several local dealers - that Panasonic have will have no demo stock of the PT-L702E until the end of February. Have you heard the same?

BTW, If screen door doesn't bother you the SL1U is a great little projector for the money. Excellent color and contrast speced at 600:1 in the latest brochure. Quite long throw though.

--- Dave

[Joe Fernand]

Hello Dave

We sell lots of the PT-L5xxx - 7xxx range.

The PT-L502 and PT-L512 are both SVGA with compressed XGA. The PT-L702 and PT-L712 are both XGA with compressed UXGA.

The PT-L702 and PT-L712 both have Panasonic's Digital Cinema Reality video processing incl. 3:2 pull down sequencing. In addition the PT-L712 has a 'Micro Lens Array' enabling better light throughput with the XGA panel.

From my very quick viewing of the PT-AE100 I found that once I stepped back to about 6' from our 1.5m wide 16:9 screen the LCD grid disappeared. - from memory that's not too dissimilar to the presentation projectors.

The fan on the PT-AE100 is very quiet in reduced mode though at a slightly higher pitch than the fans on the PT-L512 we have in our dem stock.

I was a little disappointed with the fan louver arrangement on the PT-AE100 - the presentation projectors have a better system that allows you to aim the exhaust away from you and at the same time acts as a mask to any light spillage - the AE100 was not bad, the louver glows purple with no bright white areas, its just not as good as the presentation products.

You may be interested to know that there are two new Panasonic projectors on the way the PT-LC55 and PT-LC75 - we saw a pre production 55 yesterday. The LC55/75 use the same video processing as the AE100 though both use a 4:3 chip.

I will come back to you tomorrow about the availability of a demo PT-L702 - if you get to see the 702 and like it you may want to keep an eye on pricing as the 55/75 are to be introduced by the end of Feb so you may get a bargain.

I hope this all helps - though I don't think I've really narrowed your choice of projector down in any way. I guess you need to somehow gather as many of these projectors in one room as possible and then spend a few hours evaluation them!

The problem for us dealers being that as everyone pushes for lower prices the profit on each unit sold is reduced and too carry a good range of projectors in stock gets too costly - for example having purchased a PT-AE100 for dem stock I now need to sell roughly six units to even make my money back - so you can see how many projectors you need to sell if you want to keep a full array in stock and make the all important profits!

Regards

Joe

I'm gonna bump this one up for a bit

Joe i don't suppose you have the PT-L702E and the AE-100 in to compare the differences.

From your website

PT-L702E £2,091.99 (Incl vat)
AE-100 £1,400.00 (Incl vat)

For XGA it maybe worth spending that little bit extra if the 702 is somewhat better.

Can you confirm that projectors you send out are dead pixel free?

I am up in your area on the 24/25th February (not confirmed) maybe it's possible to have a look at the 2?

Thanks

Andy

[Joe Fernand]

Hello Andy

Apologies for not getting back to you on this one - been suffering from a strange flu bug for about two weeks and my brain is sometimes elsewhere.

PT-AE100:
Our PT-AE100 demo unit got damaged whilst out with a customer - though I did manage to grab it home for a night before it bit the dust. I didn't do much in the way of tweaking the unit I just ran it straight out of the box and for me at this price it gave excellent results - I would maybe have tried to get a bit more detail out of the blacks but I did not suffer any big 'Black holes'.

I guess you have to be careful about how you plan to install this projector - I keep seeing people planning to have it at the back of there room and with the short throw lens the image can get mighty big.

I found the fan noise to be a bit high pitched for my liking; the PT-L70XE range are very quite and have a very low frequency fan. Not a show stopper mind - just if I had been in charge of specifying the fan I would have went for a less high pitched model.

Then again I did try the projector with a PS2 so I could have had a horde of hairdryers in the room and not noticed they were on - what is Sony up to inside the PS2!

PT-L702E:
I just amended the web site - that price I put on last night was a mistake; it did not include VAT. This means there is an almost £1,000.00 difference in the price of these two projectors.

I think you can be safe in assuming that the PT-L702 will be fine as far as pixel structure on a six foot screen at sixteen feet - we sit about eight feet back from a five foot screen in our dem room and have no problems.

I know we have just supplied a few of the short throw lens units to a customer in Glasgow; I will try and get some feedback from the team that installed them.

PT-AE100 vs. PT-L702E:
I guess it depends how often you will be planning to use either of these machines and if there is anything about the PT-AE100 that would stop you enjoying you movies.

As has been documented elsewhere Panasonic do seem to have produced a good projector for the money in the PT-AE100 and have left you with a bit of tweaking and settings adjustments to enable you to set it up to suit your own preferences.

Then again at 500:1 contrast ratio and 760 TV lines the PT-L702E is going to give you that bit more info in those dark areas.

Demo units - PT-AE100:
It looks like the next delivery into the UK of this product is on or around the 26 Feb - so we will be without a demo unit until then.

Demo units - PT-L702E:
I don't get my stock from the Consumer Division of Panasonic UK so I can normally get the 'Presentation' products fairly readily - I will PM you tomorrow with an update on the PT-L702E dem situation.

FREE Dead Pixels:
It depends how we do the supply chain. If you want we offer a Pre Delivery Inspection service - it normally adds about £25.00 to the price as we have to reship the units.

Dead pixels have not been an issue with Panasonic on the presentation range but I guess when you are spending this sort of money for your own personal use you want to ensure everything is 100%.

I trust this has been helpful and I will be in touch tomorrow; Tuesday.

Regards

Joe

joe@tmfsolutions.co.uk
www.tmfsolutions.co.uk


PS Visit us any time!

Joe thanks for the information

I have finally had a look at the AE-100 (thanks Anim) and compared it to the other models i saw on saturday.

Although the 702 panny may give me the edge i personally can't justify the extra £1000, i would rather just be happy with a big screen and good quality and save for that elusive CRT in a couple of years (after the house purchase).

Thanks once again

Andy

[Joe Fernand]

Andy

I don't think you will be alone in 'stopping' at the PT-AE100 - for most it probably far outstrips expectations and at a price that is 'affordable' without breaking the bank and as always the law of diminishing returns sets in somewhere and I believe Panasonic have set the new benchmark.

Happy viewing

Joe