[andy1read]

I'm looking at getting a new projector, gonna spend around £2000, maybe a bit more if needed. Two projectors i've been interested in are the Sony HW10(£1700), and the Panasonic PTAE3000(£2200). Both have had good reviews, is it worth spending the extra £500 on the Panasonic? Are there any other projectors i should be looking at?
My screen is 84", and the room has lighting control.

Any advice would be helpful.

[Crustyloafer]

Go and get a demo of both of them at a reputable local dealer who has both available to demonstrate. They are both very good projectors with their own advantages and benefits.

[johndickinson]

It looks like there is going to be an offer on the Sony. Bluray player or bulb via a Sony redemption scheme.

[jacko5]

Originally Posted by johndickinson

It looks like there is going to be an offer on the Sony. Bluray player or bulb via a Sony redemption scheme.

I am sure no one Knows which is best just yet, but if you compare the feature sets you may prefer one over the other.
Two important factors which would sway me towards the Sony HW10 would be the freedom from the risk of dust blobs and the facility to adjust the red and blue panels in 0.1 pixel steps to ensure near perfect alignment,in the centre of the image at least.
Others may prefer the one button selection of 16:9 or 2.35 format, onthe AE3000, and the the ability to display the original image at the same time as viewing the modified image on a split screen so that you can see the effects of your adjustments.

Oops, this was in reply to the OP.

[gandley]

very close fight.

the panny will have better ANSI CR over the HW10, but the Sony will be a bit brighter after calibrated.

SXRD has a sealed light path IIRC so no dust blob issues that effected the older panny AE2000 (new filters in AE3000 should help).

Both quite quiet, both excellent. Sony has the price advantage as well but lacks features compared to the Panasonic.

Epson TW5000 should also be a consideration in that bracket as well as the JVC HD1 which is getting big discounts at some places.

[andy1read]

thanks for advice,
I should be getting a demo of the sony soon, but i dont know anywhere locally where i can demo the panasonic, so its not gonna help my decision.
At the moment i have a sony vpl-vw10ht, which i've had about 7 years, i've always been quite impressed with it, but looking forward to seeing the difference in performance on the new projectors.
Is it dust which causes little blobs of light on the screen, most noticeable when image is dark? I was told a long time ago, they are known as hotspots, and are caused from overheating. It really bugs me, when i'm watching films, and i see them on the screen . If it is dust that causes this, and the Sony hw10 wont suffer from it, then that would be a good reason for getting it.
If i got the panasonic, and got dust in it, is it easy to remove?

The 2.35 format on the panasonic isnt needed as i have a 16:9 screen, what other features does the panasonic have over the sony? Does the 100hz make much of an improvement on the display?

thanks, Andy

[stainless-steel]

Originally Posted by gandley

the panny will have better ANSI CR over the HW10.

Out of interest what are you basing this judgement on? Cine4home were quite categorical in denying any significant ANSI CR increase with this years LCDs, and I note the AE3000 review on their site is still based on the pre-production version, and doesn't mention ANSI.
The only place that has so far is projectorcentral (to my knowledge) who tend to be somewhat 'excitable' when it comes to LCD PJs.

I'm not trying to be confrontational, but I keep seeing the AE's ANSI 'advantage' being bandied about, and so far there's only one source for this info. Rumours\misinformation often become fact, esp. on the net!

Respectfully,

Stainless.

[gandley]

well sure they are LCD biased to a point, they gave high praise to JVC as well, i would however wait for further comfirmation from another reviewer but given PJC site measured the ANSI CR of all there other past projectors inline with other reviewers when it comes to ANSI CR i would be very surprised if they felt they should just make it up, lets face it others will soon point out if they were wrong or not so i dont see what they gain by making it up.

On the flip side the improvments panasonic made to the AE3000 was to reduce light scatter in the optical block, now this would most likly improve ANSI CR as well, so there is some evidence that ANSI CR could have been improved a little.
Not to mention the HC7000 also has improved in ANSI CR and the fact that from the shows Epson said the improvments made to there projector should also give a small increase in ANSI CR.

Cine4home didnt do any measerments so a simple NO, dosent hold much water either.

wait and see i guess

[stainless-steel]

The fact that all C4H said on the subject was -No- doesn't to my mind imply they didn't test the AE3000 for ANSI. What they didn't do was publish an ANSI figure.
However you're quite right, the only thing to do is wait and see, personaly I like to average out all the reviews.

I'm always somewhat amused by the tendancy of AV forum's American cousin to have entire threads taken over by speculation, counter speculation, rumour and counter rumour whenever a new product is launched, the VW200 thread got quite surreal at some points I seem to remember.

But then I'm sure we all drift into hyperbole on occasion.

[bytehoven]

I have a AE3000 on the way from Projector People and a I picked up the HW10 at my local Best Buy today.

I have 4 hours of lamp time on the AE3000 under the PP return policy, and 14 days on the HW10 from Best Buy. I was honest with the Magnolia Home Theater store manager, telling him I wanted to test drive the HW10. He agreed to waive the normal 15% restocking fee Best Buy charges on projectors and asked me to limit the lamp time to 10 hours. DEAL!

I should have the AE3000 by Wednesday next week.

Let me know if anyone has some things they would like to me to compare between the two projectors.

Given the time limit on the lamps, I don't think I will be able to do a full calibration on the AE3000 and spend some serious viewing time. Given both projectors are said to be pretty good right out of the box, I might limit my comparison in that regard.

I think my biggest areas of observation will be ...

- the advantage of pure ANSI contrast, native ON/OFF and DI enhanced ON/OFF contrast.
- Gamma & grayscale uniformity
- RGB panel convergence
- 24p reproduction from the Panasonic 55k in 24p mode
- image scaling quality of the AE3000 compared to scaling in the DVDO Edge

Let me know if you have any other areas of interest for me to check.

RJ
...

[jacko5]

Originally Posted by bytehoven

I have a AE3000 on the way from Projector People and a I picked up the HW10 at my local Best Buy today.

I have 4 hours of lamp time on the AE3000 under the PP return policy, and 14 days on the HW10 from Best Buy. I was honest with the Magnolia Home Theater store manager, telling him I wanted to test drive the HW10. He agreed to waive the normal 15% restocking fee Best Buy charges on projectors and asked me to limit the lamp time to 10 hours. DEAL!

I should have the AE3000 by Wednesday next week.

Let me know if anyone has some things they would like to me to compare between the two projectors.

Given the time limit on the lamps, I don't think I will be able to do a full calibration on the AE3000 and spend some serious viewing time. Given both projectors are said to be pretty good right out of the box, I might limit my comparison in that regard.

I think my biggest areas of observation will be ...

- the advantage of pure ANSI contrast, native ON/OFF and DI enhanced ON/OFF contrast.
- Gamma & grayscale uniformity
- RGB panel convergence
- 24p reproduction from the Panasonic 55k in 24p mode
- image scaling quality of the AE3000 compared to scaling in the DVDO Edge

Let me know if you have any other areas of interest for me to check.

RJ
...

Sharpness comparison please. Soft images bug me, which is why I like single chip DLP sharpness. The trouble is DLP seems to cause me more eyestrain than LCD or LCOS.

[inzaman]

Originally Posted by bytehoven

I have a AE3000 on the way from Projector People and a I picked up the HW10 at my local Best Buy today.

I have 4 hours of lamp time on the AE3000 under the PP return policy, and 14 days on the HW10 from Best Buy. I was honest with the Magnolia Home Theater store manager, telling him I wanted to test drive the HW10. He agreed to waive the normal 15% restocking fee Best Buy charges on projectors and asked me to limit the lamp time to 10 hours. DEAL!

I should have the AE3000 by Wednesday next week.

Let me know if anyone has some things they would like to me to compare between the two projectors.

Given the time limit on the lamps, I don't think I will be able to do a full calibration on the AE3000 and spend some serious viewing time. Given both projectors are said to be pretty good right out of the box, I might limit my comparison in that regard.

I think my biggest areas of observation will be ...

- the advantage of pure ANSI contrast, native ON/OFF and DI enhanced ON/OFF contrast.
- Gamma & grayscale uniformity
- RGB panel convergence
- 24p reproduction from the Panasonic 55k in 24p mode
- image scaling quality of the AE3000 compared to scaling in the DVDO Edge

Let me know if you have any other areas of interest for me to check.

RJ
...

What about SDE and vertical banding or are these a thing of the past now with LCDs, they were rife when i had my last (and only) LCD pj - Sanyo Z2

[bytehoven]

Good point... while I have saw VB on my HS51A, some HS60 owner saw it. There was a couple of service menu adjustments for the RGB panels which could reduce or eliminate VB, but I never had to make the adjustments.

I'll have to remember a good title for checking VB. Something with a nice blue gradation, like a good under water diving scene works, right? Any other suggestions for a test movie for VB?

SDE... right. No SDE with HW10 unless you closer than 6' to a 92" diagonal image. I felt the Espon 1080UB started to exhibit pixel structure much sooner. I assume the AE3000 will be similar to the 1080UB, so I'll be sure to note the distances.

[inzaman]

Originally Posted by bytehoven

Good point... while I have saw VB on my HS51A, some HS60 owner saw it. There was a couple of service menu adjustments for the RGB panels which could reduce or eliminate VB, but I never had to make the adjustments.

I'll have to remember a good title for checking VB. Something with a nice blue gradation, like a good under water diving scene works, right? Any other suggestions for a test movie for VB?

SDE... right. No SDE with HW10 unless you closer than 6' to a 92" diagonal image. I felt the Espon 1080UB started to exhibit pixel structure much sooner. I assume the AE3000 will be similar to the 1080UB, so I'll be sure to note the distances.

I saw it more on images with blue skies and darker water scenes as you suggest, it was a real bug bear of mine and is the reason i have dismissed LCD ever since but the features list of the AE3000 is pretty amazing and it has a few features that i would really like, i also like the compact size

[sdb123]

Originally Posted by inzaman

What about SDE and vertical banding or are these a thing of the past now with LCDs, they were rife when i had my last (and only) LCD pj - Sanyo Z2

With the 1080p LCD projectors (from the ones that I have seen and owned) SDE was non-existant. It's efinitely not the issue it used to be on the 720p LCD models.

[raigraphixs]

Not sure if this is posted, not easy to search for it.

Shootout: Panasonic PT-AE3000 vs. Sony VPL-HW10