Hi Guys, I was one of the first ppl to own AE100

Jaws75

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Hi there, I used to be a member of this forum, can't remember what my name was!
Anyway I bought a AE100 panasonic in 2001/2 for £2000... With that said, What have i missed in the tech of Projectors?
I need to get up to date, can someone advise me a decent project for £500 or will anything be 10 times as good as an AE100?

Thank you
Pin
 
Probably time to do some reading... I had an old Sim2 back then not 2K and 'good' in it's day. I have no clue whether anything could beat is for £500 today tbh. £500 won't buy you much I am sure of that though.
 
I had an AE100, it was my first ever (and only) projector.
Haven't had one for years unfortunately as my lounge layout and size just doesn't suit a projector, I'd love another one though.
 
I remember sim2, very nice. what you got now?
 
£500 won't buy you much I am sure of that though.

Secondhand it will easily buy a JVC HD350. It's at least twice as good as the AE100 in resolution alone.
 
A good point regarding the JVC secondhand, Right now I have nothing as I sold my JVC in 2013, finally taken my stuff out of storage looking at the epson 10,500 or JVC 7500, or a secondhand Sim2 Host if cheap enough !
 
Hmm thanks for the heads up! I remember when i first bought the AE100 i opened the box..plugged in.. i was holding it in my arms to project to the wall, the image was upside inverted and in black and white. haha i was still in heaven, one of the highlights of my life...Those were the days..

I just really fancy watching Jaws in Blu ray...believe or not i dont have a blu ray player either.!
 
My first projector was the AE1000 (the bigger brother to your AE100), which unfortunately got damaged when it was knocked off the temporary table stand we were using, so it was replaced with the newer AE2000. I've upgraded a few times since then as I was never really happy with the contrast of the Panasonics; I went AE1000>AE2000>AE3000, then JVC HD350 (big jump IMHO), JVC X35 and now JVC X500, with a worthwhile (to me) improvement in picture quality with each step.

Most of those would be in your price range used, though with various caveats (so do some research before committing to buy ; ) ). I haven't seen the cheaper Epsons that you can buy new for not much above your budget, but I would be surprised if they weren't much better in terms of contrast and general picture quality than your AE100, simply because the technology has moved on and the 'trickle down' effect has occurred.

They are likely to be much brighter too, yet will still have a lower black floor (due to improved contrast), so you'll get a punchier image, but with better blacks than you have now. This of course depends on whether you can black out your room and the type of decor it has: Putting a £10k JVC in a white room with thin curtains and lots of windows/ambient light isn't going to be much improvement for example, but provided you have a reasonably dark room you will at least see the benefit in the lower black floor and higher resolution.
 
thanks
My first projector was the AE1000 (the bigger brother to your AE100), which unfortunately got damaged when it was knocked off the temporary table stand we were using, so it was replaced with the newer AE2000. I've upgraded a few times since then as I was never really happy with the contrast of the Panasonics; I went AE1000>AE2000>AE3000, then JVC HD350 (big jump IMHO), JVC X35 and now JVC X500, with a worthwhile (to me) improvement in picture quality with each step.

Most of those would be in your price range used, though with various caveats (so do some research before committing to buy ; ) ). I haven't seen the cheaper Epsons that you can buy new for not much above your budget, but I would be surprised if they weren't much better in terms of contrast and general picture quality than your AE100, simply because the technology has moved on and the 'trickle down' effect has occurred.

They are likely to be much brighter too, yet will still have a lower black floor (due to improved contrast), so you'll get a punchier image, but with better blacks than you have now. This of course depends on whether you can black out your room and the type of decor it has: Putting a £10k JVC in a white room with thin curtains and lots of windows/ambient light isn't going to be much improvement for example, but provided you have a reasonably dark room you will at least see the benefit in the lower black floor and higher resolution.

Thanks for the detailed info!

I can spend more i will, i suppose the only other question i have is, has the dreaded mesh chicken wire effect all gone from these mentioned projectors? Im not bothered about brands, I'll go where the best stuff is right now. Also i need short throw. Also cheap bulbs, i found the ae100 expensive at £250 a pop.
Cheers
 
The chicken wire effect is vastly reduced since your AE100, partly due to 1080p panels and also due to tighter spacing between the pixels. Given a same size screen you'd be able to sit a lot closer before you can see the pixels compared to your AE100.

Short throw isn't so easy though the AEXXXX and JVC models have a really good zoom range, which I don't think would be any worse than your existing AE100. The bulbs are still expensive however and it's not recommended to use a non genuine JVC lamp as it can damage the ballast PCB.
 
Hi

To try and quantify the leap in image quality, the AE100 was released in 2002 and the panel resolution was 858x484 so only standard definition (sub 720p) and used an LCD panel. Kelvin's AE1000 was released nearly 5 years later and was a first generation 1080p projector and by then Panasonic was using smoothscreen technology to virtually eliminate the chicken wire / grid effect. So Kelvin's 10 year old projector had 5x the pixel count and none of the chicken wire effect of your AE100.

My first projector was a Panasonic AX100, which was released at the same time as Kelvin's AE1000 and was a 720p projector. At the time I thought it was great, but it eventually became unwatchable for dark movies as the black levels and contrast were just so poor. Bear in mind that between my projector and yours Panasonic released the AE200, AE300, AE500, AE700 & AE900, so my AX100 was 6 generations on from yours. When I replaced it with was with a JVC HD350 and the difference was simply staggering! The contrast ratio was 30,000:1 vs 600:1 so 50 times greater and you could see all this on screen - dark scenes were suddenly the best thing about the image, black often appearing to be actually black when next to white highlights (it's how our eyes work). It's also worth noting that Sony & JVC use LCOS panels, which have more smaller pixel gaps than LCD, so chicken wire is a non issue unless you sit really really really close!

I've since upgraded again to a JVC X500 and the contrast has doubled again, the image is sharper, the pixel gap is smaller still, even 3D (which I wasn't interested in beforehand) is very watchable.

In answer to your question, a second hand JVC will genuinely produce an image which is a staggering improvement on your old AE100, in terms of resolution, sharpness, contrast, brightness, lack of chicken wire effect. Basically in every quantifiable way! Plus it is worth noting that you were probably only watching DVD back then unless you kept it into 2007 and beyond, so seeing HD blown up on a projector screen will be far beyond what you used to see with DVDs.

Enjoy.
 
£500 might get you a Panasonic a5000

They are a bit newer than the jvc and are 3D aswell.
 
Most of the Epson Entry models are in that price band the 5210 5300 5200 ect ect, I have the 5210 and its really good value for the price.

Cheers Darko
 

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