Hi guys been looking at both the Panasonic PT-AE900E and the Hitachi PJTX200 for a projector for my new home cinema i am setting up, cant decide at all between the two! i have found them both at basically the same price and some reviews i have read say there is nothing in them!
For DVD and TV I'd lean towards the Panasonic because the softscreen technology helps to cover the flaws and lack of detail, for HD/PC/Xbox360 type use I'd go for the Hitachi as the level of fine detail you get is really good.
I also like the styling on my hitachi, though it is a big bugger
hi there, i have been faced with the same decision for the last six months and eventually went wi the panny, it has no screen door effect whatsoever and i found it to be better than the hitachi when displaying stsndard def material for this reason., i also use it with my xbox360 upon which the panny outputs some lovely colours right out of the box with very little or no tweaking, i am using a 120" screen and sitting about 9 or 10 feet away and it looks absolutely stunning, so for my money take the panny mate,
Yes the SD on the panny is very good... even relatively poor SD pictures (eg. news24, which is broadcast at a low bitrate) look pretty good.. it's obviously doing some pretty smart processing when it upscales it for display.
Downside to the Panny is it tends to over-soften the image if you feed it 1080i - it's best to feed it 720p which is pin sharp (no idea why that would be - my TV and every other device I've seen is the opposite.. feeding them the higher resolution results in a better picture).
OTOH whichever you choose you won't be disappointed - both PJs (and others mentioned on this board frequently) will blow you away... so don't agonise too much - get the best deal you can and go for it.