Got my mates 100 down last night to do a comparison - both running the same HTCP.
XP+Cineplayer4+radeon, running 1280x720 - RGB - YUV for the MT7. £3800 500 hours 80" Wide Grey Painted screen
XP+CP4+radeon, running Wide 480 VGA on the 100. £950! 14 hours (recon unit from discount electrical.) 80" Wide Grey Painted screen.
Got to say the panasonic is really good out of the box, the colours are natural and not forced, naturally tweaking produced some worthwhile changes (although I've yet to put the man hours in on the that I've put in on the MT-7).
The major difference between the two units is screen door, the panasonic does a reasonable job with less pixels (better than other similar rez LCD projectors) but the image just doesn't look smooth enough - it looks a little harsh. However I am sat on top of the screen at about 1 x width because the MT-7 will allow you to do that. You would just have to sit a little further back and de-focusing helps.
Contrast looks like its in the panasonics favour by a nats. Image's look more 3D than the toshiba but can seem to be brash with a litle bleeding around the edges.
I can't run my own MT7 in VGA direct mode due to various tearing/juddering problems and I'm sure the MT-7 in RGB-VGA mode would produce even more pronounced results. So I have to settle with component which doesn't by-pass the scaler.
No tearing or juddering on the Panasonic though. I have tried various PS wide 480 settings and I don't believe the entire width of the screen is 1-1 even after extensive meddling of phase/clock and different PS figures I couldn't get a perfect 1-1 across the screen - some pixels seemed elongated - can anyone comment?
Fan on the Panasonic is louder than the MT-7 and makes more of a wushing sound, although it is still quiet. Had no real problems so far with reliabiltiy (it did come with a dust blob though).
I have to conclude that if you insist on sitting close and want a smooth film like picture the panasonic won't do the job. However on every other account it really excells.
Both projectors (especially the MT-7) look abysmal with DVD players (Y/C and YUV) - sorry to say this but its the truth, I would rather not have a projector that run them from a DVD player. I really do feel that you strangle the performance with anything less than HTPC although I can't speak about VGA out DVD players. The MT-7 de-interlacer is appalling, the PTA 100 marginally better because it hasn't got so scale up.
Do yourself a favour and see these machine on PC's if you can.
Final thought is my MT-7 cost nearly (ahem..) 4 x the price of the Panasonic and there is no way I could say the MT-7 is worth it in VFM terms.
I wouldn't change to a PTA-100 now though as that extra money has bought me something I couldn't live without and that's the smooth film-like picture even if the PTA 100 is giving you 85% of the picture quality.
XP+Cineplayer4+radeon, running 1280x720 - RGB - YUV for the MT7. £3800 500 hours 80" Wide Grey Painted screen
XP+CP4+radeon, running Wide 480 VGA on the 100. £950! 14 hours (recon unit from discount electrical.) 80" Wide Grey Painted screen.
Got to say the panasonic is really good out of the box, the colours are natural and not forced, naturally tweaking produced some worthwhile changes (although I've yet to put the man hours in on the that I've put in on the MT-7).
The major difference between the two units is screen door, the panasonic does a reasonable job with less pixels (better than other similar rez LCD projectors) but the image just doesn't look smooth enough - it looks a little harsh. However I am sat on top of the screen at about 1 x width because the MT-7 will allow you to do that. You would just have to sit a little further back and de-focusing helps.
Contrast looks like its in the panasonics favour by a nats. Image's look more 3D than the toshiba but can seem to be brash with a litle bleeding around the edges.
I can't run my own MT7 in VGA direct mode due to various tearing/juddering problems and I'm sure the MT-7 in RGB-VGA mode would produce even more pronounced results. So I have to settle with component which doesn't by-pass the scaler.
No tearing or juddering on the Panasonic though. I have tried various PS wide 480 settings and I don't believe the entire width of the screen is 1-1 even after extensive meddling of phase/clock and different PS figures I couldn't get a perfect 1-1 across the screen - some pixels seemed elongated - can anyone comment?
Fan on the Panasonic is louder than the MT-7 and makes more of a wushing sound, although it is still quiet. Had no real problems so far with reliabiltiy (it did come with a dust blob though).
I have to conclude that if you insist on sitting close and want a smooth film like picture the panasonic won't do the job. However on every other account it really excells.
Both projectors (especially the MT-7) look abysmal with DVD players (Y/C and YUV) - sorry to say this but its the truth, I would rather not have a projector that run them from a DVD player. I really do feel that you strangle the performance with anything less than HTPC although I can't speak about VGA out DVD players. The MT-7 de-interlacer is appalling, the PTA 100 marginally better because it hasn't got so scale up.
Do yourself a favour and see these machine on PC's if you can.
Final thought is my MT-7 cost nearly (ahem..) 4 x the price of the Panasonic and there is no way I could say the MT-7 is worth it in VFM terms.
I wouldn't change to a PTA-100 now though as that extra money has bought me something I couldn't live without and that's the smooth film-like picture even if the PTA 100 is giving you 85% of the picture quality.