newbie question - please advise

Hi all,

I've had a nice HC setup for a while but am thinking about either replacing or complementing my plasma with a projection system.

I have the following questions.

1) Should i go for the AE500 or Z2

2) Will a scaler improve the quality

3) I am changing from DV88+ to an 868 for ilink. What cables and connections should i use over a long run. Ideally i'd like DVD to both the projector and plasma and s-video to both. It this possible?

cheers

 

Hi rtd123

1. Depends, Z2 owners will say get a Z2 and AE500 owners, well you get the point. Best thing is to see them both and decide yourself.

2. Don't know having not seen one connected to a PJ. However I would recommend after you've purchased your projecter use it and enjoy it until such time as you feel you need to improve the picture quality.

3. Pass. Although I do have a plasma and PJ and use a scart splitter to feed RGB scart to the plasma and to the PJ via RGB to component convertor and the picture is spot on.

Hope this helps

 

Take a look on about page 2 of this forum, I asked a similar question about the Z2 vs AE500. There are a few threads about this on avsforums. The best post I've seen is from a guy who was able to switch between them during a demo. Apparently the AE500 *just* had the edge on picture quality, but it had been tweaked, whereas the Z2 was using default settings. He tried a variety of feeds too. Bottom line seems to be that picture quality really isn't a key issue here. Z2 has a worse dust filter. Both suffer from a certain amount of vertical banding if you look hard for it. Lens throw is almost identical on both, but the Z2 lens shift make it MUCH easier to set up for many users.

For example, I'm wanting to lower the screen to the ideal height of eyeline at 1/3 up the screen. To do this, the AE500 would have to be mounted on a 70cm drop mount, which is really not practical above our sofa! Alternatively you use keystone correction and lose some picture quality. By comparison, the Z2 can cope with a 30cm mount with no keystone correction and about 50% use of the lens shift.

Z2 has 2 year warranty, AE500 has 1.

After a LOT of thought, the Z2 is winning for me, purely due to the placement issues. If you can provide ideal mounting conditions the AE500 might have the edge due to the Z2 dust blobs, but it's a tough call!

 

Thanks