Optoma Themscene HD80 vs Panasonic AE2000... which one to buy?

After spending far too much time on various forums, sending too many emails and now having a splitting headache... I was hoping some current owners of either of these two highly rated and prestigious award-winning projectors, could help me decide finally, which one to get.

I wish to upgrade from my Infocus IN76 to a full 1080p/24fps projector, connected to a Toshiba HD-EP35 player.

I was initially tempted to look at the Infocus IN81 but with the lack of reviews or strong recommendations (and also no confirmation from anyone that it retains 24fps instead of converting to 60hz), I'm not ready to waste £2000.

The HD80 has excellent reviews both here and in the US but I notice strong support also for the Panasonic AE2000, especially on this forum. I'm,more drawn towards DLP personally and the 3 year warranty and spare bulb package with the HD80 is very tempting. My first projector was an AE200 four years ago and I do love the look of the Panasonic.

I don't need advice re: DLP vs LCD technology, just simple recommendations, especially from anyone who is using an HD-DVD player too.

Any sincere advice????

 

How long do you intend to keep the projector and how much viewing will you do with it?

the reason I ask is that the Panny comes with a 3 year warrenty as standard and you can pick one up with a reasonable discount if you're prepared to haggle a little. In other words, how valuable is the free bulb offer to you on the HD80?

I'm going to go out on a limb a bit here, but now the Panny's been out a few months and supply has improved I'd suggest a target price of around £1700 should be achievable with a bit of effort on your part - PM me if you want a bit of help on this.

I have been delighted with the Panny's HD performance but I expect, if I didn't suffer badly with rainbows, I'd have been just as enamoured with the HD80. The performance of these machines is now so good that your viewing environment may have the bigger impact on performance than any difference between them.

If you don't suffer with Rainbows or DLP fatigue and nor does anyone else who's likely to watch the machine with you, and you can accomodate the less flexible mounting requirements of the HD80 , then it's easy ..... I don't think you'd be unhappy with either of these machines.

Personally, I'd still choose the panny because it's not going to cause issues for any observer, but that's just me.

 

Man, I still can't decide!!! Aaaagghhh!!!

Now I'm tempted at looking at an Infocus IN81 again. From what I've read, the newer pj's don't suffer with rainbow effect as much as their predecessors and to be honest, neither my wife nor I have seen any from 30 hrs' use on the IN76... and we're the main users.

Decisions! Decisions!

I'm thinking of driving up to a local dealer this weekend to demo the HD80.

 

Tough choice I will do my best to help u out.

First the optoma is about 10% brighter then the panny.
The optoma has a realworld native contrast of around 1900:1, the panny the about the same but with the iris on this rises to over 6000:1

The panny has a lower black level of about 0.003 compared to 0.008 on the optoma mostly due to the iris mixed scenes will be very close.

The optoma's colour temp is above 7000k on the warm setting out of the box while the panny can come withen 200 of 6500k across the entire brightness range out of the box in colour1 mode. Colour tracking is allmost perfect on the panny in colour1 while on the optoma there is a lack of red making the image alittle cool.

Colour space is almost perfect on the panny and almost as good on the optoma.

The optoma image is sharper and the panny more film like with all the fine details still there.

The optoma is a good pj but will require alot of professional calibration to come near the panasonics accurate out of the box image.

Hope u can make a decision based on the info, im sure what ever one u choose you will not be disapointed.

 

Actually, your comments have been very helpful.

Now I'm seriously reconsidering the Infocus IN81... only problem is, apart from the marketing spiel, I can't find any genuine user-reviews anywhere!! I know people own them but I need to confirm that it will provide the 1080p/24fps from the Toshiba EP35.

I'm demo'ing an Optoma HD on Saturday but I've had offers for the IN81 for £1850.

 

Hi, can you say where you got the good deal on the IN81.