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Greetings Chino,

150 inch diagonal is really large, and a challenge for even the brightest home theater projectors. On the plus side, your 24 feet distance (from front of lens?) has you using almost any 3LCD projector (or LCoS), very close to the lenses’ most wide angle setting, where it has the most lumens. For example, the Z3000, has about 18% more lumens, than in mid-telephoto range (mid is where I base my maximum screen size recommendations).

I expect that the more expensive Epson 6500 UB, and the less expensive Epson Home Cinema 6100 will be about 20% brighter than the Sanyo, but don’t have the numbers yet for the Epson’s. It’s unlikely, that with a 150″ screen size, that any of the DLP projectors will work due to their limited zoom lens range. But, it will be close, so you might check the distance range on the Optoma HD806. I’m assuming the InFocus IN83, which is the brightest around short of the Optoma HD81-LV, is out of your budget range, as it’s twice the price of the Sanyo. Traditionally the Epsons put out 1600 – 1900 lumens in Dynamic mode (lens at mid-point), making them the brightest of the 3LCD projectors available.

Look for the Epson 6500 UB review next weekend, but I’ll be blogging about it on Monday, most likely,with preliminary opinions and basic measurements.

Best of luck! -art

Hang in there…. we are all quite patient you know

Have you received your Epson 6500 yet?

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Hi Steve!

To answer the question – No!

Epson’s PR firm still hasn’t received their 6100 and 6500 UB (or 7100, 7500 UB) review units yet. They still say “December”, and I’m at the top of the list (with Projector Central). The UB will move to the front of my projectors to review, as soon as it arrives, as it is the key “missing projector review” that the majority of shoppers are waiting for.

I call and harass them at least 3 times a week. I’ll post a blog, the second I know it’s on the way. -art

This frame creation seems to be more useful in some cases(movies in native 24fps) than in others (50 or 60 fps). But I have no clue if it makes a difference for PC users.

That is, I only use my videoprojector from my PC (for either movie watching and gaming), and I wonder if it is worth spending the extra money for frame creation, or better running for one of the last Epson 1080′s.

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That’s one good question, and I don’t have the answer. My guess (pure conjecture) is; yes it still makes the same difference on a PC based system. I still don’t think it’s a big thing, and there’s the issue of using creative frame interpolation smoothing out blur that is intentional. When all kinds of things are moving fast, such as the Transformers changing shape, in that movie, I suspect that CFI makes that motion seem less fast and blurry than without. And, it may be that the viewer using CFI is losing something in terms of the effect intended.

The 1080 UB is a great value. We all have to figure out if the feature improvements CFI, high frame rate, are worth the difference. Since I am constantly switching out projectors in my main theater – probably have watched at least 5 different projectors in the last 10 days, including several for more than one session. (I only “watch content” in that room. In my testing room I watch for “projector issues”.) As such, I often forget what I have fired up. I’ve learned now, that I can identify the Sanyo Z3000 or the Panasonic PT-AE3000 by looking for motion blur in certain things, but if I don’t pay attention, I just don’t notice whether I’m using a projector that has it. (Sort of like having a projector with a very good dynamic iris.)

Certainly the 6500 UB promises to be a better projector than the 1080 UB (and more money), but the Panasonic is an “equal but different” projector than the 1080 UB, as it has advantages (like CFI, or high frame rate), but still can’t match the black levels of the 1080 UB.

Bottom line: When choosing among excellent choices, they will almost certainly all please most buyers, usually exceeding most expectations. We tend to quibble and argue a lot, over the last 5% of performance. -art

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Well, hi Greg.

Oh you should be just fine with a 100″ screen for your movie watching, etc. Not knowing your ambient light for other viewing…? Let me know what you think of your setup a couple three weeks after it’s up and running. (once the “newness” wears off).

BTW, things aren’t any better, it seems, anywhere in the world. It’s almost impossible to get a demo anywhere, it seems of an under $3000 projector, nevermind being able to compare them.

It’s no better down here, in the heart of southern California. -art

I like this about the sanyo. However we have had great success with the panasonics so far. We haven’t seen any projector come close to the JVC rs1 “blackest” blacks as the panasonic.

It will be interesting to see how you comapare the sanyo to the PT-AE300

I got a google alert on this article as I”m considering a Sanyo Z3000 . I’ve also been looking at the Panasonic AE3000 as well, so am really looking forward to your upcoming article on the comparisons!

Thanks for putting this online!

Eric

Thanks Ty, I appreciate the response. (dealer deleted for the usual reasons). They are authorized and would adhere to Sanyo’s MAP pricing. -art