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Greetings,
Time to also mention the price drop on the PT-AX200U home theater projector. According to dealers the new MAP price - which pretty much establishes the high price online, is now $999, down from Read the rest of this entry »
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Greetings,
As everyone in the market for a “top of the line” 3LCD home theater projector realizes, the major new projector entries, notably the Epson Home Cinema 6500UB, the Sanyo PLV-Z3000 and the Mitsubishi HC7000, all compete directly with the Panasonic PT-AE3000U, which just set a price point of $2499.
The Epson HOme Cinema 6500 UB claims the highest contrast ratio of any home projector
In my earlier blog, today, I wrote about the lower than expected PT-AE3000U home theater projector pricing. The big question is will Epson, with their Home Cinema 6500 UB, come down to match the price of the Panasonic, when Epson ships? What about the pricing on the Sanyo PLV-Z3000 and the Mitsubishi HC7000?
Just for fun, my guesses: I expect Sanyo, with their PLV-Z3000, will definitely go for pricing parity, it seems to be their nature. Over the years they have almost always come in at the same price or slightly less, when compared to the Panasonic home theater projector competition. Those two companies just love to slug it out. Read the rest of this entry »
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Greetings everyone!
I learned yesterday, from one Panasonic PT-AE3000U, authorized dealer, and then confirmed it with another:
Panasonic has set the MAP price (minim
um advertised price) for the PT-AE3000U at $2499.
That pretty much determines selling price which now will be there, or in some cases, just slightly less.
Dealers are pre-selling the PT-AE3000U, and expecting first shipments in late next week.
With previous projectors, Panasonic has fiddled around with promotions with extended warranties, free blockbuster rental cards, etc.
Looks like this Q4, though, that Panasonic is keeping things simple, Read the rest of this entry »
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Greetings all,
I’ve been running the new Mitsubishi HC6500 projector since late last week. After a few hours of watching before calibration, it was calibrated, and I’ve spent much of the weekend enjoying this projector, both on movies, and HDTV sports.
This is Mitsubishi’s middle projector. It currently should have a street price around $2500 (MSRP is $3495). It fits between the entry level HC5500, and their fully tricked out HC7000 ($4995 MSRP). top of the line 3LCD home projector.
Prior to the HC6500 arrival, I had a real reservation. The claimed contrast ratio of 15,000:1 is only the slightest bit better than the HC5500’s 14,000:1. That should be an inconsequential difference, so I feared that the picture would not be noticeably better than the HC5500. I have set aside my fears.
Turns out, that the HC6500 is noticeably better at black level performance Read the rest of this entry »
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Greetings everyone,
It’s that time of year again. Most of the major home theater projector manufacturers rolled out their new projectors at CEDIA, with a few projectors shipping immediately, but most with first shipments scheduled for October, November, and December.
I’m getting buried in emails from folks asking when I’m going to get to this one, or that one. In some cases I know, in others I have ball park promises from the manufacturers. To keep my life simple, here’s what’s happening, and my best guess as to the answer to the question “when”.
By projector manufacturer:
Sanyo:
PLV-Z3000 - Early November or end of October arrival. A priority review (as are the top of the lines from the other major brands).
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So far, not a whole lot of surprises with Sanyo’s PLV-60 which started shipping a few days ago. First a brief description:
The PLV-Z60 is a 720p home theater projector, that uses 3LCD technology. It’s got an MSRP of $1295, and comes with a better than most, three year warranty.
This Sanyo projector replaces Sanyo’s very popular PLV-Z5, and is physically very similar. It is also similar in general performance, but better in several ways. It seems to be a little brighter, a very good thing since the Sanyo projectors have traditionally been below average in brightness, and therefore not suitable for larger screen sizes.
Our sample unit seems to be a late pre-production version. It exhibits uneven background, with color shifting slightly pink to the left and more toward blue-green towards the right side. The upper right corner is definitely blue, and a bit brighter than the rest of the screen.
This is not unusual in pre-production 3LCD and also in three chip LCoS projectors.
Sanyo is shipping out a 2nd projector (full production) today, so I should be able to get a good look at it, compared to the first one. I expect no problems with Z60 #2.
The PLV-Z60 is basically just an improved PLV-Z5, with slightly better contrast and black levels. Out of the box color in best mode - Pure Cinema is pretty good. The other modes, however, really need at least a basic calibration, as they all have color temperatures from the mid-7500K to over 9000K, definitely too “cool” (blue) relative to the ideal 6500K.
Placement flexibility is the same as the Z5, with a 2:1 zoom, and lots of lens shift (vertical and horizontal).
The PLV-Z60 claims to be 100 lumens brighter, I believe, than the Z5. This may well be the case, but that won’t change the fact that the Z60 is not a bright projector.
I’ve always liked the Sanyo Z projectors, but brightness is not their strong suit - whether best mode or brightest mode. Once again, like other Sanyo projectors, it’s going to be happiest (as will you) with smaller to mid-sized screens. With typical non-high gain screens, you’ll probably want to keep screen size to 100″ or less. If you’ve got dark walls, and great lighting control, and a screen with some gain, you might push up to 106″ or maybe 110″ diagonal, but, in most cases, for best mode, 110″ would really be pushing it. Of course Sanyo offers three Cinema modes - the best - Pure Cinema, is the least bright. Users can sacrifice a little performance in black levels and use calibrated (needed) versions of Creative Cinema or Brilliant Cinema. If you are happy with those, then 110″ diagonal becomes very doable.
That’s about it. I should have posted this 48 hours ago, but never did. Review will be finished this evening (probably late). Hang in there! -art
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OK folks, I’m just back from LA, where Sanyo was showing off their PLV-Z3000, their flagship home theater projector, and of course their other two recently announced models, the PLV-Z60 and PLV-Z700.
While I only really trust my judgement when viewing a projector in my environment with the content I choose, it’s still nice to see projectors demo’d in pitch black rooms in tradeshow booths. Sadly, Sanyo had a hotel ballroom and low lighting - more than anyone would normally have on for movie watching. As a result, I didn’t get much of an idea about the Z3000. (I have the other two Sanyo’s here, right now for review.)
So, here’s a basic summary of the PLV-Z3000. First, yes MSRP is $3295, but MAP, which pretty much sets the “high” price, looks to be $2995 or $2999.
The PLV-Z3000, like several other new 3LCD projectors, is really loaded with image enhancement features. Consider: The PLV-Z3000 supports 14 bit color processing, HDMI 1.3 with Deep Color support, and x.v. color handling (no content yet, but coming). It’s got frame interpolation for a smoother better picture when there is a lot of fast moving action on the screen, and so on.
And it claims a stellar contrast ratio, thanks to new LCD panels and a new dynamic iris. How high, you ask? 65,000:1.
The Sanyo PLV-Z3000 is scheduled to ship in early December. As Sanyo put it today. We’ll get them in, in time to get them to dealers, and the dealers will have time to get them to their customers, before Christmas.
Bottom line: The PLV-Z3000 has just about every feature found on all of the other projectors it competes directly with. Not every one, but, then, none of them have every feature found on the others.
Basically what this translates to is an interesting battle between the four major Japanese companies that dominate home theater projectors: Epson, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, and Sanyo. I’ll discuss further in my next blog! -art
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Greetings,
OK, I’m a few days late on this, but for those that didn’t catch the “news” elsewhere, last Thursday, Sanyo finally announced the expected PLV-Z3000, their new high end, 1080p home theater projector. The Sanyo PLV-Z3000 has an MSRP of $3295. No idea at this time if it will launch with a rebate, or if there will be a lower MAP price, so hard to say what street price will be when it first ships, but, my best guess is that it’s not likely to be much less than $3000, if that, without some sort of rebate.
And they are playing in the stratosphere of claimed contrast, quoting 65,000:1. I think Read the rest of this entry »
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I’ve been blogging and writing CEDIA related stuff for the last week, but, that doesn’t mean reviewing projectors is on hold. The BenQ W20000 arrived days before CEDIA, and Mike calibrated it. I’ve logged about 10 hours of viewing on it since I got back, including some college football today. Go Penn State - best of the Big 10! (no hate email, please).
BenQ's W20000 1080p projector, is a larger DLP projector, and one of the few with lens shift.
I also watched a couple of movies (21, Dogma, and segments of a couple of the regulars I use for my analysis (Casino Royale, The 5th Element).
My first comment is that - Yup, this is definitely a BenQ projector (remember, I owned their 720p PE-8720, and the PE-8700 before that one, before I bought the JVC RS1).
I looks just like my old BenQ projectors physically (the slightest cosmetic changes), and it watches just like them, but better. After calibration it exhibited exactly what I remember from my own BenQ’s as well as the W5000 and W10000 1080p models previously reviewed.
What that boils down to is an extremely sharp image, and very good Read the rest of this entry »
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OK, a little levity here. I just posted a blog on the new JVC’s and earlier, one on the tiny LED projectors. When viewing the front page of my blog, I was struck by the respective photos. Both projectors, from looking at the pictures, could be roughly the same size.
Obviously the JVC home theater projector is far larger, and far brighter, but nothing you could tell from the image. A quick guess is that almost two hundred of those small, Micro-led projectors should easily fit into a case the size of the JVC.
Most amusing (to me, at least). I will have to try to find a photo of an LED projector with something to provide scale, like a pen, or cell phone. -art
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