Projector Comparison: Image Quality Sanyo Z4 vs Panasonic AE900u-2

Posted on October 26, 2013 by Art Feierman

Projector Image Sharpness - DVD: The Sanyo projector produces a slightly sharper image on DVD sources whether you feed it 480i and let it de-interlace the signal and upscale it to 720p, or if you feed it 480p, and just let the Sanyo upscale the signal. How slight is the difference? If you saw one projector and watched it for 10 minutes, took a 10 minute break and then viewed the other on the same source material, I seriously doubt if you would notice anything - even if you are looking for it. But side by side, you can pick it out. The Sanyo definitely does have a slight edge here - as long as you don't sit too close. (See Screen Door Effect, below).

Projector Image Sharpness - Hi-Def: When testing Hi-Def (at 1080i) from both my D-VHS deck or HD from cable, the Sanyo's advantage in sharpness dissapears, in fact, in some cases I felt the Panasonic AE900u was very, very slightly better, in others, the Sanyo Z4. Definitely a tie here.

In the two images below (Hawaiian Tropic Pagent), the first is the Sanyo, the second is the Panasonic projector.

Sanyo PLV-Z4 vs Hawaiian Tropic

Panasonic PT-AE900u Hawaiian Tropic

Projector Image Sharpness -Key consideration - The future of DVD: Sometime soon (we all hope), Blu-Ray, or HD-DVD next generation DVD players and disks will hit the market (both store the content in 720p format, not the current 480i). And we'll all be going out and buying new Hi-Def DVD's of our favorite movies. As the sharpness differences were not detectable on Hi-Def. It may be that the edge the Sanyo has on 480 sources, is due to how they upscale the image to the projector's native 720p resolution. Therefore, it would seem likely that neither projector will have an advantage on 720p (Blu-Ray, HD-DVD) DVDs.