Sharp XV-Z30000 Projector - Quick Comments

Greetings,  I'm freshly back from Outside Lands music festival, and dropping Lisa back off at college.  Mike's returning the Sharp XV-Z30000 projector in a couple of hours, so I can get back into some serious reviewing. For those of you who read my "First Look" blog about the XV-Z30000 home theater projector, I conjectured that it was fairly bright.  I didn't get a chance to set it up side by side with any other projectors for reference (which would have made "guessing" rather accurate).  In the last blog I did guess that the Z30000 projector might produce 1500 lumens in its brightest mode - Stage. Wrong.  I was just looking at Mike's calibration and measurement summary.   I was overly optimistic.  Stage mode which actually looks pretty good (as mentioned) though definitely on the cool temperature side, at maximum measured just over 1100 lumens.  (Now we know Mike's meter is more conservative than our others here, but we go by Mike's for all home theater projector reviews.)  The point there is don't be surprised if other reviewers find an extra 100 lumens or so. Still, by our reckoning, that makes the Sharp a rather typical home theater projector in terms of brightness, but likely a bit underpowered in terms of brightness for 3D (which I will finally get to check out tonight).  Of course, that issue with 3D brightness is no different than found on many JVC, Sony, and other projectors with 3D abilities). The Sharp Z3000 is about right on average brightness when calibrated.  Mike came up with 532 lumens post calibration (Movie 1).   As you think this through, remember, Mike does the key measurements with the zoom at mid-point.  At full wide angle, there's an additional 8% more lumens, so that "brightest is about 1150 and "best" approaches 600. I've got some serious watching ahead of me.  Still expecting to post the full review this weekend.  Stay tuned. PS.  Projector Reviews TV: In addition to the original PT-AR100U video, posted months ago, and the Epson 6010 video posted last month, we've added the Optoma PK320 pico projector, and a pair of All-in-one iPod/iPhone/iPad compatible Epson's the MG850HD and the very similar, but lower resolution (and lower cost) MG50.  Next week expect the first 4 or 5 of our FAQ videos, starting with Choosing a Family Room Projector, and Choosing a Screen. Here's our directory for Projector Reviews TV!