Panasonic PT-LB75NTU and PT-LB75U Projector Review: General Performance-1

Posted on October 2, 2013 By Art Feierman

There’s lots to cover in this section. These links will allow you to quickly get to any topics of interest to you.

Panasonic PT-LB75NTU and PT-LB75U Projectors: Menus

Panasonic’s menu system is a good one. If I have one complaint, the type they use is a little small. That can make it tough to read if you are standing pretty far back in a mid-sized room, such as some multi-purpose rooms, and large training rooms.

From an organizational standpoint, the logic used, in grouping the controls into different main menus is pretty typical, and pretty well done. We can always quibble about why this control is on one menu, rather than another.

When you launch the menus for the first time, by hitting the Menu button on the remote control or the projector’s control panel, the menu comes up, with all the main menus listed on the left side.

The menus photos and the rest of the menu commentary will be posted shortly!

Panasonic PT-LB75NTU and PT-LB75U Projector: Remote Control

These Panasonic Projectors come with a medium sized remote control. It is very well laid out with different groups of buttons nicely separated. The remote control has large buttons, and most major functions of the projector, including controls for wireless operation, has a button. Missing, and less critical are buttons for things like brightness and contrast, which can be easily accessed through the menu system.

There is a big red power button (once for power up, twice for power down), and to its right is an auto setup button for computer signals.

Right below are three source buttons, one for computers, one for wireless sources, and one for video.

Right below that is a page up/page down feature for wireless presenting.

Below the black band that has the page up and down buttons are the Menu, and Return buttons. Right below them, the four arrow keys in a diamond type configuration, with Enter, in the center.

The next group of buttons include Freeze, an AV Mute, and several more buttons that relate to networking, including a Default, Index, Multi-Live, a Computer Search button, and a Function button.

Lastly are two rockers at the bottom, one for digital zoom (in/out) and one for volume up and down.

The remote’s range is good, although not exceptional.

Overall, I find this Panasonic remote control to be excellent!

Click Image to Enlarge

Panasonic PT-LB75NTU and PT-LB75U: Lens Throw and Lens Shift

As classic portable projectors, these two Panasonic’s have no adjustable lens shift, and their zoom lens has the usual, basic 1.2:1 zoom ratio, providing the usual small amount of placement flexibility. Here are the distances for filling a 100 inch diagonal, 4:3 aspect ratio screen. (To figure out distances for other sized screens, just break out your calculator – ie. for a 60 inch diagonal screen, the distances would be 60% of those for the 100 inch screen.)

For that 100 inch screen, the closest these projectors can be placed, is 9.6 feet (2.9 meters), and, the furthest back is 11 feet five inches (3.5 meters). Those distances are measured from the front of the lens, to the screen surface.

While there is no adjustable lens shift, the Panasonic projectors have the usual amount of keystone correction

Panasonic PT-LB75NTU and PT-LB75U Projectors: SDE and Rainbow Effect, Pixel Visibility

Both Panasonic projectors are XGA 1024×768 resolution. As a result, pixel size is very small, and pixel structure is slightly visible at normal seating distances in a conference room environment. In a presentation (theater style seating) environment, only those in the first few rows should notice the pixel structure. While a little screen door effect may be visible with photos and videos for those sitting very close, I would not consider this to be an issue, because, I’m talking very close!

As to the Rainbow Effect – that’s strictly for single chip DLP projectors, and of course, these two Panasonic projectors use 3LCD technology – so no rainbows!

Again, these are classic XGA 3LCD projectors. As such, screen door effect issues would be the same with any other 3LCD XGA projectors. DLP projectors have a slightly less visible pixel structure, and therefore do perform a little better in this regard. That said, I must repeat: Screen Door Effect should not be an issue!