Classroom Projector Report 2013: Panasonic PT-DZ770UL

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Art Feierman

The 2013 Classroom Projector Report is sponsored by:

Panasonic PT-DZ770UL

This is the brightest claimed projector in this year's Classroom Education Projector report claiming 7000 lumens! No you won't need this in a typical classroom of 30 students, but at the college level, this projector is ready for those 100 and 400 seat classrooms. But probably just the science and engineering classrooms at that.

Why? Because not only is the PT-DZ770UL bright, it's also the highest resolution projector in this year's report, sporting WUXGA resolution (1920x1200) which is a touch higher resolution than 1080p (1920x1080). With that resolution, the feature set, and brightness comes a $17099 MSRP with the standard lens. (Yes there are a range of optional lenses for whater your room requirements call for.)

Don't let the $17000 list price shock you. Actually selling price is about half of that. Still, that's a small fortune that could be used for buying pencils, erasers and Blue Books. Still pricey compared to the other projectors in this report, but reasonably priced compared to the closest hi-res competition with interchangeable lenses.

Mike was only able to measure about 5600 lumens, but remember, maximum brightness depends on which lens you choose. The lens provided has a good of zoom range, and as mentioned elsewhere, Mike's meter is the most conservative one we have, about 7% below mine. (A seven percent drop in brightness is slight, and very likely unnoticed, which is why we don't worry too much about our different meters.)

This is a serious large venue projector. It sports dual lamp design for maximum brightness, but can run on a single lamp. It also has a filter system (most DLP projectors do not), but the filter sports an advanced design and claims a useful life of 12,000 hours. That's rather remarkable as filters used to get replaced every 500 or 1000 hours.

Speaking of large venues, this Panasonic PT-DZ770UL offers edge blending and color matching between multiple projectors. While that's not likely in the classroom, it may well be called for in other environments, including auditoriums, as well as in museums, art galleries, and command and control rooms.

All told, a rather dazzling, large venue projector. It is especially small and light for a bright dual lens projector, as it weighs in at only 36 pounds. And it has a whole host of advanced features. Basically, this is our most expensive projector covered in this report, and the most impressive and highest performance of the three high power projectors considered.