Any HTF members AE700 owners? Impressions? Toronto area people? (1 Viewer)

[Chris PC]

Just looking for some potential feedback from Panasonic AE700 owners. Hoping to find someone in the Toronto area with a Panasonic AE700. I'm looking to upgrade my L200 and I'd like to see the AE700 in action.

thanx for any feedback

 

[Dan Crouthamel]

I'd be interested in hearing feedback on this as well

 

[Walter Kittel]

Just received mine last week from Projector People. First impressions are EXTREMELY positive. The review of the AE700 over at Projector Central is fairly accurate, IMHO.

I wanted a projector that could be placed on a bookshelf near a back wall and this one fits the bill. The AE700 is very flexible in terms of placement due to a 2x zoom capability and lens shift with a wide range of adjustment. Mounting the projector at the centerline of your screen / wall will permit up to a 63% vertical image shift from center.

I am running in Low Power mode on the lamp, Cinema 1 video setting, and am very pleased with the image. I sit approx. 1.5 screen widths from the screen and there is absolutely no screen door effect. I do see some vertical banding, but I haven't attempted the flicker tweak ( as of yet ) discussed over on the AVS forum. ( There is a massive thread on the AE700 in the Digital Projectors < $3500 section of the forum. ) The Tattoine desert scenes in A New Hope displayed quite a bit of banding in early scenes from Star Wars IV: A New Hope. To be fair, the vast majority of the time, VB is not noticeable; but it can be obvious during certain scenes.

Projector People's site has a PDF link to the Panasonic Manual under their listing of the AE700. It appears at first glance to correspond to the manual shipped with the projector. There is an errata with corrections in the shipped manual, but I haven't compared it to the PDF.

The projector is very quiet, extremely flexible in terms of mounting options / placement, has no visible screen door effect and offers a number of adjustments. My initial calibration checks, using the THX calibration from Disc 1 of Monsters, Inc., were right on the money. Checks for contrast, brightness, and color were made with no adjustment. The remote that ships with the AE700 is a little small, but it is layed out fairly well. Of course, if you have a universal remote this probably won't matter. One of the other nice features this FP has an easily accessible color temperature setting, which ( if you are like me and watch a lot of older B&W material ) gives you a handy way to optimize viewing for B&W material.

The only negative I've witnessed is some vertical banding. I will be attempting the flicker tweak later this week and hope to alleviate that some. The one price I saw on the web for replacement lamps was a little higher than I had hoped for, but this was a fairly low consideration for me, given the projector's positive attributes.

I've previously used a Sony VPL-W400Q, and an Epson PowerLite Home 10, and the AE700 is certainly the best FP I've owned to date. I would not hesitate to recommend one to anyone looking to purchase an LCD FP.

- Walter.

 

[Dan Crouthamel]

Thanks for the review, Walter. I really do have my eye on this one, but won't buy anything until next year. In the meantime, I'll keep reading and looking

 

[Chris PC]

Good feedback. Definitely check AVS for info about vertical banding and flicker tweak details. Let the projector warm up and try the flicker tweak after 1/2 hour or so. The trick is to adjust the panels (each of Red, Green and Blue) until you can't see any flickering. Once you've minimized the flickering on the green panel, you may try to match the red and blue values with the green panel values. Experiment with doing that or simply choosing values for the red and blue which result in the least amount of flickering. With the red and blue panels, they can be adjusted quite a bit without seeing any flickering, so you can try to simply minimize whatever hint of flicker you see in those panels, OR, you can match the values with the green panel. The argument is that once you've set the green panel so that the flickering with the green panel is eliminated or minimized, then it may be better if the red and blue panels values match the green panel.

Good luck

 

[Walter Kittel]

Well, I tried the flicker tweak last night and found better results by setting each value individually vs. setting green and matching blue & red.

I was using Gladiator to test for banding last night ( the fairly monochrome shot of the overhead approach to Rome showed banding prior to the adjustment ). I didn't have to adjust the values much but it definitely helped. After about a 35 minute warmup, I centered each value up from the settings where shimmering was first detectable. Green does show flicker much more than blue or red when performing the adjustment as others have reported.

Looks pretty good. The next time I view the FP, I will be curious to see how much banding ( if any ) is visible prior to warmup.

- Walter.

 

[PhilBoy]

Chris,

Yesterday I received an email from avdeals here in Oakville stating that they MAY be carrying the AE700 in the future.

If so, that would give us a place around the GTA to demo one.

 

[Tim Glover]

Thanks for the review Walter. The vertical banding on my 300U is at times very distracting, even after the flicker tweak. I hope you get good results from this.

Sounds like the image is stellar from your review.

 

[Chris PC]

Right. And needle them about the INSANE Canadian price ... heheh...

 

[Fernando Saa]

Hello, I'm getting ready to purchase my first projector and was looking at the Infocus 4805, and then I "heard" in the internet about the AE700, and it seems to be a posible candidate if the price is right. I think it's over $2000. Is this price a good value?, is it more future-proof than the 4805?, would I notice a big difference in terms of resolution?, I mean I hear wonders about the 4805, but the "rainbow" effect I recently learned about got me thinking about DLP technology. Thanks a lot you experts.

 

[Chris PC]

The AE700 can be found for $1900.00 to $2200.00 USD depending on where you look. In terms of being 720P resolution it would be considered "more" future proof than the 4805, but nothing is future proof. You won't notice a huge difference on DVD's, but you would on HD material. You should view a DLP projector for yourself. I've seen a 4805 in action and its nice, but I suffer from rainbows and headaches. I have a Panny 200 but may very well upgrade to the AE700 some time soon.

 

[JohnSterling]

I got mine on Friday. Have about 9 hours of use on it so far. 98" diag on my screen. Right-side-up ceiling mounted. About 15-16 feet away from the screen. Viewing distance is 9-10 feet ,(yeah...I know...to close). Running HDTV and 1080i/720p DVD signal over component. Upgrading from a Mitz 55" HDTV.

One word: Fantastic.

HDTV on this thing is just unbelievable. As close as we sit, I was expecting to see a lot of grain and pixel noise. Haven't noticed either yet. Colors are stunning. Have not been able to see any VB. None. Only, minor, offence is 'peek-a-boo' horizontal scan lines that show up with high-contract screen changes/movement. I lowered the sharpness on the PJ and that seemed to help, but I need more viewing time. Also switching back and forth between 1080i and 720p on my DVD player (Liteon 2001) and the 720p appears a lot more soft and colors are not as good. Still need to play around with it some more. I spent the whole weekend re-working my HT room, so I haven't had much time to tweak on the PJ. (Although I did do the Flicker Tweak everyone talks about over at AVS).

For the $$$ spent, I could not be more pleased. Everything I've thrown at it just looks amazing, particularly HD. Can't wait for 'Bikini Destinations' to come on!!!

 

[Chris PC]

Interesting. Sounds good. Keep yours eyes peeled for the "white flashes".

 

[Chris PC]

Checking for Toronto or Southern Ontario AE700 owners? Canadians with the 700, are you there?

 

[Cameron Wright]

we just got one in our Store in burlington. Dont have it going thru the Iscan yet but looks pretty good. Only thing I would say is it can look soft... thats the first thing I noticed...

 

[Cameron Wright]

Ok went again to a fiend who just picked one up aswell to do the Flicker adjustment... Blows away the picture in the store. Must been the screen and conditions...

 

[PhilBoy]

Cameron,

Where do you work ?

 

[Cameron Wright]

I'm and installer at Hills Audio in Burlington.

If you come in make sure Doug is there. Or Dan... (But mainly doug) Doug is the one who has one at his house, and works at Hills for Fun He has a normal 9-5 job....

If I'm there I'll be one the one thats 6'6 in a Tan hat

 

[MarkusP]

Cameron - just out of curiosity, what does Hills charge for the Panny 700? Is it in the $4000 range like the ae500 was?

Thanks,
Markus

 

[Cameron Wright]

It is $3999