Early thoughts on the Panny PT-L200u LCD FP (2 Viewers)

[Ron-P]

My current screen color is a Valspar gray plank interior flat from Lowe's. Upon reading, some have had better results with an aluminum or silver color. It was recommended that I try Rust-Oleum High Heat Silver. I ran an 18" test piece down the center of the screen and below are the results. The silver color does deepen black levels but what it also does is significantly mute all other colors.

Below are a few screen shots from FotR.

Note: The pics have been extremely reduced to show the color variation only.


A test worth doing, but the results are disappointing. I may still try and find the Tremco paint Neil used but so far the Valspar gray is the winner. Much better black levels compared to the Da-Lite Matte white screen and better colors than the High Heat Silver.


Peace Out~

 

[LaMarcus]

That was an excellent test you did Ron. Keep it up. The current paint your using does look significantly better than the high heat. I'd stick with it.

 

[Ron-P]

Thanks LaMarcus,

I want to land a piece of this Parkland Plastic if I can and give it a test run. I'll then stick with whichever I prefer and be done.


Peace Out~

 

[Chris PC]

Wow. Lots of action here with a new 200 owner. I'm enjoying my recently acquired AE100. Still just shooting onto a sheet of blackout material pinned to my wall. I'm going to make an edge for the screen, like a mask, and then do some serious masking on the ceiling. I have white(!) ceiling tiles and I know the light bouncing off the tiles and onto the screen, and into my eyes, is probably destroying the contrast. I'm going to mask the ceiling and the side walls immediately next to the screen. Other than that, I'm loving this puppy. A simple defocus and 1.75x away from my 90" diagonal screen is wonderful. I have some dust blobs to remove, but other than that, its looking nice. Blacks are poor at times, so I hope my masking project returns good results.

In my opinion, after looking at other peoples screens, I am more than happy with blackout material. It has a nice smooth look to it while still being sharp. There is the problem with less than perfect blacks, but again, I'll reserve final judgement until after my masking is done.

So far the best looking movies I've seen on my AE100 are:

Mississipi Burning
Hi-Fidelity
City of Industry
Bridgette Jones's Diary

Star Wars II AOTC looked pretty lame in my opinion. My friend noticed the same thing. Just like in the theatre, there is this horribley fuzzy "petroleum jelly on the lens" look to much of the film. No sharpness on many objects. Not impressed.

Enjoy your PJ fun folks

 

[Deepak Shenoy]

I would like to try the paint that Ron is using on my blackout cloth screen. I already have the screen mounted on the wall. I live in an apartment and can't really create a mess with the paint. I was wondering if it is possible to get an even coat of paint on a mounted screen by spraying the paint as opposed to using a conventional paint brush/roller ?

Thanks,
-D

 

[Chris PC]

Not sure but I recall that "artists gesso" is a good paint to try out.

 

[Peter W.H]

Well after checking things out for a few days I just ordered my L200U from Rachal at Projector People. I looked at some demo units from Sharp and the specs on the Panny is much better so I figure I can't go wrong. I will have it friday and am building a screen tomorrow. I also now have a 61" Mitsubishi Diamond series for sale if this thing works.

 

[Ron-P]

Congrats Peter. I look forward to your thoughts.

I watched Vertical Limit last night and the PQ was simply awesome. Very clean, very sharp and very colorful. A reference PQ disk as of right now.


Peace Out~

 

[Bill Cowmeadow]

You can make a great screen out of a single sheet of Dry Erase Marker Board (4X8) from The Home Depot. You will have to repaint the white shiny side. I recommend Behr Ultra Pure White matte as a starting point, then paint strips of different colors and pick the shade that works best with your projector. The marker board is $16.00 I beleive.

Just a thrifty way to a screen solution.

Bill

 

[Chris PC]

For a great cheap screen, you must try "blackout" material. Its actually a white fabric used to block light in drapes and the like. In Canada, its available at Fabricland. Just use the brighter side. It looks awesome for $30.00 CDN. I just have it hung and tensioned on my wall and its great.

I just realized I've never taken any screen shots of my setup! Hmmm...time for some fun

 

[Peter W.H]

Well I received my L200U today when I returned home from work. Needless to say I am totally impressed. This is with just getting my old bigscreen out of the way and setting up the temporary Da-Lite screen. I set the projector on the table and ran my cables and put in The Patriot. With no adjustment I was smiling. Once I have more time to work with this thing I believe it will be very very close to the quality of my Mitsubishi big screen. And at a $3,000 less price tag. I am also not running this through a progressive DVD yet. Tomorrow I am picking one up that I ordered and expect to be even more happy. I will keep everyone posted and I believe I am going with the colors Ron P. used for screen material. I also think I will order the goo system paint for another test. I will post results when I have them.

Peter

 

[Chu]

Hey Ron, nice post you have going on here. I would definitely like to see how the goo system and parkland plastics work out (compared side to side that is). I used to have parkland for the screen but I don't have it anymore. I'm currently using the white wall with black borders around it...only temporary. I'm deciding if I should go back to my parkland (which I have to build another one) or something that's better in the fairly cheap DIY screen alternative. I had my AE200 (L200u) for about 8 month now and got plenty of use out of it. Just to let everyone else know, I was unhappy with the screen door and lack of black level on my Panasonic AE200 and decided to give the Infocus X1 a try. Just like Ron... I found this projector to give me too much rainbows and headaches. As far as PQ.. which matters the most... I actually prefer the AE200 over the X1...... mostly due to the LCD having better colors overall. I can't wait till everyone got the AE200 tweaked and can share the information on here. Seems like alot of people are happy with the AE200 if you can live witht the screen door. You can always get the AE300 (L300u) if you don't want the screen door but at about $700 more.

 

[Tim Glover]

Greetings L200U----sers!

I've been away for several days just spending nearly all my "free time" tweaking and enjoying movies.

Ron, very curious to see what you do with the parkland material....I like mine, but think a grey color would improve it more.

As I stated, initially, I was very impressed with this fp. I may have been more impressed with having such a big image as well. I have tweaked this thing probably too much with the search for that perfect image. Well, there is no perfect image....but I have just upgraded my dvd player and got a progressive scan one. Whoa! I didn't really think it would be that much difference but it is.

I'm sure there are other factors too. New player vs. old player from '98 that has had ALOT of use. Better technology now etc....

The image is now waaaaaaay more filmlike, cleaner, more stable, and the colors are dead on. Black levels have also improved. I know this is not really due to prog scan, but the new dvd player just produces the better blacks.

Screen door is an issue as I found myself tinkering with the focus more than I really want to being anal about pic quality.

Last night I entertained about 15 people to watch The Two Towers academy screener dvd. Very impressive! Alot of nice comments and jealousy!!!!!

Overall, I'm very happy with this fp and think it's the best HTheater purchase I've ever made. I think we would have to really spend a lot more to see improvement.

 

[Peter W.H]

Well I had a few more hours to work with my 200U. I thought I was happy the first night but I bought a new Panasonic F85S DVD player and also ran it through component cables + optical Bitstream audio to my receiver. WOW is all that comes to mind. I have a 107" screen in 16:9 right now, I am using a 260 thread count sheet but it is really amazing. I am sitting first row at 13.5 foot and I can't see any pixalation at all, even when I am trying too. I will finish building my screens within a week and try out the gray and goo system once it arrives. Everyone that saw this image with the present hookup said they thought the image was superior to the movie theaters. I will post images once I have both the gray that Ron was using and also the Goo System. Extremely happy owner of my new projector.

 

[Tim Glover]

Congrats Peter! Keep us informed.

One thing I failed to mention in my last post. Guess I was still a little giddy. This wasn't there at first, but it appears that I have a small, maybe 2 inches in diameter, bluish circle near the right bottom of the screen? I noticed it a couple of days ago. I've seen dead/stuck pixels before in other peoples LCD's but it was usually a dot here or there. This looks to be bigger.

Any thoughts?

 

[Chris PC]

Could be a dust blob. I have some on my ae100.

 

[Bob Maged]

Definitely sounds like a dust blob. One showed up on my PT-L200U at 60 hrs. I removed the case and used canned air to blow it out. I also vacuumed the filter. I put it back together, and the blob is gone.

 

[Tim Glover]

Thats what I figured! And I'm about as tech savvy as my mother.

I'll see what I can do. Thanks for the advice. I have some canned air already that I use for my pc. I'm assuming this would work. And I have about 45 hours already on this baby after only 10 days and was out of town 4 of those days! HA!

Maybe the dust blob was a cry for rest.

 

[Tim Glover]

I posted this question in the Audio/Video Sources forum but probably should have posted here since this is really a L200U question.

Here goes:

I just recently bought a prog scan dvd player. My new front projector doesn't have anything in the manual about the 2:3 pulldown or 3:2 pulldown, and there appears to be nothing in the onscreen menu to change to progressive or interlaced.

However, the screen does say, "525p" now instead of "525i".

I'm a little confused by this. So the player is doing the work here??? Bottom line though is I see a definite improvement in the image. More stable, cleaner, virtually no flicker at all, and I know this is not a prog scan claim-but the colors seem to be tighter and better.

DVD player is an RCA. Model # DRC212N. I've switched the back panel for "progressive scan only" too.

Thanks!

 

[Chu]

I have the panasonic RP-82 progressive DVD player which is a rare item to find... maybe impossible. But I was lucky enough to purchase this when it came out. I have that connected to my L200u using component cables and I do have to admit the picture quality is just awesome. I just can't wait to get a house where I can have a dedicated HT so I can watch movies during the day as well. It's torture to wait till the sun goes down especially in the summer. As far as the blue.. green...etc blur circle... that's a dust blob. I have 3 of them right now... I have been meaning to blow it out but been too lazy.. it only can be seen during dark scenes. I just hope someone in this forum can come up with DIY screen that will allow L200u to have some decent black levels.