3D Top 30 Must Own 3D Blu-Ray Releases (2 Viewers)

[Panman40]

Before my current house was built, you could leave the room over the garage unfinished or come up with your own design. I decided on two rooms, one a bedroom and the other my home theatre room. I could only fit an L-shaped couch in the home theatre room, so maybe four or five people can sit in the room to watch movies. But with an image as wide as 138 inches its just wonderful!

I can't remember, did if already say I hate you ? Lol!. 138" that's big, what's sharpness like at that size ?. I do have a spare room although small but I just don't think I would want to sit and watch a movie anywhere than my sitting room.I could go to 92" if my lady let me shift the room around.

 

[FoxyMulder]

I can't remember, did if already say I hate you ? Lol!. 138" that's big, what's sharpness like at that size ?. I do have a spare room although small but I just don't think I would want to sit and watch a movie anywhere than my sitting room.I could go to 92" if my lady let me shift the room around.

92 inch is worth it, sharpness is good on projectors, some are sharper than others of course but it's the size, you soon forget about the differences when you go to a larger size, the movie viewing experience becomes more immersive, more powerful, more everything, shift the room around and buy one. It's important to get the screen right and walls and ceiling can be an issue.

 

[Panman40]

92 inch is worth it, sharpness is good on projectors, some are sharper than others of course but it's the size, you soon forget about the differences when you go to a larger size, the movie viewing experience becomes more immersive, more powerful, more everything, shift the room around and buy one. It's important to get the screen right and walls and ceiling can be an issue.

An issue ????, I hate issues :p lol. What kinds of issue ?

 

[FoxyMulder]

An issue ????, I hate issues lol. What kinds of issue ?

Light side walls, floors and ceiling with a white projection screen can be a major problem, the image can end up looking washed out or at the very least you compromise image quality, even at night, this is why i am spending so much time looking for the materials for my room, projectors scatter their light and ideally you want to absorb that to improve image quality, keep it on the screen.

 

[Panman40]

Light side walls, floors and ceiling with a white projection screen can be a major problem, the image can end up looking washed out or at the very least you compromise image quality, even at night, this is why i am spending so much time looking for the materials for my room, projectors scatter their light and ideally you want to absorb that to improve image quality, keep it on the screen.

So not only am I trying to rearrange our room against my wife's wishes but I need to paint everything black aswell ... Lol!. I will give you her mobile tel no so you can explain it to her!!

 

[FoxyMulder]

So not only am I trying to rearrange our room against my wife's wishes but I need to paint everything black aswell ... Lol!. I will give you her mobile tel no so you can explain it to her!!

It's not perfect but you could probably get away with a dark red colour or something you can take down after every viewing.

 

[RolandL]

Very sharp and bright picture from the Pannasonic AE8000 projector. This is the brightest of the five projectors that I have owned. My previous projectors:

My first projector

2nd Vidikron

3rd Avanti Piano - very small but very nice 480p projector

4th Sanyo - 720p!

 

[RolandL]

So not only am I trying to rearrange our room against my wife's wishes but I need to paint everything black aswell ... Lol!. I will give you her mobile tel no so you can explain it to her!!

OK. You can all flame me now!

I project onto a wall - no screen!

The walls are all an off white color.

The ceiling in painted white.

The room is very dark as the one window has been convered with blinds and curtains.

But the picture is just wonderful!

Maybe I need one of the other HTF members (there are a few) living in Connecticut to come over and let you know what they think.

 

[FoxyMulder]

OK. You can all flame me now!

I project onto a wall - no screen!

The walls are all an off white color.

The ceiling in painted white.

I'm tempted. As an experiment try darkening the ceiling and walls, you will be impressed by the difference.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

At the moment, I'm projecting onto a screen that's hung in front of a very light yellow wall, surrounded by same colored light walls, and a white ceiling. The plan is to hopefully paint the room a little bit darker at some point soon, but as it's also our living room, so my girlfriend is understandably not to keen on turning it into a shrine to darkness. (If it was just me, I'd probably have painted the walls and ceilings.) I'm surprised at how good the image looks even with all of the light colored walls and white ceiling. If it looks this good to me now with all of the extra light, I can't imagine how much better it will be when I can at least replace the white with a grey color. And in a future home, perhaps one day I'll have an entire room to dedicate to just movie watching, and then I can do what I want.

I know it might not be traditional home theater setup or recommended, but if you have a white or light colored room that you can't adjust for whatever reason, I think you can still have an enjoyable projection experience. As long as you're watching at night, or can cover up the windows during the day, you'll be okay. I find that the light from the windows when the shades are open to be far more distracting than the yellow walls and white ceiling.

 

[Panman40]

I have light yellow wall and white ceiling to, I have blackout curtains I use during the afternoons at weekends to watch TV. Looks as if I need to stop making excuses and just order a projector...

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I have light yellow wall and white ceiling to, I have blackout curtains I use during the afternoons at weekends to watch TV. Looks as if I need to stop making excuses and just order a projector...

Do you know anyone who can loan you one, or anywhere you could rent one for cheap for a night? Just so you can actually test it out and make sure that it'll work for your space? I think it will, but it never hurts to actually try it out if you can.

My feeling for my own home theater setup, is "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." I'm sure a lot of people who have much higher end setups than I do might take one look at the room I'm all set up in, or my combination of gear, and say, "no way, not for me." It's probably technically "wrong" that my projector sits on top of a table against the back wall instead of being mounted, or technically "wrong" that the room has so many light walls. I also spent way more on my projector than my speakers and receiver, and I imagine a lot of people might have gone for a closer to even split, but I've always cared more about the picture than the sound so that's what I did.

So I dunno, I don't have any great advice except to say, have fun with it! I've had my Epson 5030UB for about three weeks now, and I'm still blown away every time I turn it on. The 3D quality on it is incredible. My girlfriend likes 3D but gets eyestrain and notices crosstalk very easily. She will go to see a 3D movie in theaters with me, and would watch 3D movies on my LG Plasma TV, but I don't think 3D on the TV ever wowed her and I think she got some eyestrain and mild headaches occasionally. The first thing she said after watching a 3D movie on the Epson was how much easier it was on her eyes. And last week, when we went to see "Guardians Of The Galaxy" in IMAX 3D, during the trailers, she turned to me and remarked that the 3D we had at home was better. (For once in my life, I just took the compliment instead of pointing out that I thought it was just a crosstalky trailer.)

Anyway, I waited years to get this projector, and it was worth the wait, and I'm a super-satisfied customer. Whether you make the plunge next week, next year or even further down the line, I think you'll enjoy it. And I think there's a way to set everything up, especially if you don't mind if things aren't 100% technically perfect, that makes for a nice compromise between a dedicated home theater room and an all-purpose living room.

 

[Reed Grele]

OK.
Maybe I need one of the other HTF members (there are a few) living in Connecticut to come over and let you know what they think.

Is that an invitation? If so, I accept.

Perhaps one of these fine days we can have a 3D "shoot out". My Sharp 30K (DLP) vs. your Panny 8000 (LCD).

I'm actually curious to see the Panny 8000 in action. As you may recall, I still have the 7000, and had seriously considered upgrading to the 8000 (before I ended up with the Epson 5020 (for 2D). And the Sharp 30K (for 3D).

Have Projector - Will Travel. (I'll even bring extra glasses).

 

[RolandL]

Is that an invitation? If so, I accept.

Perhaps one of these fine days we can have a 3D "shoot out". My Sharp 30K (DLP) vs. your Panny 8000 (LCD).

I'm actually curious to see the Panny 8000 in action. As you may recall, I still have the 7000, and had seriously considered upgrading to the 8000 (before I ended up with the Epson 5020 (for 2D). And the Sharp 30K (for 3D).

Have Projector - Will Travel. (I'll even bring extra glasses).

Charles can come over too! On the couch three can sit fine.

The two projectors are relatively close in comparison . Black levels, color are about the same. The Sharp has a crisper picture. The Sharp might have less crostalk although I notice very little if any on the Panny.

"In brightest mode, however, there’s no competition, the Panasonic PT-AE8000 is roughly twice as bright as the XV-Z30000." Since I'm projecting on to a wall a 130 x 70 inch image for 1.85 3D I need that extra brightness.

 

[Charles Smith]

I'm working on a show right now so a lot of evenings are taken up with rehearsals, but keep me in the loop! We'll find an evening that works.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

Josh, how is the Epson on vintage 3-D that generally has a wider parallax, such as DIAL M FOR MURDER or CREATURE?

 

[Reed Grele]

Charles can come over too! On the couch three can sit fine.

Sounds good. We can coordinate a future get together via the PM route.

I'll also bring a light meter, and a 3D "torture test" disc. Very interested to see how well the 8000 does with crosstalk, and how much Panny has improved in this area since the 7000.

Would also like to check out the convergence, edge to edge focus, color uniformity, and whatever else we can think of. Just a friendly comparison. Wouldn't want to have it turn into a bad case of pixel envy. Who knows, we may even end up watching a movie!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Josh, how is the Epson on vintage 3-D that generally has a wider parallax, such as DIAL M FOR MURDER or CREATURE?

I haven't watched an entire vintage 3D feature on it yet, but I did give it a little bit of a torture test with the first ten minutes of both "House Of Wax" and "Dial M For Murder". I'll also be giving "Inferno" a spin when that arrives over the next couple weeks.

In short, the Epson performed beautifully on the test demos I gave it. Whereas on my older LG plasma, the 3D on "House Of Wax" was riddled with crosstalk, on the Epson it looked flawless. The main titles popped out clearly and were easy to read, and there was incredible depth inside the wax museum when we first tour it with Vincent Price. I had to turn it off because I knew I was going to get sucked into it, and at about 4am it was perhaps not the best time to get started. But looked great.

"Dial M For Murder" looked just as good. Whereas the halos from the Warnercolor combined with the wider parallax made the title very difficult to watch on my plasma (crosstalk galore), it looked wonderful on the Epson. The crosstalk was nonexistent, there was good separation of objects, and again, if it hadn't been so late at night, I could have easily been sucked into watching the entire movie.

I had been really concerned about how these titles were going to look on the Epson. I know DLP is considered better for 3D than LCD in a lot of circles, but for a few different reasons, a DLP projector wasn't right for me at this time. I figured that the LCD would do fine for more modern 3D that's not as taxing on displays, but I was honestly a little concerned on how the classic movies would play. Thirty seconds into my first test of "House of Wax", I knew this wasn't going to be a problem.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

That's good to know, thanks very much Josh!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Forgot to mention earlier, but I watched a new (to me) 3D movie last night -- Disney's "Tangled". Compared to how Disney uses 3D nowadays, this was really well done. Lots of great depth, and while it didn't have a ton of popout compared to something like "Turtle's Tale", I thought it had a good amount that, at least as importantly, was motivated by the story and looked beautiful onscreen. There's one scene that involves floating lanterns at about the hour mark that was just gorgeous, it reminded me a little bit of the scene in Avatar when Jake is out on his own at night for the first time and everything starts glowing all around him. It had a similar sense of wonder and beauty.

The story itself was a bit formulaic and missing some of the magic from the earlier Disney princess classics like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, but it was still entertaining.

Got the disc for free from Disney Movie Rewards with points, all in all I'm pleased with the choice. My copy unfortunately skipped for a couple minutes in the middle, I'm gonna see if I can get them to exchange it, I know it was free but that shouldn't mean "defective".