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I finally got a projector!!!! Panny 500! (1 Viewer)

LaMarcus

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Those that have been on this forum for awhile (and know me), know that I've been wanting and asking about a projector for years. Especially Neil Joseph, he always picks with me about not having a projector.

Well yesterday was the day, it arrived and I was ecstatic!! I'm building my screen today and painting it today, and I can't wait to get off work!!!

I hooked the Panny 500 up to my hd box to see how well it looked, and WOW. This thing is awesome right out of the box, and on a wall no less!!!

Very, very bright, and the colors were awesome. I can't wait to mount it and calibrate it. I was one of those who was afraid to go FP because I was afraid of losing the quality of picture I was used to from a rptv (crt). But if what little I saw on the wall was any indicator, I'm going to be a happy camper!!!!!!
 

Tim Glover

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Congrats LaMarcus. There will be no going back to regular tv I assure you! ;)

I have the Panny 300U. Hope you enjoy the 500. As you get familiar with it re; settings etc...put some stuff in and let us know how it looks or even better, post some screenshots.

Have fun. :)
 

Jim Peavy

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I think I've decided to go with one, too, sometime early next year. The expensive bulb replacement made me nervous at first, but I did the math: if I got 3000 hours out of a bulb (which seems a reasonable amount from what I've heard), that's an average of almost 8 1/2 hours ... a day. Every day. For a year...! So, needless to say, a 3000 to 4000 hr. life for a $350 bulb doesn't bother me anymore.

It'd be a blast to watch a 6' wide picture!!
 

LaMarcus

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Thank you, yeah, I believe the days of watching movies on a tiny 65" screen are over. ;)

I will surely post some screen shots. I'm curious about what tweeks there are for this projector. I think I may just wait and have it ISF calibrated later on. Michael how long do you have to wait on a FP before you get it ISF'd?
 

Michael TLV

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Greetings

Don't forget the flicker control adjustment in the service menu ... an absolute must for this unit.

Wait at least 50 hours ... as there is some element in the bulb that needs to burn away over that time.

move cursor to OSD ... hold down either enter or menu buttons and the SM shows up ... now do the flicker adjustment.

If you can, I'd still suggest a gray type screen/wall to improve the blacks on this unit.

Make sure ventilation is good and try to run on high fan as much as you can ... it helps to slow down the blue polarizer discoloration process.

Regards
 

Neil Joseph

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(sound of the halleleuyah Chorus playing)

Today is a good day for me to go out there and buy a lottery ticket.

LaMarcus, congratulations. You won't be disappointed.
 

Paul_Medenwaldt

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I have this unit and I read in the manual that the projector will just down at 2000 hour bulb life. How would you go about getting past that mark.

Thanks

Paul
 

Chris PC

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You should research this on the AVS forum, however, if your projector is working ok at 2000 hours, it should, theoretically, keep going. If not, why? Are any lights flashing? I think you can reset the bulb hours but that isn't a good idea and isn't necessary anyways. An Panasonic AE x00 owner over at AVS topped 5000 hours on one bulb so there shouldn't be anything stopping you unless there is something wrong with your bulb :)
 

LaMarcus

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Been messing around with this pj, I can't calibrate it with VE because my damn family won't stop watching movies on it!!!

It's so crazy because my girlfriend did not want me to spend the money for it, she thought the 65" was "big enough". She even told me (after I set it up) that she was hoping that it would not look good so that I would take it back. But she thinks it looks awesome. I keep telling her wait until I paint it and calibrate then you'll really love it. If she'll ever stop watching it so that I can.:frowning:

Anyway, I made it to the service menu and saw the flicker control. What am I supposed to turn it to? And what settings should I put this thing on? I don't really want to go to AVS forum, this is my forum. I don't really like the way they have that site set up. So I'd really appreciate some help from the members here. I totally feel like a HT noob again with this thing, is today March 8, 2002? :D
 

Bob Maged

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That is 2000 hours in full lamp mode -- in economy mode the internal counter runs slower, so you will be good for 5000 hours. Also, you can simply re-set the counter, as you would if you actually replaced the bulb.

The self-check screen displays, among other things, actual lamp hours, economy hours, and number of counter re-sets.

I have nearly 2200 hours on my Panasonic PT-L200U's original bulb, all in economy mode. The display shows actual hours (~2200) and economy hours (~880).
 

Chris PC

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How to adjust flicker:

1) Let your PJ warm up for a good 20 minutes to half an hour.
2) Go to the flicker adjust screen.
3) Cycle through all the colours and adjust until any visible flickering is minimized.
4) Green will be obvious and you will notice the flickering there the most.
5) If you don't notice a whole lot of difference as you adjust, especially the red and blue, it helps to kinda look with your eyes focussing just to the right or left of your screen, using your perhiperal vision.
6) Do your best.

Get out of the menu and adjust your PJ's focus to where you like it and now calibrate your PJ with Avia or DVE and enjoy. Good luck. :)
 

LaMarcus

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Ok, I went to the flicker adj. and it was fine out the box, nothing needed to be changed. But let me tell you what I did notice, VB!!!!!! But here's the catch, I only see it, ONLY when my pj is on interlace, when I switch to progressive, it's gone, COMPLETELY. So this makes me think that it's my dvd player causing it. Cause I don't see it with HD either (which looks awesome I might add).

Another thing I noticed is that my dvd player is outputting at 525i/525p, it doesn't do 480i/480p, could that be a problem? I thought I read some where that that is not a good thing. I need a new dvd player any way, what's really good one for $150 tops? That's all I can spend right now, until I pay off this projector it was $1699.
 

Michael TLV

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NTSC is a 525 line system. The projector detects the correct signal ...

No DVD player outputs 480i or p officially. It is always 525 ...

The 45 lines are assigned to things you don't see in the image like sync, and text info and CC ... and color management ... etc.

When people talk about 480i/p it is the visible picture information that amounts to this.

regards
 

RobertS

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LaMarcus
congrats on the panny 500, I have had mine for a couple of months and the picture is awesome even with a old dvd player hooked up to it (I am hoping to buy a new one after Christmas). I got a high contrast screen and the picture looks awesome, I was a little worried when I looked at projectors and compared dlp to lcd side by side and the black levels concerned me but once I got it home it looks great well worth the money. It sounds like you and your family are enjoying your projector as much as I am.

Rob
 

terence

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LaMarcus CONGRATS!

I have been following your post and your intrest in upgrading to FP, welcome to the PJ Club buddy! There is NO turning back now.
 

chris_clem

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Mar 9, 2003
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LaMarcus,

Congratulations on finally pulling the trigger!
:D

Have fun watching and re-watching your collection on your "proper" big screen! I have a Panny 300 myself for over a year now and so far it has been the most rewarding thing I've purchased...ever! (with the 40 gig ipod a close second :) )

I have a question for all the Panny owners though. What exactly happens when my bulb life is up? I have 1100 hours so far and I'd like to know at what point I'd have to start ordering a bulb from Panasonic.

Will the bulb...:
a) simply refuse to function at a predetermined time (at 2000 hours?) as someone has suggested?
b) Dim then die out gradually?
c) abruptly pop and die like conventional light bulbs?
d) do something else ar a combination of the above?

Oh and one last question, is there any chance that the projector itself can be harmed when the bulb dies? (i.e. might an explosion occur inside? I think the manual has a warning that something like this could happen.)
 

LaMarcus

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Wow, thanks for all the great comments, I really appreciate that.:emoji_thumbsup:

I have to edit what I said in a earlier post, I SEE ABSOLUTELY NO VB. I don't know what the hell I was seeing, but it was not VB. I read the panny 500 review here (HTF) and what they described VB to be is not what I saw. I was seeing this horizontal ghost like line that scrolls up then another will follow. I can notice it in the background when watching a 480i (525i) signal from my dvd player.

I'll also say that I went to a friends house last night to calibrate his panny 500, he had a DIY screen painted with Behr 'silver screen', and it looked spectacular!! I could not believe how big a difference it was from mine (white screen).

After I set it up with VE we saved it to memory 1, then after that we tinkered with the settings to see the differences between the different them(lamp, AI-1,etc), we saved those to the memory 2 and 3 for A B comparisons. We spent hours giving a thorough examination. I found that the gamma low setting, improved the black level dramatically. Blacks were now pitch black, this is what we did:

gamma high 0
gamma mid 0
gamma low -2
cont red +1
cont gre +1
cont blu +1
Bri red +3
Bri gre +3
Bri blu +3

With the setting like above (with AI-2)it was excellent. We ended up using that for darker movies(pirates of carr). But since my friend was concerned about lamp life we decided to keep the VE settings with the lamp low but put the gamma low on -2 (all other gammas/cont/bri 0), and the blacks were still awesome, and it made the colors seem richer.

Funny thing is when I got home and put my gamma low to -2.....then -3, and I saw no significant change in the blacks! Just the overall picture got darker but it still had a lot of grey. I guess that grey screen makes a really big difference. michael in your ISF calibration of these sets do you do a lot of gamma adjustments?
 

terence

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When i was looking at the different screen samples i had to figure out what side of the fence i was on. Do i like bright,(white screen samples) puchier colors & whites or sacrfice some of that brightness for deeper rich blacks (grey screen) camp. I decided to goe with grey because of the better black levels i was seeing, and it's going to come down to a preference thing. After a week of veiwing the grey grew on me even more.
 

Michael TLV

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Greetings

Gamma adjustments are just another of the grayscale calibration components.

Think of it this way ...

Cuts adjust the dark end ...
Drivers the bright end ...

Gamma adjusts the midrange ...

As for what happens near the end of the life of the bulb? Well a message comes on screen at around 1900 real hours and reminds you that the end is near ... eventually you won't be able to turn the message off.

Going beyond the recommended life of the bulb invites things like the bulb exploding in the unit. Not pretty ...

Regards
 

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