Panasonic PTAE1000U 1080P for $2799.99!!! Holy Cow! ...

**Richard** Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:49 am

As I recall the manual for that projector says every 100 hours for the filter... did you?

If you don't clean/change the filter regularly then dust can build up in the light path that you are trying to cool reducing efficiency.

What you are describing is a melt down of the blue polarizer and that only happens because the light path gets too hot and that typically only happens if the filter loses air flow efficiency. A fan not running at peak speed could be a cause but that is rare. Dust build up on fan blades can reduce efficiency.

I am working on an article on all this but am still collecting information.

**djarvik** Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:12 am

I got one for you:
Brand New US version $2749 after $1000 rebate!

http://store.proviewdigital.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PTAE1000U

The site has great reviews and delivers!

Panasonic just raised the rebate from $400 to $1000. This sound more like a car rebate then a projector! lol

**AlanBrown** Sat Apr 21, 2007 5:53 pm

I just set one of these up for a client today. He was on a tight budget so he sourced it from an online vendor. Panasonic has just announced a $1,000.00 end user rebate!

It throws a nice enough image, with satisfying black levels and contrast. I didn't notice the auto iris working. It's operation is definitely subtle. The optics are not premium and caused a line of flare/blur on the top of every horizontal line. I could not get the thing to render a sharp pixel. The motorized focus is tough to fine adjust precisely. I also noticed red and green fringing on all one pixel lines. This must be from slight misallignment of the 3 LCD panels. All together these elements produced a soft image.

Good optics are costly. Precision is also costly. This projector is not one of the more expensive 1080p units out there, and you get less for less.

Picture memories are not associated with the inputs. There are not descrete input buttons on the remote. It does have good backlighting behind all buttons and the labels are on the buttons.

One thing I noticed with the screen I ordered for the customer relates to something Joe Kane told me at CEDIA EXPO. The gain coating on the Da-Lite High Contrast CinemaVision was rather coarse for a 1920 x 1080 image. Joe's signature Stewart screens now have a finer gain structure than previously used. He started noticing at trade shows that the typical gain coating used on most screens will interfere with resolution on smaller sizes. This screen was a 92" diagonal (45 x 80) and the gain structure definitely softened the pixels.

Since the client didn't acquire the projector from me and the install budget was limited, I didn't perform a full calibration. Therefore, I don't know how well the grayscale and colors can be aligned.

Best regards and beautiful pictures,
Alan Brown, President
CinemaQuest, Inc.

"Advancing the art and science of electronic imaging"