We wanted to film all five of our best selling home theater projectors (Panasonic PT-AE3000U, Epson Home Cinema 1080UB, Epson Home Cinema 6100, Sanyo PLV-Z700 and Sanyo PLV-Z3000) at once, playing the same content, since that is one of the most frequent requests. We also threw in the Optoma TX1080 - a crossover widescreen business projector. But like with any comparison like this - there are some limitations to our professional video camera. That means some of the most noticeable differences between the units we saw in person are not apparent in the images you see.


Below are a couple of the differences the camera couldn't see.


Black Levels

The black levels were far superior on the Epson Home Cinema 6500 UB, the Sanyo PLV-Z3000, and the Panasonic PT-AE3000U - with the overall 'blackest blacks" nod going Epson. The Sanyo PLV-Z700 showed the worst blacks in our test with out of the box settings.

120hz Superiority

The projectors with 120hz processing (again the Epson Home Cinema 6500 UB, the Sanyo PLV-Z3000, and the Panasonic PT-AE3000U) looked incredible in person. They look good in the video, but even in scenes with just a little movement - like people walking through the metro station - the difference was remarkable and obvious. We hope to get some HD video that can capture the difference soon.

Brightness

The camera tends to adjust for brightness, finding a happy medium that makes all the images look their best. The good news here is that there was not much to report. All of the projectors looked about the same in terms of brightness although there are a few hundred lumens difference between some of them. In fairness to the brighter projectors, the images were relatively small since we had to get them all on the wall. If we made the images bigger, the brightness difference would have likely been more apparent.

Help Us Help You!
This is our first attempt at a shootout video, and we are still learning how to best provide you with the most useful content. One lesson we learned this time is that we need to use an HD camera. Yes, it does seem like the obvious choice. Yes we will do it next time. However, even with an HD camera we still have limited bandwidth on sites like YouTube and Vimeo. So, I think next time we will offer a higher resolution HD video feed for you to download at your leisure. We have also had requests to do some reviews with calibration settings. We are still considering this. Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas! You can do so by replying to the newsletter email, or send your thoughts to webmaster@projectorpeople.com


Projector order in video : Sanyo PLV-Z700, Sanyo PLV-Z3000, Panasonic PT-AE3000U, Epson Home Cinema 6500 UB, Epson Home Cinema 6100


Video Log

0:00 - 3:05
* Product introductions. Our product manager mentions 'black bars' visible in person, but do not show up on the camera. Example of DLP "flicker" at 02:12 - 02:28 is visible on camera, but not visible to the naked eye for most viewers.

03:06 - 04:11
* Discussion of black levels in each product (sales person obscures view of the Sanyo PLV-Z3000)


04:12 - 04:59
* Example of 2X zoom on the Panasonic PT-AE3000U.


05:01 - 06:15
* Lights on brightness check and brightness discussion.


06:16 - 6:55
* Brief discussion of 120hz. Unfortunately the difference isn't very noticable here.

07:00 - 07:37
* Color contrast mentioned

07:42 - 8:30
* Nice action comparison. 120hz mentioned again.


08:33 - 08:55
* Close up of 120hz projector (Epson Home Cinema 6500 UB). You may notice the improved quality. In person, this image looked almost 3-D.


09:00 - 10:00
*Final round up.