I can’t comment on the projectors you listed, but I’ve got the PT1000U. It replaced the PT900U. When I swapped the 900 out for the 1000, at first I was kind of disappointed. There was an immediate improvement, but it just wasn’t as much of an improvement as I was hoping for. Resolution is better, but not significantly so. Where I did see a marked improvement was in regards to color, contrast, lumens and improved blacks.
I have recently been trying my hand at display calibration. I am using Calman V3 software and an Eye-1 pro meter. After about three solid days of figuring out gamma curves, color space and temps, I was able to dial the projector in to as close to perfect as one could expect. I have since learned that this projector is one of the easiest to calibrate (I don’t think I’ll be doing display calibration for a living). You do not have to go into the service panel to adjust gamma, primary and secondary colors. It also has a very simple to use wave form monitor that will allow you to set contrast and brightness perfectly. No other projectors that I am aware of (at this price point) is as adjustable as the 1000.
Another thing about the 1000 is that it just works….. It is not finicky with different resolutions, formats, frame rates, PAL/NSTM, or other HDMI components. The damn thing just works without any bugs or quirks. If you follow the owner’s threads at AVS, pretty much all the projectors have weird issues that owners bitch about. You don’t see that with the 1000. Complaints are far and few between.
If you’re wondering how the picture compares to the rest of the 1080P units out there, sorry, I don’t know….. I have only seen mine. I will tell you that the image is nothing short of eye candy when you pop in a good BR or HD disk. When folks come over for the first time they just stare like zombies….. I have a few friends who no longer go to the movies. They wait unit I get the disk on BR or HD so they can watch the movie at my house.
Where I would like to see an improvement is the ANSI contrast ratio. After I calibrated the projector to the HD 709 color spec at a D65 temp, ANSI C/R was a measly 130/1. On / off was 1200/1, but the ANSI sucks. I think this is what you should look at. Don’t pay attention to opinions based on what users think is a good picture, but look at actual 709 and D65 calibration results of each unit. They don’t lie and they don’t have opinions. They are just numbers, but important numbers to be looking at. After a projector is properly calibrated to these standards, those 20,000/1 contrast ratio numbers that are printed on the box get popped. Those great numbers are obtained by measuring the unit with the lamp on high (which no one uses) and in dynamic mode (which blows out the high lights, shadow detail, color spec and color temp). It usually takes a combination of filters, increased contrast, lowered brightness, tweaked gamma and primary RGB adjustments to bring the image in line with true color specifications. After you do all that, the display is typically operating with a heck of a handicap and those rated numbers no longer hold water.
Knowing what I know today, if I were looking for a new projector, I’d probably go with the Panasonic 2000. While the JVC RS1 gets touted as the contrast king, it also comes with a lot of baggage. The stupid thing is twice the cost of the Panasonic, and its predecessor (RS1) has too many odd problems that I wouldn’t care to deal with. The RS2 may prove to be a better machine than the RS1, but I just don’t think the price is justified, considering how well the Panasonic performs.
