What, you don't have time to read 1,987 pages of multi-conversation-threads on AVS. Holy Cow, they need a better structure than just "Panny 3000 owners".

I got the PJ from Projector People and have nothing but good things to say about them. I had a multi-week email conversation with one of the sales reps, and he was very helpful and easy to deal with - no pressure, no B.S. (He said the Panny was a tad better than the Epson.) But, they sell a small selection of screens, so I felt like they were not the best source for unbiased opinion on that front. After further searching, perhaps they are, as I'm starting to think it does not matter much as long as the product is of decent build quality.

As for the lens memory, i have not used it because I have a full wall right now and Zoom is so easy that I have not taken the time to figure out how to use the memory. I keep thinking I'll wait until I have a set size to zoom to/from.

Finally, in case my experience helps, no problems with the Panny so far. I have been using it about 4 hours a night on average for an even split of BR, HD-Cable, and PS3 games. (Around 100 hours total I guess.) Bear in mind this is on a flat white wall.

BRs - stellar. At 120" screen size, the blacks on this projector (in a dark room) are much better than my DLP Samsung RPTV of 2005 720p variety. The black bars on 2.35 film are barely noticeable, but then again, the rest of the wall is white off-screen so the apparent contrast is enhanced I guess. Color pops, depth is very good. Not intensely bright, but natural. The settings are very good, and often I can't tell which I like better as all except Dynamic look really good with no obvious push. Waiting for the screen to really calibrate it.

HDTV - much more semi-light controlled for this source as I tend to watch BR's at night after the kids are asleep. Of course cable can't compare to BR. But with that limit, the pictures are very good. I'm constantly stunned by the quality of flesh. Black skin, for example, has a real depth of tone I was not used to seeing on my old TV. Sports are great, but worried a bit about fast action sports. A baseball moving from 3rd to 1st tends to flash 3 balls in flight. The PJ has about 5 settings for motion, but I could not cure it. I don't watch much baseball so I need to compare it to another broadcast, might have been a cable bandwidth issue. I have watched a few NFL replays from the NFL Network, and see no issues on motion there - that would have been a deal killer as LSU gets ready for another National Championship!!!!!

PS3 - If you are not a gamer, sorry, you are missing out. First Person Shooters on a 120" screen 15 feet in front of you is damn hard not to like. It is like being there. [Said from the comfort of my HT having zero real world appreciation for such an intense event that plays out every day so I can, in fact, sit on my arse playing games.] Asinine comparisons to war aside, the experience is like 3D compared to TV, your brain is just presented with something more like reality and that adds to the experience greatly.
Also, I notice less (if any) delay in video processing as compared to my DLP. There may be some delay, but way better.

Last, the manual sucks. It is the far end of the spectrum of crap from Denon. It is easy to understand, but tells you nothing. Many pages of explanations like this: "Dynamic Image Stabilizing Ion Control Thrust Inhibitor - this function toggles the Dynamic Image Stabilizing Ion Control Thrust Inhibitor on and off." Holy Crap, i would not have guessed that. Good luck finding out what it does to the image. Better have Google at the ready.

But for a small HT on a budget, I have to give it 5 thumbs up. At this point, it looks like the damn screen may cost as much as the projector. In other words, for less than a good 40" LCD TV you get a damn impressive wall of glorious 1080p. Hard to go wrong even if another projector is as good, or slightly better in some way.

Panny 3000 PJ, 118" Carada, Denon 3300, PS3, Axiom QS8, PSB 5T, B&W sub, levitating speaker wire