Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Panny ax100 vs Hitachi Ultravision S6500

I currently have the 65 in. Ultravision in my theater. I have been wanting a projector. I have already wired the room for a projector, but I am kinda afraid to pull the trigger on one just because of a few issues. First can I switch from tv to dvd without having to change settings on my projector everytime I switch between them for screen settings. Also, do these projectors put out enough light to be seen clearly (with a good picture)for tv such as football games with my lights on in the basement. I love movies and they are my first passion, but I want to be able to watch football or HD tv on my sat without having to have the lights out. My room is completely sealed off from outside light. Also will the colors, saturation, bright and mostly clarity or shapness of the screen be as good as my Ultravision I have now. It is a wonderful picture and I will hate to sell it, but I really want a theater down there. Does anyone have this projector or a similar one that can tell me if this is a good idea or not???? thanks!!!

if you want to be able to view with lights on, the Panny AX100 is a torch with 2000 luminens and will be more than enough for what you are looking for.

Make sure to get a hign gain screen aswell.

I’ve been researching screens for a few months now and think I’ve got it figured out……I have the 900 au. It’s too bad I didn’t wait a few months and get the 100, it looks like one hell of a projector. The stupid 900 sat in a box for five months before I hung it on my ceiling, right about when the 100 started selling. Oh well……

The ranting aside, don’t worry too much about gaming and TV / Sports with a projector and the lights on. Not everyone with projectors like to live in bat caves, myself included. There are a few things to consider though.

First off, don’t put any lights between the projector and the screen. After all, a projector is sending a beam of light to be reflected back at you, and any lights between it and the screen will only degrade what you see on the screen. At a minimum put these lights on a dimmer or a separate switch. Sure wish I would have thought about that before I hung the sheetrock. I have some lights without bulbs……..

Screen choices for bat caves are easy. Just go for a white screen unless your projector has a pitiful contrast ratio, then go for a high contrast grey.

Screen recommendations for use where there is ambient light start to get contradictory. You will see over and over again where grey screens are best because they reject ambient light, and they also improve contrast by bringing out the blacks. You’ll see this everywhere and that if you have a projector with “low” contrast, you’ll always be told to go with a grey screen. So what is “low”?? I asked this over an over again and couldn’t get a straight answer. Everyone just told me that I had one and that even though the 900 has a pretty high ‘advertised’ contrast, in actuality it isn’t. The guys at Stewart told me to stick with a grey screen unless my ‘real’ contrast was above 3000. The 900 tests out at around 2000.

So that’s the grey side of the argument for use with a lit room. You will also see over and over again where folks tell you to go with a high gain screen so that in ambient light it will reflect back to you more light than what the projector is putting out. Makes sense to me, ambient light, need more reflective light to see better…..hmmmm unfortunately, high gain screens are mostly white, or brilliant white, so that contradicts what the grey screen guys recommend. Catch 22…….

Fortunately for us, there are some screens out there that in theory should work for us living in the light. They call them high gain / high contrast screens. They will be grey or silver and have a rated gain of one or higher. Normally, a grey screen will have a gain of .8 or lower. And when tested, they tend to be lower than what the manufacture claims. There are a few of these high gain / high contrast screens available, but each one comes with its own little “issue” you have to contend with, so make sure you do your homework.

Stewart makes what they call the Firehawk screen (plus the GreyHawk and special order 3D silver). They have two versions of the Firehawk with two different gains. You need a minimum throw ratio of 1.6 for this screen to work best (projector throw distance divided by screen width). It is also an angular reflective screen which means the projector should be ceiling mounted so the image is reflected to the person sitting down. Stewart screens are one of the most expensive out there. Be sitting down when you get the quote. http://www.stewartfilmscreen.com/product_information/projection_screens_2.html

Vutec makes what they call the Silverstar screen. This screen has an amazing gain of 6.0. I didn’t look too close at this one because it comes as a ridgid sheet. It can not be shipped rolled up. You get a big assed box. Living in Alaska, this can be a problem. Big boxes don’t fit into planes very well. Make sure you get a quote for this screen AFTER you hear the Stewart price. I think these suckers go for about five grand. Not positive, didn’t check. http://www.vutec.com/silverstar.htm

Da-lite makes several different screen types. They have a couple HC/HG screens. I don’t know much about Da-lite. They are not quite as expensive as Stewart, but they aren’t far behind either……. I figured what the hell, I'm already into this deal for a lot of coin, so what's another two hundred. I ordered a Stewart. http://www.da-lite.com/products/selecting.php

Another thing to consider with ANY high gain screen is the viewing cone. What the hell’s a viewing cone?, I asked one salesman. Well, in short, it means that there is a “cone” in which a person can sit and view the image without some sort of image degradation. The “cone” is actually the angle from the screen into the room where viewers will be sitting. Why the hell they call it a “cone” instead of an angle beats me. Everything else is some sort of friggin angle, but oh no…..let’s call this something different just to confuse these poor bastards as if they aren’t confused enough. Anyway, high gain screens have a smaller viewing cove than standard screens. You’ll need to figure that out too……

Or, you can go the DIY route. I made the screen I’m using now and it works outstanding. I was going to make another one in a 2.35 ratoi, but I ran into troubles finding a mirror big enough to make the one I wanted to make. Plus, I can’t spray paint worth a crap so I decided to forgo the stress and just buy a damn screen. But if you’re interested in going the DIY route, I’d make the black flame. You can either mix your own paint, or buy it pre-mixed. After running around finding the different paints needed to mix it, I think buying it ready to go is well worth the price. http://www.xtreme-fusion-screens.com/home.html

If you are going to go the constant image height route, that’s another five hundred word discussion. But figure that out first, because you don’t want to go threw all this crap twice.

In summery, after having a big honking image on my wall for a month or so, I'd rather deal with the issues of projectors and have that big image than not.

It would apear that I've written a book.......crap, I've got things to do. Later......

Wow, Mike. That's some pretty good information, right there.

But I think I'm going to need a beer to understand most of it.

What I hear you saying is "if you ever get the urge for a FP, be prepared to not only torture yourself with new technical details, but also to invite mdrew, sirquack and others over to help you really figure out WTF"

I liked the part about the screen not fitting in the airplane

Thank you very much for taking the time to provide such excellent analysis, Mike. I know that's going to help a lot of people.

>>First off, don’t put any lights between the projector and the screen. After all, a projector is sending a beam of light to be reflected back at you, and any lights between it and the screen will only degrade what you see on the screen.

I don't know if this is entirely correct. I cannot see any reason why putting light through other light will hinder the light of each path.

The only thing that will effect the image on the screen is if you have light hitting the screen and washing out the image.

I think if you can have complete darkness on and around the screen you can have lights in the path from the projector to the screen.

I just don't see how other lights in the path of one light will effect its penetration.

Please spend some time on http://www.projectorcentral.com to read about projectors for HT use and light cannons for business presentations, there is a difference. My Z2 works great with ambient light in the room for sports and movie watching. Getting a light cannon projector will not have the default settings for home theater use.

In theory you’re probably thinking right. All I know for sure is that my cans over the screen no longer have bulbs in them. I tried different PAR’s to go from flood to spot that did not shine directly on the screen without any luck. I also have a florescent fixture in the middle of the room between the screen and projector. I can’t see squat on the screen when it’s on.

I use a table lamp at the side of the room for just enough light to find my evening cocktail. I also have a pretty good sized window that usually has the black out blind up. When we sit down to watch a movie we’ll black everything out just for that little extra darkness and I’ll put the table lamp on its lowest setting.

………learn from my pain and mistakes while I’m humble enough to admit them.

Ok, this all sounds great. I spend a lot of time on projectorcentral. Lately they seem to just give everything a 5 star rating. Anyway, that answers one question, but what about picture quality. Are these projectors better overall picture then my picture I have now. One issue that i have with my tv that I wonder if can be fixed with a projector is when there is quick motion across the screen the picture drags and begins to pixilate and become blurry. Is this issue addressed with the newer projectors such as the one I have put into this subject line? I would love to have a giant picture, but if the color and picture don't pop and seemed washed in anyway, or the blacks are blotchy I won't like it. Do these projectors handle this?? thanks everyone.

>>but what about picture quality. Are these projectors better overall picture then my picture I have now. One issue that i have with my tv that I wonder if can be fixed with a projector is when there is quick motion across the screen the picture drags and begins to pixilate and become blurry.

This most likely has nothing to do with your TV. Your DVD player is most likely the culprit not being able to process the data fast enough in high demanding scenes. I would suggest picking up a new DVD player (the Oppo 971 is an awsome upscaling DVD, upscales to 720p/1080i via DVI-D)

>>but if the color and picture don't pop and seemed washed in anyway, or the blacks are blotchy I won't like it.

The Panny is an LCD projector and naturally don't have as deep blacks as DLP models. If you want deep blacks you're going to have to have a really flexible room for placement and at least 9 ft ceilings to get a decent screen height because of the offset of all DLPs. They don't have lense shift like the Panny AX100 which can be mounted on a bookshelf in the rear and the screen can be shifted up to 50% of its vertical height (I think its 50% or more)

If I personally had the 9 - 10ft ceilings I would get the Mitsu HD3000, it has awsome black levels and is at a killer street price right now.

Make sure you use a projector calculator prior to purchasing a DLP to make sure that the screen will be far enough off the ground (which is a problem with DLPs). Mitsubishi has one on their website that really helps.

>>In theory you’re probably thinking right. All I know for sure is that my cans over the screen no longer have bulbs in them. I tried different PAR’s to go from flood to spot that did not shine directly on the screen without any luck. I also have a florescent fixture in the middle of the room between the screen and projector. I can’t see squat on the screen when it’s on.

Ya, with low-gain screens this happens alot when ambient light is in the room. If your new 2.35:1 screen is higher gain you should have less of a problem with this.

In my room, I am planning to have all dimming lights (track lights) facing away from the screen, and all static lights (on a light switch with no dimmer) to accent the Axioms and screen.

It is literally taking me ALOT of time to plan out where I want the lights to go and how they should be designed in the room. I want something that I can easily turn back into a family room for selling purposes but at the same time be able to make it look like a theatre room. Its quite challenging!

Hi jhunt17,
"">>but what about picture quality. Are these projectors better overall picture then my picture I have now. One issue that i have with my tv that I wonder if can be fixed with a projector is when there is quick motion across the screen the picture drags and begins to pixilate and become blurry.

This most likely has nothing to do with your TV. Your DVD player is most likely the culprit not being able to process the data fast enough in high demanding scenes. I would suggest picking up a new DVD player (the Oppo 971 is an awsome upscaling DVD, upscales to 720p/1080i via DVI-D)""

Is your Hitachi Ultravision an LCD rear-screen projector? If so, that would explain the "image lag" with fast lateral motion. The image lag is not an artifact of the DVD player. In the past, image lag has always been an intrinsic problem with many LCD display devices, because the LCD pixels don't turn on and off fast enough, so there is a "tail" or shadow that lags behind fast-moving horizontal objects.

New LCD panels are much improved in this regard. I don't know if LCD front projectors have also improved. I would think so. I have not noticed any image lag on the new Sony LCD Bravia rear-screen projectors.

DLP front projectors do not suffer from image lag with fast horizontal action (DLP has its own intrinsic artifacts, including rainbow effects that bother some viewers).

If you want the image to "pop", check out the Optoma HD72 DLP front projector. At last January's CES, it produced a stunning picture that was superior to any other projectors I viewed except a $10,000 Optoma.

>>Is your Hitachi Ultravision an LCD rear-screen projector? If so, that would explain the "image lag" with fast lateral motion. The image lag is not an artifact of the DVD player. In the past, image lag has always been an intrinsic problem with many LCD display devices, because the LCD pixels don't turn on and off fast enough, so there is a "tail" or shadow that lags behind fast-moving horizontal objects.

I learn something new every day!

My room was going to be a bedroom. I also set it up for re-sale like you are doing. That’s why I didn’t move walls, build a stage, built in screen. If someone wants to turn it back into a bedroom, all they need to do is paint it a light color.

When you wire your lights, I’d just put the ones in front of the screen on their own switch. Sure do wish I would have done that. It would have been perfect to put them on a three way and those two lights could have been used for over the bed reading lights……ho-hum….live and learn.

As far as picture quality goes………..

I can’t comment on your TV. Haven’t ever seen one. I can comment on my 900 though…

I am constantly ‘wowed’ by the image this thing shoots. As Hurtz mentioned, a lot depends on your source (DVD Player / Cable / Sat). But if you send it a good image, it’ll shoot it on your screen with some pretty kick ass clarity, color, depth, etc….

If the 100 is better than the 900 (and it is supposed to be better), I honestly can’t see wanting more as long as the projector’s source is good. They are 720P projectors and the difference between 720P and 1080P just isn’t worth the five grand that those projectors cost right now.

Some guys like DLP while others don’t. I haven’t ever seen one, so I can’t comment. I heard that there is a lot of screen door effect from them. Again, I don’t know for sure. The panny’s have what they call ‘smooth screen’ and you will not see any screen door effect. I have to get about 12” away from mine to see it. The 100 is supposed to better yet. The 100 will vertically stretch an HDMI image where the 900 will not. If you want to go constant height sometime down the road, this is pretty important and something to put on your ‘projector must do list’. After the image is vertically, an anamorphic lens is placed in front of it to horizontally stretch it. If your projector will not do the V stretch, you need an external scaler to do this for you at an additional cost.

I have the Oppo 971 and the Oppo 970. They are both amazing little machines. The 971 has a ‘slightly’ better image than the 970, but not by much. I watched Alien V Predator last night with the 971 and the picture was so clear, crisp, full of color…..shoot…it looked HD. When I bought the first Oppo and pulled it out of the box, the first thing that I thought was “Playschool in silver trim”. Where my previous DVD players took two hands to slide them into the EQ rack, this thing took a three fingered grip. They are tiny, light….hell, you could throw them like a frisbee. I almost just sent it back, but I’m glad I gave it a try. The picuture and ease of use these things have is nothing short of amazing. And for only about 200 bucks, I just can't believe it. The CS is great too. Simular to Axiom. If you have a problem, send them an email and you get a reply within hours. Both times I had issues they were both user error.

>When you wire your lights, I’d just put the ones in front of the screen on their own switch. Sure do wish I would have done that. It would have been perfect to put them on a three way and those two lights could have been used for over the bed reading lights……ho-hum….live and learn.

This is exactly what I am doing. The back 2 lights will be on a dimmer switch, the front 2 lights will be on a on/off switch. I originally was going to have lights right above where the screen would be, this would make the room look un-even concerning lights.

I decided to get 4 tracks lights with 2 lights on each, and make a "square" shape with them spread out in the middle of the room to the sides of the room as to not effect the projection from the projector. A little hard to explain. But I think it is the best solution. If I had lights above the screen to accent it, even though I could turn them off, they would look out of place if it wasn't a theatre room. Life is full of compromise!

Sorry for Hi-Jacking your thread!

Hi mdrew,

I'd totally agree with you on the two Oppo Digital DVD players. I've been playing with the 970 for a few months and its picture quality is close enough to HD that you forget you are watching a DVD until you do an immediate A/B comparison (I keep a copy of a movie mastered in HD on my HD DVR for such comparisons).

Just a small correction: You said: "Some guys like DLP while others don’t. I haven’t ever seen one, so I can’t comment. I heard that there is a lot of screen door effect from them."

Perhaps you meant "rainbow effect" rather than "screen door effect" when you referred to DLP artifacts. DLP devices produce no screen-door effect because the pixels on the DLP chip are much closer together than with an LCD display device, and there is no wire grid between the pixels like in an LCD.

It's why I always preferred DLP projectors to LCD projectors. I could always see the screen-door effect, and that includes the earlier Panasonic models. I'm glad to hear they have a "Smooth Screen" correction for that earlier problem.

Alan,

My most used saying is “it’s not what I say, but what I mean” LOL

Ya, the rainbow thing is what I meant.

I was pretty torn between that Optima you noted the Panny and also the Z4 when I bought my projector. It basically came down to price and the Panny beat the other two out. In retrospect, I wish I would have bought the Optima. It does the V-stretch and from what I’ve read in different reviews, has a better ‘real’ contrast than the Panny. I’ll most likely pick up a 1080P projector in a year or two to take advantage of the VP-50’s 1080P processing, so I’m not loosing any sleep over it.

A couple good points that most folks miss or don’t acknowledge about the 970 worth mentioning….

It up converts via component input. Not many players will do this and even less do it well. It is limited to the rights coded on the disks (some will not allow an up conversion via component), but I suspect some happy hackers will come up with a work around before too long if they haven’t’ already. This is advantageous for folks with older HD displays that do not have HDMI/DVI inputs.

It will send a 480i signal via HDMI right off the MPEG player. This is quite a plus for folks who use external video processors. Many hard core video guys would modify their DVD players to with a serial data interface modification just to get a ‘clean’ digital signal to their VP’s. With the 970, you don’t need to do this, it’s already there.

It’s a universal player: DVD-A, SACD and all the other CD variations. I’ve played a few SACDs with mine and I’m very happy with it. It sounds every bit as good as my $800 Integra player.

Both machines have excellent audio options for 6 channel direct and they are very easy to set up.

I really can’t believe they sell these little buggers for what they sell for.

Actually, when I think about it. I only get the motion problem when watching HD TV thru directv. Mostly durring football games or when something is obviously moving quickly. Anyway, thank you guys for all of your thoughts. I am still just a tad unclear about how to deal with the different screen formats with the projector. Do I set up the screen so that it fits the 16 x 9 size I want and then it will just have the black bars above and below when I watch movies. If that is so I don't mind that at all. I would just hate to have to play with my projector everytime I wanted to watch a different format. Also, what about fan noise?? I have my room set up to mount it on the ceiling, but it is about 3 feet from where I sit. Will the noise from the fan be noticeable?? Thanks, everyone. The dvd player I have is an lg upconverting player. One thing I notice when I try to use the upconverting is that it introduces noise into my picture and actually makes it worse so I don't use it. Should this happen??? I think the model is Lgdvd 418. Would it be worth it to upgrade to the oppo or should I just wait a year for the combo HD/Blue ray to come out in the next year or so???

>>Do I set up the screen so that it fits the 16 x 9 size I want and then it will just have the black bars above and below when I watch movies. If that is so I don't mind that at all. I would just hate to have to play with my projector everytime I wanted to watch a different format.

That is the normal approach -- 16:9 screen, and set the projector to fill the screen with a 1.85:1 anamorphic aka "widescreen enhanced" DVD (the most common). You will get black bars above and below a 2.35:1 DVD but you won't have to play with anything.

The one exception will be 4:3 DVDs, eg old TV shows and movies. They get stretched horizontally on my player / projector combo (Pioneer 578, Sanyo Z4) and I have to use the projector remote to force the projector into 4:3 mode.

I don't really care though -- I'm running a 2:1 screen (4x8 feet) and am constantly fiddling with the projector when switching between 1.85 and 2.35 DVDs to get a relatively constant screen area. Normal people might not want to do that

My projector is directly over my head by around 3’. Yes, there is fan noise. It is noticeable when it’s just up there running without any sound from the speakers, but as soon as I hit the play button, I no longer here the projector even at very low volume. In other words, it’s very quiet…..and I hate fans. The fan on my receiver is noisier than the projector fan. My receiver is also about 3’ away from where I sit behind me. Then there’s the hard drive on the DVR….crap, I’m surrounded by these dam spinning noise makers now I think about it. Thanks, now I’m going to be noticing them more…..

Don’t know what to tell you about the LG. Sounds like it doesn’t work too well to me. I’d just get an Oppo and worry about HD/Blue Ray later. You could wait a year but I suspect in a year there will be something else to contemplate. I’m not buying one yet because I think both formats will prevail and I’d rather have a universal player that will play both formats, and do that job well. Until then, I’m quite happy with the Oppo’s.

Screen formats? You mean aspect ratios? You can go with either 16/9 or 2.35 cinescope. 16/9 is much simpler and much less in cost. You just buy a screen size you want and you’re done. With 2.35 constant height set ups you have to shell out money for an anamorphic lens ($800 - $5000), buy or make a 2.35 screen, figure out how to side mask it or buy a masking system ($1500 +), either use the projector or DVD player to stretch the image or buy an external scaler to do that ($2000 +). Or, find all this stuff used and save some money. Or, you can do the poor man’s method and just use the projector zoom and get creative with masking. This is not an option for me as I don’t want to screw around with lens shift and focus all the time. I tried it and it sucks.

If you stick with 16.9, you’ll just have the black bars and if that doesn’t bother you or the loss of about 33% of the picture, I wouldn’t worry about it. Just be happy with what you got and save yourself a lot of money and aggravation.

>>Or, you can do the poor man’s method and just use the projector zoom and get creative with masking. This is not an option for me as I don’t want to screw around with lens shift and focus all the time. I tried it and it sucks.

Or, you can do the poor AND lazy man's approach, align the lens axis with the top of the screen, and then not have to worry about lens shift because the top edge of the picture won't move when you zoom.

I never had to worry about focus with my Z4 -- did you find you needed to refocus after zoom with the panny ?

ok, new question. My ceiling is only 7ft.6in high. I want to mount the projector there. Does this cause me any issues that I need to know about??? Lately it looks like the sanyo z5 might be best for my room since I have adjustable lighting in my room and it is in the basement were I have no ambient light. Anyway, what considerations am I missing. I would hate to buy a projector and it not be as good as my tv I already have. That would not work well for the wife I bet. I have decided to build the superchuncks in the corners of my front walls so I will be making a slightly smaller sreen around 91 in wide instead of 92. The projector will be mounted about 19 ft back from the wall. Thanks guys.

Other than whacking your head, I can't think of any problems. Depending on the screen you go with, you WANT some angle between the projector and the screen but you don't need a great deal. It's actually better to have the project lens center pretty close to the top of the screen so you don't have to use so much lens shift.

I've been playing with my Stewart Firehawk the last day or so. So far I'm more than impressed. It's a lot darker grey than my last screen, but the image is brighter. I had to recalibrate my projector brightness and contrast a fair amount (reduce both). Even with the blinds open on the window I get a great picture.

If you know how to take a good screen shot with a dig camera and give me some tips, I'll take some screen shots and post them.

Hello
What size screen will I be able to get if I use the ax100
in a 14' room?

My scope just crept. Thanks a lot, Mike.

You're more than welcome Tom. Anything to help you out. Oh ya, I forgot to mention that I have the DVDO VP-50 in the loop now. Or how absolutely stunning SD DVD's look, or how much it improves SD satellite......I probably shouldn't mention those particulars to you in fear of contributing to more scope creep.

.......it does a fantastic job of deinterlacing 1080i as well. HD DVD's routed through this thing are like looking through spotless glass.....I wont' mention that either......