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

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 ?