We have been eagerly waiting to find out the details of the new Panasonic PT-AE4000U. Will it come to America? (answer :yes) If it does, what price will it be released at? (answer : $1999) And how is it different from the PT-AE3000? (answer: according to Projector Central “the AE4000 is in fact a superior projector in almost every way”). So, now we have some answers to share… as well as a new low, low price on the PT-AE3000U.

Panasonic PT-AE4000U WILL Come to America

As we mentioned above, and as we all suspected, the Pansonic PT-AE4000U will indeed be released in the United States. We don’t have solid delivery dates yet, but we know it is coming soon. It could even be available as early as the end of October – we will keep you updated on shipping dates as the information comes in.

We will also have more technical information on the AE4000U and other new 1080p home theater projectors coming soon. You can also stay on top of things on the AVS Forum official Panasonic PT-AE4000U post.

And if you are ready to get pumped up about it, you can read the PT-AE4000U review from Projector Central. They highlight, the Red-Rich Lamp, Improved contrast (now 100,000:1), Improved Cinema mode brightness, Improved color accuracy, Improved Detail Clarity Processor, Improved Frame Interpolation, among other improvments. Here’s an excerpt :

“All of this adds up to a remarkable value proposition: at a street of $1,999, we’ve simply never seen this much performance at this price. Panasonic has been extremely tight-lipped about this product launch. Until now many thought the company was dropping out of the home theater projector market. Today’s announcement makes it clear that they are here to stay. The Panasonic PT-AE4000U will be one of the hottest selling home theater projectors of the fall season, and we enthusiastically give it our highest recommendation.”

Panasonic PT-AE3000U Price Drops

If you’ve been holding out for the deal… now is the time to buy a PT-AE3000. If you’re an early adopter and you always want the best available, you’ll only have to wait a bit for the PT-AE4000U.

That’s all for now!

The Panasonic PT-AE3000U has been a hard to find projector lately, so we thought we’d better post that we now have a plentiful amount in stock and ready to ship. Also worth mentioning is the current special running on the AE3000 which you can take advantage of if you buy before the end of May.

In Stock Now! Projector People Special Offer!

Buy a Panasonic PT-AE3000U from ProjectorPeople.com before May 31st and receive the following items FREE with your purchase.

• 25′ HDMI 1.3 cable
• Universal Projector Ceiling Mount
• AVIA II Video Calibration DVD
• PLUS 2-year Limited Warranty (from Panasonic through June 30th)

Shipping charges apply to promotional items. Offer good now through 5/31/2009, or while supplies last. Free cable, mount, and calibration DVD are ProjectorPeople.com only promotions. Lamp warranty is a mail-in rebate from Panasonic that is valid through June 30th, 2009.

Kick back and enjoy your long Memorial Day weekend with extra savings on our most popular home theater projectors. This weekend only, we are serving up these deals:

Deeper Discounts, More Free Stuff

• Sanyo home theater projectors have new lower prices. Get an email quote for your instant coupon savings.
• Epson Home Cinema 6100 – Free 25 ft. HDMI cable
• Epson Home Cinema 6500 UB – Free replacement lamp warranty
• Panasonic PT-AE3000U – Free replacement lamp warranty

Our Memorial Day lamp warranty deal is in addition to our current special of a FREE 25 foot HDMI 1.3 cable, FREE universal projector ceiling mount, and FREE AVIA II video calibration DVD. All but lamp warranty offer good now through 5/31/09, or while supplies last. Lamp warranty offer ends 05/25/09. Shipping charges apply to promotional items.

Deal of the Day Inside Scoop!

We will also be offering a sweet Deal of the Day from Saturday to Monday at midnight. It’s a newly constructed Panasonic PT-AX200U package deal for a great price! This is also in addition to the free AVIA disc.

• Mega-Deal of the Day with a Panasonic PT-AX200U package for just $999! (Deal begins Saturday 12:00am and ends Monday 12:00pm.)

Memorial Day Weekend Only! Deals end May 25th, 2009!

Recently Reduced Sanyo Home Theater!

We have recently improved our already competitive coupon discounts on the three Sanyo models below. But due to manufacturer restrictions, we cannot display our lowest price until our coupon code (SANYOSAVE) is added to your cart. So, click and add these projectors to see the Projector People discount for each of these fine Sanyo home theater models.

• Sanyo PLV-60*
• Sanyo PLV-Z700*
• Sanyo PLV-Z3000*

*Add to cart and use coupon code “SANYOSAVE” to view your discount!

We have already blogged about our 1080p projector shootout and showed some of the photos from the day. Now we are ready with the corresponding video. The video is located on YouTube (and embedded below) and on Vimeo. The Vimeo video may be a little higher quality.

As we already discussed in our blog post a couple weeks ago, each of our six projectors displayed good video. Unlike shootouts three years ago or so, all of the projectors we demoed are bright enough, have good color, and display video with limited artifacts. And all but one of our tested models were designed specifically for the home theater market. We threw in the Optoma TX1080 because it’s a good crossover option for those who want a widescreen business projector that does good video.

So, without further ado, please feel free to check out the video. It’s not fancy, by any stretch, but it does give you a chance to see the models side-by-side. Below are some of the things that the camera may not show exactly as we saw them.

What the Camera Couldn’t See

We wanted to film all five (technically six) projectors at once, playing the same content, since that is one of the most frequent requests. 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.

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 to 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

[ some artifacts are visible from the Vimeo compression. Click here for larger version.

Quick Reference Video Log

Projector order in video : Sanyo PLV-Z700, Sanyo PLV-Z3000, Panasonic PT-AE3000U, Epson Home Cinema 6500 UB, Epson Home Cinema 6100, and Optoma TX1080.

• 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 differences are not very visible here.


• 07:00 – 07:37
  Color contrast mentioned


• 07:42 – 8:30
  Nice action comparison. 120 hz 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.

We finally got a chance to do a shootout with our best selling 1080p projectors, including one we had yet to see in person, the Sanyo PLV-Z3000. The shootout was also filmed, and we will have that video for you soon available now. But, as a preview, we thought we’d also post some of the photos we took to get your gears greased.

• Sanyo PLV-Z700 (1200 lumens, 10000:1 contrast)
• Sanyo PLV-Z3000 (1200 lumens, 65000:1 contrast)
• Panasonic PT-AE3000U (1600 lumens, 60000:1 contrast)
• Epson Home Cinema 6500 UB (1600 lumens, 75000:1 contrast)
• Epson Home Cinema 6100 (1800 lumens, 18000:1 contrast)
• Optoma TX1080 (no photos of this one, but we will have it on video)

Note : These are all 1080p native projectors. Brightness and contrast differ, and only three of them have the 120Hz processor (the Epson HC 6500 UB, Panasonic PT-AE3000U, and the Sanyo PLV-Z3000). Check our projector comparison charts for head-to-head details of projector specs.

Big Dif?

While each of the images below may appear to favor one projector over another, in the actual shootout there was a consensus that there wasn’t a ‘bad’ projector in the bunch. Some – like the Epson 6500UB – had really nice black levels. Other projectors excelled in their processing ability. Still others featured particularly dynamic colors. Below we have some images and some of my personal commentary on what I saw. Others in the demo may have seen differently. I will share any of the other commentary I heard in my notes below the images.

1080p Projector Shootout

One of the limitations of this shootout is the image size. In order to fit them all on our wall at once, we kept the image a little smaller than most aim for in their home theater. We used 2 different HDMI distribution amplifiers to create our image, since our 1:8 HDMI couldn’t power all five on the main wall. We used one BluRay player showing the BluRay version of the movie Fifth Element. We used out-of-the-box settings for each projector, since few customers report taking the time to calibrate their image.

Comparing the (left to right) Sanyo PLV-Z700, Sanyo PLV-Z3000, Panasonic PT-AE3000U, Epson Home Cinema 6500 UB, and Epson Home Cinema 6100.

[ click image for higher res photo on our Flickr page ]

The Sanyo PLV-Z700 (far left) and the Epson Home Cinema 6100 (far right) have lower contrast ratios than the three center home theater projectors. Notice how visible the “black bars” above and below the images are as a guide to determining the projectors ability to produce deep, rich blacks and colors.

[ click image for higher res photo on our Flickr page ]

The three center projectors all feature 120Hz rates. The Panasonic PT-AE3000U, Epson Home Cinema 6500 UB, and the Sanyo PLV-Z3000 absolutely blew away the lower priced projectors in high action scenes. Even in scenes with people walking in the movie Fifth Element the image looked almost 3-D on the center three projectors. The image was truly beautiful. Personally I never would have thought it made such a big difference, but after seeing them head-to-head, I am converted. Hopefully this will be visible on the video – which is coming soon.

Comparing the (left to right) Sanyo PLV-Z700, Sanyo PLV-Z3000, Panasonic PT-AE3000U, Epson Home Cinema 6500 UB, and Epson Home Cinema 6100.

[ click image for higher res photo on our Flickr page ]

A good color comparison shot. All the projectors were set up using out of the box settings. There is still plenty of tweaking that could be done to improve color. But in our out of the box shootout there were some who preferred the color of the Sanyo, some the Panasonic, and some Epson. Viewers also sometimes reported liking the color better in one scene on one projector, and another on a different model. Personally, the color on the Sanyo PLV-Z3000 looks good to me in this photo, but in other scenes both the Panasonic and Epson shined.

[ click image for higher res photo on our Flickr page ]

Here’s another good shot for color comparison. I like the Epson 6500 (second from right) in this image, but all of them look good. Other viewers liked the Panasonic AE3000. The two end projectors (Sanyo PLV-700 -left and Epson HC 6100 – right) both produced very good color too, even though they are a few hundred dollars less.

[ click image for higher res photo on our Flickr page ]

With the lights on, they all look about the same. In fairness to the brighter models, however, these are fairly small images. If we blew up the image a few feet there would probably be a greater difference. In a dark room, the difference wouldn’t be particularly noticable.

Shootout, Round Up

So, in conclusion, all the projectors looked very good. If you bought one of them without seeing another directly next to it, the vast majority of viewers would be completely happy with the image on any of these models. However, if you are picky about your video, then you should invest in one of the 120Hz products. The difference is very noticeable in side by side comparison, and although you may not realize what’s making it happen, the image is going to look much crisper, and nearly three dimensional. It’s worth the extra cash if you have it.

Video of our Shootout Now Online!

There are some artifacts are visible from the Vimeo embedding compression. But you can Click here for larger/less compressed version.

[ some artifacts are visible from the Vimeo compression. Click here for larger version.

In the past four months we’ve seen several new 1080p projectors released with a feature known generically as frame interpolation. The new Epson 7500UB and 6500UB have it, as does the Sanyo Z3000 and the Panasonic AE3000. Epson calls it FineFrame, Sanyo calls it Smooth Motion, and Panasonic calls it Frame Creation. But it is all the same concept: the projector evaluates the differences between individual frames of film or video, and creates interim frames to be inserted between the real frames in the source. The objective is to reduce motion judder and provide a cleaner, more artifact-free viewing of film and video material. Two complaints have been circulating about frame interpolation technology. One is that it can make a movie look more like digital video, something which people are calling, somewhat derisively, the Soap Opera effect. In essence, the complaint is that it makes a film, which has a slightly surreal and sensual quality, look like a CNN Situation Room HD broadcast, which by comparison is hard, cold, clear, and real (sometimes disturbingly real). When James Bond begins to look like Wolf Blitzer, you know you have a problem. The second complaint is that, while frame interpolation can reduce or eliminate much of the film judder we see in movies, it sometimes introduces other artifacts which may be just as problematic. For example, instead of the judder, we may see some ghosting as subjects move across the screen, or some unnatural disintegration of the picture during momentary fast pans of the camera. These complaints are well-founded. Some frame interpolation systems do indeed produce these undesirable side effects. But if it is done well, the picture can be virtually free of artifacts while it retains that mystical film quality. Ideally, what you will see is a clean, stable, but still filmlike image that many will find irresistibly engaging.

When to Use Frame Interpolation

… Among the 1080p projectors that have frame interpolation, the Epson 6500 UB produce a more obvious digital video effect than do either the Panasonic AE3000 or the Sanyo Z3000. Thus, we would not use the 6500 UB’s frame interpolation when viewing regular movies. However, this does not mean that it has no application. For example, if you happen to be a fan of animated films, the digital video effect is irrelevant. The Pixar movie Cars has a reasonable amount of judder and flicker when played at 1080p/24. But when you engage the frame interpolation system on the Epson 6500UB, it has nothing but a beneficial effect on the image. … If you watch a lot of sports in HD on channels broadcasting in 1080i, you may find frame interpolation particularly attractive. For whatever soap opera effects are present in the video system you have, they are irrelevant in sports – you want that maximum reality effect. Of course, Fox Sports, ESPN, and ABC all broadcast in 60p format, so frame interpolation is not needed. But with sports broadcasts in 1080i, it can help.

So as Projector Central sees it, use the Frame Interpolation when watching sports broadcast in 1080i, animated digital films, HD music concerts, but not when watching some regular films – though the degree of video noise can vary by title. There is dissent in the user comments, but then there’s always dissent in the comments! So to read the entire article click here. Its a slightly longer, but easy read.

Art over at Projector Reviews mentioned this in his Epson 6500UB review :

As mentioned above, I consider frame interpolation to be a secondary feature, far less important overall, than black levels, brightness, sharpness, and color accuracy. Most of us never missed it, and, so far, the Epson UBs are part of a very short list of projectors that do support 96 and 120 fps interpolation. In a perfect world, Epson will solve this, and come up with a firmware fix. If they do so, excellent, but even with these issues, my enthusiasm for this projector remains strong.

He also explains with a bit more details what is actually happening with each of the frame modes on the Epson 6500UB. You can read the entire review here. The afformentioned bit is just a few paragraphs up from the bottom of the page above and below the football image.

So that’s a broad overview of the Frame Interpolation for you. We will keep you posted on the issue as the information comes out.

A lot has changed over the course of the year, and just as we have had to adjust, so must prices. Over the past two days we have dropped prices on loads of projectors for business and home theater use. See our list below:

Here is our list of business projector price drops. Product is followed by the amount we slashed off the advertised price on our site.

• ASK Proxima C445 ($200 drop)
• ASK Proxima C445+ ($100 drop)
• BenQ MP730 ($50 drop)
• Casio XJ-S31 ($150 drop)
• Epson PowerLite 77C ($25 drop)
• Epson Powerlite 1705C ($100 drop)
• Epson PowerLite S5 ($24 drop)
• Hitachi CP-X505 ($150 drop)
• Hitachi CP-X807 ($350 drop)
• InFocus IN42 ($300 drop)
• InFocus LP850 ($300 drop)
• Mitsubishi XD430U ($50 drop)
• NEC VT700 ($150 drop)
• NEC VT800 ($50 drop)
• NECNP901W ($100 drop)
• Optoma EP758 ($100 drop)
• Sharp XG-F315X ($200 drop)
• Sanyo PLC-XU56 ($400 drop)

Here is our list of home theater projector price drops. Product is followed by the amount we slashed off the advertised price on our site.

• Optoma DV11 ($100 drop)
• Mitsubishi HC4900 ($200 drop)
• Panasonic PT-AX200U ($50 drop)
• Panasonic PT-AE2000U ($100 drop)

Home Theater Accessory

• DVDO Edge video scaler (use coupon code “DVDO100″)

This morning Panasonic announced their new PT-AE3000U will be priced at just $2,499.

This is a bold and aggressive price point from Panasonic, particularly when you consider that their last home theater 1080p product was considered by many to be the best on the market for the last year. When you factor in the additional features like Lens Memory (makes your screen 2.35:1 CinemaScope with the touch of a button) and the improved 60,000:1 contrast ration (read more about the new features here) this is a remarkable price.

One AV blogger, Duncan Madden at AV Review UK said in his initial write up for the PT-AE3000; “Available this very November, Panny is hush hush about the price, but that flagship moniker should prepare you for the worst.” [complete post ]. And just a day ago we predicted a $3,499 MAP (minimum advertised price) with a lower street price and we said we would keep you updated.

So, as promised, here is your update : with the aggressive pricing coming directly from Panasonic you should expect street prices to stay close to the $2,499 price announced today. There may be dealer incentives as the holidays and Super Bowl draw closer, but dramatic price drops are unlikely in this writers opinion.

Why Go So Low?

Maybe it’s the tough economy. Maybe they are just continuing on their low price entry strategy they started last year when they released the AX200 at $1,299. Or possibly they are just trying to encourage the competition to think of joe-six-pack since its an election year. Whatever the reason, the $2499 MAP on the new PT-AE3000 is sure to be a temptation for shoppers who have been just waiting for the right time to buy a 1080p projector. And that Lens Memory feature is VERY cool.

What About the Panasonic PT-AE2000U

Expect the AE2000U projector to get a little cheaper. It still has an extra warranty and Blockbuster card associated with it that Panasonic has to honor till the end of the month. We did drop our price on it today (you’ll have to add it to cart or request a Quick Quote to see the better price) by a couple hundred bucks, so it’s a few hundred less than the new AE3000 and it will ship today (the AE3000 won’t ship until the end of October).

And what About the Panasonic PT-AX200?

Last year Panasonic blew the doors off the 720p market with their PT-AX200U projector (for home theater and video gaming) in part because if their aggressive price from the get-go of just $1,299. With features like lens shift, zoom, light harmonizer, great 1080p scaling, gaming mode and 2000 lumens of brightness, the AX200U should have been on any perspective buyer’s watch list, and it sold like hot cakes. The AX200 was among ProjectorPeople’s best sellers and should remain a rapid seller with its new $999 price point. Too bad you don’t get that Blockbuster card deal along with it anymore. Oh well, you’ll just have to keep the extra cash in your pocket.

That’s all for now! Come back again soon.

Today at Projector People we had a sneak preview of the new Panasonic PT-AE3000U projector which is expected to ship somewhere between now and the end of October 2008. We had the great honor of hearing a presentation from Tetsuya (Terry) Koyama on the differences between the AE2000U (last years top selling 1080p home theater projector) and the new AE3000U. We took some notes, video, and photographs for our readers.

You can see a spec by spec comparison of four of the newest 1080p projectors to be released soon in our 1080p Projectors Compared post from last month.

Compared : Panasonic PT-AE3000U and Panasonic PT-AE2000U Specs

• New D7 panels
• Sandwiched a new “Pure Contrast Plate” onto LCD panels to stop light leakage
• Doubled the control speed of the dynamic iris mechanism that synchronizes light output to light required by image frame

• New 120Hz drive processor
• Added a “frame creation” drive to fill in the gaps in fast motion, eg. where this is most visible is panning across type (the map), moving cars (the license plates), and a plane flying across the sky (or a football thrown across the field)

• AE3000U can read and playback true HD video in cinemascope format, or 2.35:1 format
• Keeping the projector in the same place, as when installed, but changing the projector format from 16:9 to 2.35:1 means the zoom and focus of the images need to change to appropriately fill the screen
• AE3000U has lens memory to install recall the zoom and focus settings that are best for each format

• Still collaborating with Hollywood colorists at the Panasonic Hollywood Lab to fine tune the color reproduction of the projector to match the original film content
• Improved optical lensing; Panasonic still making their own lenses, but this time in the same factory where they produce the sophisticated lenses for the Leica and Lumix cameras
• Smooth Screen Technology here again
• Second generation Detail Clarity Processor
• Same lamp as AE2000

Panasonic PT-AE3000U in Action Images

Panasonic PT-AE3000U on the left and the AE2000U on the right. (scene from Space Cowboys)

Panasonic brought two 2.35:1 screens to illustrate the very cool new Lens Memory feature.

The new AE3000U does a better job with fast moving images. It is difficult to see in this photo, but the image is clearer while in motion. Note the clarity of the license plate. See video below.

See more Projector People photos

Panasonic PT-AE3000U in Action Videos

Panasonic PT-AE3000U on the left. AE2000U on the right. Note at the end the broader spectrum of white/gray visible on the AE3000U. (Scene from Space Cowboys)

Panasonic PT-AE3000U on the left. AE2000U on the right. Note the clarity in the words in motion on the new AE3000U. This is much clearer in person than it appears in this video.

Again, note the clarity in motion on the AE3000U (left).

See more videos of the AE3000U »

New 1080p Projector Comparison Chart

[ Based on preliminary specs only. ]

* Expect Sanyo to post dramatic improvements to this spec before release date.
** We are trying to confirm this. Sanyo reports the HDMI 1.3b input on their projectors is the same dimension as 1.3a HDMI, but with more pins.

A Big Contrast

Contrast ratios are coming in around the 10,000 to 60,000:1 range. But as the numbers get higher, the specification seems to mean less and less. Back in the day when people wanted to bring their work projectors home on the weekends – with 400:1 contrast ratios – contrast ratios were a serious consideration. But the visible difference between 10,000:1 and 60,000:1 contrast is not nearly as dramatic as it sounds. That is not to say that it doesn’t mean something, at least, but a 10,000:1 projector looks MUCH better than a 400:1 contrast projector. But unless you can make your room nearly black, the difference between 60,000:1 and 10,000:1 is not nearly as noticeable.

More Sizzle for your Nickel

This year there seems to be an emergence of more high-performance HD options around the same prices as some of last year’s entry level products. That’s good news for buyer’s who have been planning to spend around $3,000 based on last year’s prices, since they will get more for their money this time. Here’s a link to a blurb on Gizmodo about the Panasonic PT-AE3000U, dropping prices, and the high quality of this new $3000 projectors.

New 1080p Projectors : Product Photos

These photos were not taken by a professional photographer, as you can clearly see. They were taken by a professional product manager with many years of experience in the audio visual industry, and no natural photographic talent. I would show his photo but he doesn’t photograph well either.

Panasonic PT-AE3000U and the AE2000U Upgrades

Panasonic PT-AE3000U projector

Panasonic PT-AE3000U projector and developers

Sanyo PLV-Z700 projector