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Projector Advice sought
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04-02-2004 4:06pm#1
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You laaacky laaacky B^&$&&£$!
I've got an Ae300 and love it to bits. I bought an AE100 in april 2002 for €2400. Great PJ for the money even then. This was the projector that really opened up the Home-Cinema sub 5000 market. Up till then no manufacturer was doing a decent sub 5000 PJ. Now they're all doing it. 2 issues I had with it were fan noise which while being the quietest on the market at the time was still a little annoying. The other issue was screendoor where you can sometimes make out the pixel structure of the image if you were not sitting far enough back.
Unfortunately my Ae100 developed a fault with a week or two left on the years warrantee. I eventually got an almost full refund with which I purchased an AE300 from Komplett for a bargain €2030. So to cut a long story short you are getting an 'absolute' bargain for €1200. Try and get a half decent 32in Widescreen tv for that!! The benefits of the AE300 over my old Ae100 were fan noise which was so much quieter that I am able to leave the fan on fullmode to enhance cooling and its still quieter than my old AE100. Slightly higher resolution panels but with smoothscreen technology which is a special prism or something that gets rid of visible pixel structure. Thirdly it has an RGB scart socket which meant I was able to connect all my gear up to the PJ using top quality RGB. ie all my gear is connected by RGB scarts to a scart switcher and then via 1 long 10m RGB scart to the PJ.
Now thats the AE300. The AE500 is even better. The fan is supposed to be 2 or 3 times quieter than my AE300 ie virtually silent. It has a scart socket like my AE300. It has much higher resolution panels meaning it can display HiDef material at native resolution ie no up or downscaling (Course we don't have access to much hiDef material in Europe atm)Higher Res panels also mean much more and thus much smaller pixels which reduces screendoor in itself but the AE500 also has smoothscreen aswell meaning you really would need to have the eyes of a hawk and be standing with your nose against the screen to see the pixel structure. It also has a higher contrast ratio meaning the blacks will be more 'black' and less 'grey.
And for €1600!! It would be a bargain for the €2030 I paid for my AE300 10 months ago. At €1600 its a steal! If it was me I'd get the AE500 but believe me you will still be blown away by the Ae300.
Welcome to the world of 'Real' Home Cinema!!
Heres a few pics of my AE300:
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A little background Yank. I am a mammies boy who still lives at home with the parents. I have 3 other brothers who are also mammies boys still living at home with the parents. We have a PJ and two widescreen tellies, on, pretty much all day to cater for the varying tastes of the six people in the house. We also have a PC which is on nearly 24/7. Because of differing work shifts etc there is a period of only about 2 hours when everyone is in bed and everything including lights would be switched off. Taking all that into account, our average bi monthly ESB bill is about €250-285. I have it on authority (The 'oul' dears) that the PJ did not seem to make much, if any impact on the bill. She says it averaged the same amounts long before we got the PJ.
Make of that what you will.:D:D 0 -
The AE500's power consumption is 180W (as far as i can find out, panasonics site only shows the lamp power usage, 130W), & currently 1 unit of electricity (1000W per hour) costs E0.1256, so the AE500 uses (180/1000)*0.1256 = E0.0226 (barely 2 cent) per hour. So if you leave the unit on continuously for the 2 month period (1440 hours or thereabouts) it'll cost you E33.
Bottom line is it's not that significant, the cost of 3 60w bulbs. Actually, as you have to switch off all the 60w bulbs in the room when you use the projecter, things level out quite nicely
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All righty then I'm convinced the AE500 it is then
Still redecorating the living room and going to order this http://www.reidfurniture.ie/WModels/PERA/Promo/ to complement the whole lot.
Now to convince the better half... "No, darling... see it's kinda an investment "
Thanks for the advice Calibos in fact it was seeing your setup the last time you posted that swung me to thinking about projectors at all and esp the AE300 you sure have a sweet setup there!
Can anyone point me where to get decent cables and scart switcher then? Is the line doubler/scaler really important Robbie?0 -
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Oneweb-About €300 I think. I am notorious over at avforums for absolutely throttling my PJs! I (when I say I, I mean myself and three eight foot screen loving brothers aswell, so you can understand how the hours rack up! ).... I average about 9 hours a day on mine. I've raked up about 2500 hours since last May. I've laughed at posts where people say "am I using my PJ too much, I've raked up 800 hours since May! . Of course this is probably why my Ae100 died. (The panels got discoloured). So I never had to change a bulb. The great thing about the Ae300 for me was the quieter fan which meant I could run the fan on high to keep the unit cooler without it being too noisy. My ae100 had well developed panel discolouration at 2500 hours while my Ae300 has none. Fingers crossed! ........Anyway, back to bulb costs. I'm halfway through my bulb life (5000hrs on eco mode, 2000 in full lamp mode which is so close in brightness to eco that I dont think anyone would bother sacreficing(sp?) 3000 hours of lamp life to use fullmode) so my bulb should last in total about 20 months. ie nearly 2 years and remember I use mine at least two or three times as much as the average person. €300 every 20 months or so is to me well worth it to have an 8ft screen!
Bluehair-Go for it. Thats a lovely couch you're getting. That one or one very similar was what I had originally picked for my room too. When I visited with my measuring tape I found it was about an inch too wide for the room!! I had to go with a different one instead. And €900. That reduced from €1,999 is about right too. AE500 for €1600 and couch I really wanted for €999. Jammy B$£%$£%:D
As for needing a scaler/line doubler. Well I don't feel the need for one. All my gear ie the NTl Digital box and the dvd player and the consoles are interlaced. So the PJs internal scaler and de-interlacing do all the work. I think it does a fine job on its own without the need for a prog scan dvd player or external scaler/line doubler for the other stuff. A lot of people think different but its all up to personal preferance, whether you are picky, how keen an eye you have. I did hook up my PC via dvi with all the appropriate software (power dvd, dscaler, powerstrip for custom resolutions etc) which is supposed to be the ultimate scaling/de-interlacing solution. ie your super dooper pc and graphics card do all the scaling and de-interlacing instead of the little custom onboard chip on the PJ. Thing was though that to my eye, the difference in PQ was so marginal that I didn't think it was worth the hassle of a PC or even a more user friendly scaler in a box solution for that matter. SO I would say wait till you have the PJ and your gear hooked up via RGB scart before you decide on whether you feel you need external scalers etc.
As for cables and scart switchers. I'm all for binning the crappy cables that come with gear and buying new quality cables but I'm not all for spending silly money like some are. €30-40 for good ofc fully shielded 1m cables and €70-80 for a 10m one(if you needed one). There were reviews of cables in stuff magazine today. Scart and component cables for stg£240 per metre!!! Come on! Thats taking the p!ss As for switchers. Depends what gear you have and intent to hook up. For instance if you where hooking up a digital tv box, a dvd player with only RGB scart and an xbox. I'd say get the advanced rgb scart lead with optical out for your xbox(which you can hook up to your amp for DD 5.1) and my scart switcher with the dvd player and sky/ntl box hooked up to it aswell via RGB scart. If however you didn't intend hooking up a digital tv box and just had the dvd(prog scan or otherwise) and the xbox connected with component outputs, I'd say buy a component cable for the xbox and a simple 2 input passive manual component switcher ie component cables from xbox and dvd player into simple switcher and a single set of components going to the PJ. As I said it all depends on what gear you have etc. Give us more detail
Robbie- What Sky News TV mush!! Looks fine to my eye! Sure its not as sharp as watching on a 32inch CRT but its 8ft across man!:D I agree analogue tv really looks like mush but I was pleasantly surprised when I got NTL digital in. As I said, Obviously I don't have as critical an eye as some/most people. My advice to bluehair is give interlaced RGB a chance before he makes his mind up. He may have a more critical eye than me and thats fair enough. I just think that a lot of people go on about how progressive this or component that make such a huge differance to their PQ when to my eye these improvements aren't as huge as they are hyped to be and imo aren't always worth the cost or hassle.
I am more than happy with the PQ of my system as it stands and no longer feel the need to go to further expense or hassle.0 -
Originally posted by Calibos
Bluehair-Go for it. Thats a lovely couch you're getting. That one or one very similar was what I had originally picked for my room too. When I visited with my measuring tape I found it was about an inch too wide for the room!! I had to go with a different one instead. And €900. That reduced from €1,999 is about right too. AE500 for €1600 and couch I really wanted for €999. Jammy B$£%$£%
Excellent (rubbing my hands together) Funnily enough just had the measuring tape out and I don't think the 3-seater is gonna work. It does fit its just that to come in and out of the room you'd have to open the door, come in and stand beside the sofa then close the door again before you could go anywhere I thought it's grand but the girlfriend has better ideas So its prob gonna be 2 x 2seaters instead and maybe 1 recliner.Originally posted by Calibos
As for cables and scart switchers. I'm all for binning the crappy cables that come with gear and buying new quality cables but I'm not all for spending silly money like some are. €30-40 for good ofc fully shielded 1m cables and €70-80 for a 10m one(if you needed one). There were reviews of cables in stuff magazine today. Scart and component cables for stg£240 per metre!!! Come on! Thats taking the p!ss As for switchers. Depends what gear you have and intent to hook up. For instance if you where hooking up a digital tv box, a dvd player with only RGB scart and an xbox. I'd say get the advanced rgb scart lead with optical out for your xbox(which you can hook up to your amp for DD 5.1) and my scart switcher with the dvd player and sky/ntl box hooked up to it aswell via RGB scart. If however you didn't intend hooking up a digital tv box and just had the dvd(prog scan or otherwise) and the xbox connected with component outputs, I'd say buy a component cable for the xbox and a simple 2 input passive manual component switcher ie component cables from xbox and dvd player into simple switcher and a single set of components going to the PJ. As I said it all depends on what gear you have etc. Give us more detail
Ok I'm all on board the getting better cables as long as like you say it doesn't get insane. After all there's a couple of grand going into this no point screwing it all with crappy cables.
I have the nice rgb scart cable for the xbox with optical out which currently works pretty well. I also have the dvd feeding s-video to the widescreen telly which is working fine for now.
In an ideal world I'd like to be able to have all the following coming in
DVD, Xbox, Gamecube, NTL Digital plus if poss slots avail for Dreamcast, Snes, Jaguar etc... but the first four are most important.
Also in and ideal world I'd like to able to select any on the above as inputs and switch output between the widescreen 28" telly in the corner or the projector when the mood takes me.
(Unless I'm putting on "Breakfast at Tiffanys" or "Sex in the city" my girlfriend, wonderful as she is, probably will want to use the tv most of the time... Me? I'd have the shaggin projector running full-time )
So any advice on hardware (scart switcher, cables etc) and where to buy would be much appreciated! 0 -
Right ho. I'm on the case!
So its DVD player, xbox, Ntl Digital and Gamecube Right?? Will they be at the other end of the room or the same end as the projector. This will determine the length and cost of the single scart cable going from the switcher to the PJ. As regards the shorter cables connecting your gear to the switchbox. By all means if you have any fully wired (ie RGB) 1m scarts lying around that came with gear, give them a go with the dvd and NTL box. You may not feel the need to replace with more expensive ones. TBH I may not have bothered getting new ones myself only I had modded most of mine over the years to suit different requirements.(ie disabled pins, soldered on phono plugs etc) With the longer ones the extra expense is worthwhile especially for the individually screens cables within the scart as the longer the cable the more prone it would be to picking up noise and interferance without proper shielding. I'd buy RGB cables for the consoles too. Unlike others who hype up the PQ improvement with RGB cables for the consoles, again I thought it was only marginal but having everything including the consoles feeding the PJ in RGB it means you never have to fiddle with changing inputs on the PJ. ie not having to switch from composite to RGB or S-Video to RGB on the PJ remote. Saves a few button presses!
So now you have your RGB cables for your gear and onto the switcher. Mine is called the trilogy3 IIRC. A couple of different companies sell the unit under different brand names. I'll try and track them down tomorrow. It does the business for me. It comes with a remote for switching between inputs, buttons for switching on the facia but it auto switches anyway so I never need to use those. When you turn a device on that device emits a signal on the scart and the switcher automatically switches to the input for that device. When you switch a device off the switcher reverts to the last device used. I find the easiest thing is just to hit off->on on the device you want to use and the switcher switches to it saving you having to bother with the switchers buttons or its remote. ie You have the NTL remote in your hand anyway if your going to watch NTL so you'd just switch NTL box off and back on and the switcher would automatically switch to that input. Might sound involved or complacated but its not.
Now next thing is you would like to hook up all 4 items of gear to both the PJ and the TV at the same time. You'll need an RGB capable switchbox. I'll do a search for one of those too. I was going to get/need one until I decided to move the TV out of the room. You could get a cheap 2way scart splitter from Argos or Maplins etc and it could well do the job. They're only about €10 so its worth a shot. The other option should you feel the cheap splitter is degrading the signal to either the PJ and/or TV is to by a powered version(needs its own power plug) that has booster circuitry that will take the RGB and boost and split it giving a strong RGB signal to both the TV and the PJ. JS electronics do them. As I said I'll do a bit or searching tomorrow. So basically you would have your DVD player, xbox, NTL digital and GC hooked up by RGB scart to the switcher. You would then have a single RGB scart going into the splitter. This would split the RGB signal in two along both scart cables(however long they need to be) one to your RGB scart socket on the PJ and the other to the RGB scart socket on the TV.
What model NTL digital STB do you have? If its the new di300 silver one like mine. You would use the split cable that came with it. The end labled RGB going to the Trilogy switcher and the end labled composite going into your video. Video looks cr*p on the PJ so you would just have a bog standard composite scart going from the vdeo to the composite scart socket on the TV. You wouldn't need or probably want the video connected to the PJ anyway. If you have an older NTL digital box like the di4000 or di4001 with its 2 scart sockets. You would connect the socket labled TV (ie RGB) to the trilogy switcher and the socket labeled VIDEO to the........video!
I hope I'm not scaring you!!:D
This hobby never ends!! For instace I upgraded my amp to a 6.1 Sony 1080. The extra rear speker doesn't make that much of a differance to my ear but the Dolby Pro Logic 2 (DPLII) does. It makes such a differance. It makes your 2 channel sources like your NTL (ie tv programmes) and you Gamecube sound much closer to the Dolby Digital 5.1 of your DVD and Xbox. My next project is to get a universal remote to relace the 3 or 4 currently in use. ie dvd, NTL, Surround amp etc. Philips do a colour touch screen remote foe about €900 called the pronto Pro. Which I wont be getting!! The joys of computing and the internet mean you can get a PDA eg. Dell axim3 etc and some software for €199 and €30 respectively which can emulate 99% of the functionality of the Pronto for a fraction of the cost. I'll get remote control dimmer switches and maybe even an electric screen if I can find one that fits all controlled by a cool colour touch screen remote. Home-Cinema Bliss!! : At the touch of a button the lights dim, the screen rcomes down and the DVD stars. like I said....Bliss!! . Oh and maybe one of those new Hard Drive/DVD recorders!.....See, I told you this hobby is addictive! 0 -
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Originally posted by Calibos
Right ho. I'm on the case!
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I hope I'm not scaring you!!:D
Well.. No but the my initial response to copping the length of the post was "Jebus help me!"
(Boy we're up late too huh? )
Ok firstly many thanks for spending the time looking at my needs I appreciate the advice from someone whos been there, done that
The projector is going to be at the opposite end of the room from everything else so I guess one long RGB cable to that makes sense and I like the idea of saving button presses (too many remotes round here already!) and feeding everything else with RGB scart.
The trilogy3 switcher(or equivalent) sounds the biz. I really like the auto-sense feature of the last unit on it would save a lot of messing around again.
A splitter sounds like a simple solution for the duel tv/projector output. Thinking about it though (while admitedly I know little about this) I might err towards the side of caution with the 'powered' splitter. The signal will have a ways to go to reach the projector and having been split already it'd be a shame to have to worry about the signal degrading over a relatively small part in the grand scheme of things.
The NTL Digital box is an older black pace model with the two scart outputs (one tv, one video so thats simple enough).
The DVD unit is actually the Pioneer NS-DV1 (quite old, one of the first 'all-in-one' systems). Mind you they went quite a bit ott with the specs and I've always been damn pleased with it esp because it came with a touch-screen back-lit programmable remote (or star trek remote as herself likes to call it ). Once I get everything setup I'll spend some time teaching it how to handle everything else. Now all I need is one of those mini-fridges for the beers Can't Wait! Originally posted by Calibos I'll get remote control dimmer switches and maybe even an electric screen if I can find one that fits all controlled by a cool colour touch screen remote. Home-Cinema Bliss!! : At the touch of a button the lights dim, the screen rcomes down and the DVD stars. like I said....Bliss!! . Oh and maybe one of those new Hard Drive/DVD recorders!.....See, I told you this hobby is addictive!
Remote controlled dimmer switchs? Hmmmmm drool.... Don't get me started! Cheers for sourcing the actual hardware I need though looking forward to reading about it tomor 0 -
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Originally posted by Calibos
You said the dvd player/all in one was hooked up to the tv via s-video. Does it have an RGB scart?
Mine is called the trilogy1 actually-Trilogy 1
Heres the Splitter
These may not be the cheapest, just the first link that came up when I googled. I'll do a more comprehensive search tonight after work.
[Edit] Incorrect Links fixed
Ah Cheers Calibos those look like they are exactly what I need. Pretty reasonable prices too. Must shop around for cables in town tomor (any suggestions for that?).
Bad news is though I just found out today I'm being made redundant
kinda knew it was on the horizon but though we were gonna get away with it. So unfortunately all on the back burner till i get a new job... Oh well.... Think I need a treat to cheer myself up.... Screw it.... It's movie night every night in the Bluehair house for now! 0 -
Bluehair-
Don't! Probably better off buying the whole lot including cables from the same company on the internet. Rip Off Ireland and all that! To see what I mean go to thePeats website and have a look at the price they want for the AE200 which is the same generation as the Ae300 with a lower spec. You can get them for sub €1000 in the UK. €1799!!!(any suggestions for that?).:D 600 more then komplett want for the higher spec AE300 and 200 more than komplett want for the brand new super dooper Ae500! :rolleyes:
Sorry to hear about your redundancy btw. Hey, when do you get the redundancy cheque!!
Korg- What do you mean by wide angle. Do you mean the 16:9 or do you mean what I think you mean ie does the picture degrade if you sit off axis (off to the side) to the screen. In answer I'm not exactly sure. My screen is the full width of the room so I cant get off axis. I can look in through the door but the angle is fairly tight. Doesn't look as bright as head on but almost. If I could remain the same distance of to the side but farther back(Cant see through the door then) I imagine the decrease in brightness would be a lot less, negligable in other words.Its certainly nothing like the reduction in brightness and contrast you get if you move off axis with regard to a RPTV (Rear projection Television)
With regard to screen width given your 96in (8ft) throw you are almost correct. They are using a new projector calculator over at projectorcentral.com and if I'm reading it right for the AE500/300/200/100 on maximum zoom you could have a max screen size of 70in wide 39in tall with a diagonal of 80in. (mine is 80x45 Diag92in) I take it you have a 32 WS telly? That screen is going to be over 4-5 times the surface area of your TV. Before I got the PJ the family weren't convinced and couldn't visualise the screen area's I was talking about. I marked out the area of the 32in telly on the floor and said "now thats our tv screen" Then I marked out the area of the PJ screen with the 32in marked off in the corner of that area. "Now I said thats how the PJ screen compares."...."Holy Sh!t!!"
The more important issue for you with this screen size is the distance you will be sitting back from the screen. From experience with my AE300 I would say you need to be sitting about 1.7-1.8 your screen width back from the screen to get a pleasing image. So if you had an AE300 with its particular pixel size and smoothscreen. At 90-96in back (assuming your couch would be against the opposite wall to the screen under the PJ) your Screen width ratio for your 70in wide screen would be 1.29. To close for comfort IMO. You could make your screen smaller but ya dont wanna do that!! With an AE500 with its much increased resolution and thus smaller pixels and smoothscreen I would imagine the acceptable screen width ratio would be reduced ie it could in the 1.25-1.5 range meaning that your couch at 90-96in away from that 70in screen would be in the sweet spot. I'll check over at the Yank avsforum and see if I can find out if they have established the acceptable scrW ratio for the AE500.
Of course the other option are DLP projectors which have much smaller pixels for any given resolution compared to LCD's(ie meaning closer acceptable ScrW ratio's). They also usually offer improved contrast over LCD models. The problem with DLP's though is that many of the lower end models in the same price range as the popular LCD's can suffer from what is called the Rainbow effect. Well when I say that, its the viewer that may suffer it. Not everyone(maybe even a minority) suffers from rainbows and their associated headaches even on the lower end DLP's but some do. It manafests itself as a cloured halo around objects on screen. If you do happen to suffer from rainbows then the higher end DLP's are usually much better at reducing or eliminating this effect but they do cost thousands more. So to you I would say, try and demo a few DLP's(not easy in this Home-Cinema backward country!) to see if you suffer rainbows. If you don't then buy a DLP. If you do and can afford it buy a higher priced DLP. If you do and dont want to spend that much buy the AE500 or comparable LCD. As I said if going with an AE500 or similar then either you find your 1.29 ScrWratio acceptable or you would reduce the screen size until it brings your ScrW ratio into an acceptable range.
As to your last question. AFAIK the AE series are probably the shortest throw around.0 -
Originally posted by Korg
So the front of the projecter would be only 90-96 inches from the screen, & projecters with a throw ratio of 1 seem to be thin on the ground.
Try projectorcentral's throw calculator to see how much of a screen you can get in your room. here
With that much room to work with you're better off with a telly really. You've got to account for projector size and seating. Are you going to be sitting behind this projector or in between projector and screen? Also a throw ratio of 1 is very tight so you won't really be able to see the projector spread it's wings without some more distance between the screen.
BTW. Calibos, I thought you'd gone awol. Or have you got something against students? 0 -
In fairness Civil, A tv will take up a hell of a lot more space than a PJ. ie typical 32in or 36in telly would take up say 3x2= 6 sq feet.(tellies of this size are often almost as deep as they are wide). An Lcd/DLP PJ which most these days have a footprint of less than an A4 sheet of paper can go up on a shelf over his head and thus not take up any floor space. He can have the couch against the opposite wall to his screen. Neither would a screen take up any floorspace obviously. One thing I only just thought of would be that assuming he wanted the largest possible screen size thus necessitating the PJ being as far back as possible he should probably go for a model that exhausts/vents its hot air out the sides of the unit so that he can mount the PJ almost flush with the wall. I think the Sanyo Z2 which is comparable to the AE500 vents to the side.
Of course in saying all that I think re-arranging the room so that the PJ projects the length of the room rather than the width would be a much better arrangement. He gets a bigger screen, he can sit farther back meaning smoother image. TBH I reckon thats worth sacreficing some stereo image for.
??????BTW. Calibos, I thought you'd gone awol. Or have you got something against students?
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Of course in saying all that I think re-arranging the room so that the PJ projects the length of the room rather than the width would be a much better arrangement. He gets a bigger screen, he can sit farther back meaning smoother image. TBH I reckon thats worth sacreficing some stereo image for. aye agreed, with the projecter on a short wall it would fill the other wall. So it's either the tv image or the stereo image. My own preference is sound first, hell maybe i'll get a projecter anyway & suffer the soundstage being rotated 90degrees to the right while watching it 0
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