I’ve barely heard about the Panasonic PT-AX100U, and here’s a second review of the thing! The last AX100U review said good things about it. What does this one say? Before I get there, let me just remind you that this projector is the successor to the well-received PT-AE900U, a 3LCD 720p projector with lens shift, 2:1 zoom, almost no screen-door effect, and a great picture.

Can anyone do better than that?

Well, Panasonic can. The PT-AX100U has a 6000:1 full on/off contrast ratio, 2000 lumens of ANSI brightness, a dynamic iris, and a 2:1 lens shift. It is significantly brighter than the 900U, with a slightly better contrast ratio. It also accepts a full 1080p/24/60 signal, though of course it has to downconvert it to 720p. So I really have to wonder what use that feature is.

The picture quality is great, of course. And surprisingly, it’s pretty great coming right out of the box. An ISF calibration improved the picture, but only a little! All around, this is an excellent projector, and you’d be happy owning one. Anybody wanna donate me one?

Panasonic PT-AX100U Projector Review

c|net takes a look at the recently released TiVo Series 3 HD PVR. In case you didn’t know, TiVo’s new PVR has two HD tuners, two CableCARD slots, and lots of disk space to record all that HD content. It’s new, it’s cool, and it’s a not-so-cool $800. I dunno. If I could actually use the thing with my digital cable, I’d consider it, even at that price. I currently use a SA8300HD provided by Rogers, and I’m getting tired of its limitations.

But anyway. What did c|net think of the new Series 3 HD PVR? They like the dual tuners, the CableCARD support, the ability to tune into over-the-air (OTA) HD signals (and record them), and of course the famous TiVo interface, which is probably the feature that I wish I had the most.

What didn’t they like? Mostly the cost. Like the the initial price and the on-going monthly fees.

While they give the TiVo a great score of 8.3, they have quite a number of complaints about it. Which is just a little strange.

TiVo Series3 HD DVR Review

The Panasonic PT-AX100U has barely been announced, and here we already have a review. From ProjectorCentral. The AX100 is the successor to the AE900U, a very good projector. The AX100, unlike what I’ve heard previously (and like one of my readers pointed out) actually has a 2:1 zoom lens. This projector boasts a 6000:1 contrast ratio and has 2000 lumens of brightness. And like its predecessor, the AX100 has a 720p resolution and virtually no screen door effect.

So, how does the AX100 do compared to its predecessor?

Strangely, the AX100 has a light sensor, so that it boosts its light output when there is more ambient light, and does the opposite when there is no ambient light, improving the contrast ratio. Uh… I’ve seen this kind of feature before on really really cheap televisions. But okay. As well, the projector accepts 1080p signals, even though it can’t display them. It downscales the video to 720p.

But what about performance? Black levels are a lot better than the previous projector. The picture is sharper too. The AX100’s scaling has improved as well. There is less digital noise, better colour saturation, and the fan noise is acceptable. Overall, the projector is an exceptional successor to the AE900U.

Panasonic PT-AX100U

At the CEDIA expo, lots of 1080p projectors were shown off. For a review, check out this CEDIA 1080p projector page at Projector Reviews. One 1080p projector fighting it out with some of the new ones from Panasonic and Sony is the Optoma HD81. Ultimate AV has recently reviewed Optoma’s HD81 1080p DLP projector. This projector has a retail price of seven grand, and comes with an outboard video processor.

The projector has a manual focus and manual zoom, but no lens shift. That makes placing the projector a bit hard, which I find odd for a $7000 projector. The projector reviewed was actually a pre-production unit, so maybe some of the problems encountered by Mr. Norton will have been fixed in the production run. See the articles for full details, but he had problems like the on-screen menu freezing up, strange video settings, and more.

The projector had some good picture quality points going for it, with great optics. But the auto iris mode seemed to have problems as well. Even with all the problems however, Mr. Norton found that the picture quality was the best of all Optoma projectors he’s seen.

Optoma HD81 1080p DLP Projector

So CEDIA has started and it has started with a loud bang! Some things that have come out so far.

• Sony has a new 1080p projector for under $5k see our previous article on this here
• Wireless HDMI extenders
• TheaterCurve screens!
• new Algolith video processors with the HQV® technology

I still haven’t seen any receivers that can decode DTS-HD or DD+. We’ll be pouring through these announcements over the next week and getting you the news you need to know. So check back here often!

Sony Pearl VPL-VW50 1080p Price
CE Pro § New Products

Let me let you in on a little secret. Pioneer makes plasma displays. They make lots of them, and sell lots of them. And the people that buy them do quite enjoy their plasmas a la Pioneer. Sound and Vision takes a look at Pioneer’s Elite PRO-FHD1 50″ 1080p, and they seem to enjoy this one as well.

Let’s just get one thing out of the way. Yes, yes this plasma really does cost ten grand. But all that cash does get you a 1080p plasma, which is a rarity. Hmm. I think this may even be the first one.

Anyway, if you have $10k lying around, and you want to spend it on a great plasma display, you could just plop it down for this 1080p Pioneer one. Or you could do a lot of research first, and probably still end up with the same display. That’s what happens when you want to spend $10k on a plasma, I guess.

Pioneer Elite PRO-FHD1 50-inch 1080p Plasma Monitor

“Would you like a nondescript beige box or a cool-looking black one sir? Oh, and the contents aren’t too shabby either!”

That about describes Sharp’s XV-Z3000 projector. It’s a 1280 x 768 DLP affair with one heck of a great contrast ratio. And it’s only $3000.

Home Theater Magazine took a look at this projector, and they thought the box was great. Like I said, it has a great contrast ratio - 3000:1. However, the green colour point it a bit off. Processing was good however.

So what does this all mean? It means that maybe this box should be on your list of boxes of audition when you need to buy a front projector box for your home theater.

Sharp XV-Z3000 DLP Projector

Peter Putman, the HDTVexpert, took a look at Mitsubishi’s HC3000 DLP projector. This projector has recently been reduced to $1,999. The lens is a standard 1.3:1 zoom lens. It does have an HDMI input, which is a good thing.

Mr. Putman measured 365 ANSI lumens with BrilliantColor off, and 416 ANSI lumens with it switched on. Peak brightness was “just shy” of 500 lumens. Contrast numbers were 653:1 ANSI and 1177:1 peak.

Enough of technical details, though. How does the picture look? Is this a good projector? Peter says: “The HC3000 may be a bit long in the tooth, but at $2K, it gives the LCD projectors a run for their money. With a quality DVD player and 480p and 7200p sources, you’ll love it. With clean 1080i conversion, you’ll like it even more.”

Mitsubishi HC3000 DLP Projector

Ultimate AV has a review of Toshiba’s TheaterWide 62HM196 HDTV. It’s a rear-projection 1080p DLP design. This set retails for $2,999,99. Or about $48 for each of its 62 diagonal inches. The DMD actually has 960 x 1080 pixels, and it produces the full 1920 x 1080 resolution by offsettingthose pixels. This is a technique HP coined “wobulation”.

I know the question you’re all thinking. This set will not accept 1080p on its HDMI inputs. But this should only be a concern for you if you want to get into 1080p gaming on a PS3, or somesuch. If you will only use this set for mmovies, then you needn’t worry. HD DVD and BD movies are all currently 1080p/24, converted to 1080i, then to 1080p in the television. So for 1080p/24 content, this set will produce a picture just as good as one that does accept 1080p. But what else can this set do?

For that, you’ll have to wait a bit more! Mr. Norton was quite happy with the performance of this set. For the full review, check out the Ultimate AV site, link below.

Toshiba TheaterWide 62HM196 1080p Rear Projection DLP HDTV

We saw the other day that LCoS is making inroads in the HDTV market, thanks probably almost entirely to Sony and JVC for their SXRD and D-ILA products (respectively). In 2001, 1% of the rear-projection microdisplay HDTV’s sold were LCOS. In the second quarter of 2006, that number has jumped to 17%.

Syntax-Brillian is looking for a part of that market come September when they release their Syntax-Brillian 6580iFB03 1920x 1080p 65″ LCoS HDTV. Strangely enough, for a brand new product, this thing doesn’t have an HDMI input. But it does have a DVI/HDCP input that accepts 1080p, which should be good enough. But I’d do some heavy investigating first just to make sure! On the plus side, it includes an ISF calibration, which is unusual and cool at the same time.

This set has something called “exact pixel” which is basically a direct passthrough of the signal to the display, undergoing no processing in the transition. This is something every display should have, and allows an external scaler to do its job more effectively. It should also help eliminate gaming lag.

The reviewer of this set had lots of good things to say, so you should go check out the review at Ultimate AV. But here’s a paragraph to whet your appetite:

It had the most transparent presentation of any microdisplay-based RPTV I’ve seen, in part because it didn’t exhibit any “sugar coating.” Yet the picture was pleasingly bright and vibrant. Post calibration, the peak light output measured 115 foot-Lamberts! The 6580iFB03 is also equipped with the most non-reflective RPTV screen I’ve seen yet, though the Sony’s was also outstanding in that regard. The Brillian’s effective viewing angle is also noticeably wider than any other RPTV I’ve looked at, both vertically and (especially) horizontally.

High praise indeed. The reviewer often compared this set to Sony’s SXRD one, and the Syntax-Brillian came out on top every time. That goes back to the high praise thing again. As a matter of fact, this more expensive set ($8000) is the best RPTV this reviewer has seen.

Great, now I have to add another set to my “must audition if I ever get another RPTV” list.

Syntax-Brillian 6580iFB03 1920x 1080p 65″ LCoS HDTV

Samsung has released theirBD player to the market, and for now it’s the sole standard-bearer for the BD format. Other players from Philips, Pioneer, Panasonic, and Sony are due to arrive in the fall. Mr. Norton from Ultimate AV took a look at Samsung’s offering, and gave it a good thrice-over.

As far as price goes, Mr. Norton does well to point out that Samsung’s not being unreasonable to ask $1000 for a new consumer electronics product. The first VCRs, DVD players, and CD players were more expensive, especially when you take inflation into account.

Something interesting that I haven’t seen reported elsewhere is the fact that the Samsung player will produce no output whatsoever on its component video outputs when a disc with ICT enabled is loaded into the player. This is contrary to the downconversion to 960 x 540 that is supposed to be standard.

Mr. Norton is quite thorough in the evaluation of this player’s features, so if you’re looking into buying this player, you have to read this review. I assume you’ll do that, so I’m just going to skip to the juicy stuff.

The juicy stuff being, of course, his thought on picture quality. And they go something like this. Picture quality on most movies he reviewed was okay - not as bad as many reports led him to believe, but not great either, often falling short of what HDTV is supposed to be. Then he hooked up a 1080p projector (versus the 720p one he’d been using) and the results improved across the board. But still nothing really spectacular. Well, except for Hitch on in 1080p. Which looked very good.

But the really juicy stuff came when he compared the Samsung player to a pre-release Pioneer player.

In every case, the Pioneer produced a more detailed image. The difference was not night and day, but it did make the difference between merely acceptable and superb high definition. While there were a few instances where I felt that the Pioneer might actually have been a little too sharp (it will take test patterns to determine if this was the case), overall it did not appear to be. Rather I was starting to see the same sort of resolution from Blu-ray on the Pioneer that I expect to see from a premium HD format, and which looked like it could, with top grade program material, equal what I’ve seen from HD DVD in image quality.

All in all, though, Mr. Norton was disappointed with with Blu-ray, which seems to the general consensus. Unfortunate for Sony and their fledgling Blu-ray format, things aren’t looking good for them right now.

Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray Disc Player

If you plan to purchase an HD DVD player, a BD player, or a PS3, this HDTV might be of particular interest to you. It’s a 1080p display (using wobulation technology) that has 1080p inputs. Actually it has four. Two HDMI and two Firewire inputs. The WD-57731 DLP HDTV is in Mitsubishi’s 2007 lineup, and Ultimate AV takes a look.

There are some problems with the scaling ability of this set, but the reviewer seems to think that many of us won’t notice and therefore wouldn’t need an external scaler. On the other hand, the set does a lot of things right, and the image quality is quite compelling.

Ultimately, there’s more to this set than I mentioned here, and the reviewer ended up quite enjoying the picture quality of this set. Check out the full review for details.

Mitsubishi WD-57731 DLP Rear Projection TV

The Mitsubishi HC3000 has been on the market for about half a year, but Art Feierman over at ProjectorReviews.com decided to give it the once-over anyway. In the process, he discovered a projector that he really likes. The HC3000 is a Darkchip2 DLP projector with a 1280 x 768 resolution. For an MSRP of $2995, you get a Darkchip2 DLP, 1000 lumens of brightness, a 4000:1 contrast ratio, but no lens shift.

How’s the image quality? Mr. Feierman tweeked the settings of the projector a little bit, which resulted in a nice improvement in image quality. Hmmm… let’s see. What words did he use? Oh yeah! “Truly excellent”. Part of that comes from the fact that the dark levels on this projector are so good for a Darkchip2 device.

Mr. Feierman has done a lot of detailed projector reviews, so if he likes something, I think it’s a good idea to at least take a look for yourself. But first you might want to check out his full review.

Mitsubishi HC3000 Projector Review