Panasonic PT-AE3000 NEW Projector and DVD performance

[Ron Walker]

I just updated to the new Panasonic PT-AE3000 Projector and am blown away by the quality of Blu-Rays on this 1080P projector. However I get the feeling that my older DVD's don't look as good as they used to on my old Sanyo WXGA 720P projector. This could be just a result of the Blu-Rays looking so good the the DVD's just pail in comparison but I'm having a hard time buying it. Does anyone know of any reason why DVD's would look worse because of the upscaling involved with 1080P? Also, has anyone else updated from another front projector to this one and noticed a difference in their DVD catalog. My old projector is "dead" or I'd just compare the two. I can't imagine having to replace all of my DVD's with Blu-Rays.

[Beta Man]

Not sure, because I'm not really familiar with either model, but your previous 720p projector may have had better color saturation/contrast etc.....

[kpkelley]

I imagine the sharpness of the Panasonic is greater than your previous projector, to the point that you notice flaws that your other projector couldn't project.

If you watch enough dvds, you may want to invest in a dedicated dvd upconverter which may do a better job than your current player.

Also, what data from the dvd's are you sending to the player? 480P or 1080P? It could be that the panasonic doesn't do as good a job upconverting the image to 1080P from a lower resolution source than your previous player did upconverting to 720P. If you player is converting to 1080p output on dvds, then this would be moot.

[Oddiophile]

What DVD player are using?

Is your DVD player outputting 480i/p or is it upscaling?

If your DVD player is upscaling to 720p for your old projector, on the AE3000 you will be scaling the image twice. 480i to 720p in the DVD player, and 720p to 1080p in the AE3000. You should try leaving the DVD player on 480i and let the AE3000 scale the image to 1080P and then try switching the player to scale to 1080p and see which one looks better.

[Ron Walker]

Originally Posted by Oddiophile

What DVD player are using?

Is your DVD player outputting 480i/p or is it upscaling?

If your DVD player is upscaling to 720p for your old projector, on the AE3000 you will be scaling the image twice. 480i to 720p in the DVD player, and 720p to 1080p in the AE3000. You should try leaving the DVD player on 480i and let the AE3000 scale the image to 1080P and then try switching the player to scale to 1080p and see which one looks better.

What you say is interesting.

I'm using a Philips BDP7200 player.

As I remember (because of all the stop copy rules) the old projector would only accept a 480i input (no hdmi plug) from the Blu-Ray player and it really upset me at the time as I couldn't gt the full 720p projection output.

With the new projector I have the player set to auto as this was the first setting that I was able to get DTS-HD pure audio through the hdmi cable and into the receiver. I just left it there as everything appeared to be working correctly. The player says it will up-convert DVD video to 1080p via hdmi but I really have no idea what is going on when I play a dvd. I'll have to play around with the output of the player and see what I can get.

Thanks for the insight.

[Ron Walker]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

Not sure, because I'm not really familiar with either model, but your previous 720p projector may have had better color saturation/contrast etc.....

I don't think so. This is a definite sharpness issue. If anything the new projector has better color/contrast, at least when watching Blu-Ray.

[Ron Walker]

Originally Posted by kpkelley

I imagine the sharpness of the Panasonic is greater than your previous projector, to the point that you notice flaws that your other projector couldn't project.

If you watch enough dvds, you may want to invest in a dedicated dvd upconverter which may do a better job than your current player.

Also, what data from the dvd's are you sending to the player? 480P or 1080P? It could be that the panasonic doesn't do as good a job upconverting the image to 1080P from a lower resolution source than your previous player did upconverting to 720P. If you player is converting to 1080p output on dvds, then this would be moot.

The Panasonic is indeed sharper as playback of Blu-Ray's will attest. Since the old projector was 720p and the new one is 1080p, I would assume (and I know what that means ) that all of the information would be available to both projectors and that neither would reproduce an image of the dvd sharper then the other. I certainly wouldn't expect the higher definition projector to look worse, but perhaps my thinking is flawed in this.

Would a dedicated dvd up-converter do a better job then the ones in the player or projector? If so, do you have a ballpark as to cost? I'm wondering if a $1K 720p projector might be warranted for dvd only playback? Or perhaps starting another complete collection is in order. I was planing on duplicating (yet again) my favorite films, but there are a lot I have that are just not worth the upgrade.

[Oddiophile]

Originally Posted by Ron Walker

What you say is interesting.

I'm using a Philips BDP7200 player.

As I remember (because of all the stop copy rules) the old projector would only accept a 480i input (no hdmi plug) from the Blu-Ray player and it really upset me at the time as I couldn't gt the full 720p projection output.

With the new projector I have the player set to auto as this was the first setting that I was able to get DTS-HD pure audio through the hdmi cable and into the receiver. I just left it there as everything appeared to be working correctly. The player says it will up-convert DVD video to 1080p via hdmi but I really have no idea what is going on when I play a dvd. I'll have to play around with the output of the player and see what I can get.

Thanks for the insight.

If you play a DVD, then go into the menu's on the AE3000, on one of the screens it should tell you what the resolution of the source is the Projector is displaying.

[Oddiophile]

Originally Posted by Ron Walker

The Panasonic is indeed sharper as playback of Blu-Ray's will attest. Since the old projector was 720p and the new one is 1080p, I would assume (and I know what that means ) that all of the information would be available to both projectors and that neither would reproduce an image of the dvd sharper then the other. I certainly wouldn't expect the higher definition projector to look worse, but perhaps my thinking is flawed in this.

Would a dedicated dvd up-converter do a better job then the ones in the player or projector? If so, do you have a ballpark as to cost? I'm wondering if a $1K 720p projector might be warranted for dvd only playback? Or perhaps starting another complete collection is in order. I was planing on duplicating (yet again) my favorite films, but there are a lot I have that are just not worth the upgrade.

My guess would be the AE3000 is doing a poor job scaling your DVD's to 1080p. If I were you I would look into getting a DVDO Edge video processor. The EDGE is a stand alone video scalier that will scale all content to the resolution of your display and do a better job then pretty much any display or up converting DVD player on the market can do. They retail for $799 but can be found for less, the EDGE is based off the DVDO VP50pro which retails for $3500 so your getting a kick ass piece of gear for only $800. The VP50pro is aimed at enthusiasts and the EDGE at average consumers.

You also may want to look at the scaling options available in the AE3000's menus that may help improve your DVD's.

WWW.DVDO.com


EDIT:
Another option if you do not want to go with an external video scalier, would be a DVD player with better video scaling abilities then your projector. OPPO's DV-983H is considered one of the best DVD players you could buy for under a grand and is $399 as I recall. The DV-983H uses the same scaling chip as the DVDO edge but the OPPO will only scale it's own source unlike the EDGE that will do every source you connect to it (DVD, Cable, Satellite, etc.). The DV-983H has been discontented by OPPO but they can still be found from dealers. The DV-983H is being replaced by OPPO's new Blu-Ray player the BDP-83 which is basically the DV-983H but with Blu-Ray capability's.

www.oppo.com

Which way to go IMO would be how much 1080 content do you watch on your projector?

If over 50% of what you watch is not 1080p content I would consider the EDGE. If you mostly watch 1080p content and some 480/720 here and there, then I would consider an OPPO. But remember any resolution you send to your display that is not 1920X1080 your display will scale up to it's resolution of 1920X1080 and the EDGE will do a better job of it then your display. I also like that the EDGE will let you calibrate each input separately so you can run test patterns on each one of your sources and calibrate each source to your display to get the maximum video quality out of each source component.

[Ron Walker]

I did find a button on the front of my player that sets the output and I do believe that I see a noticeable improvement when set to 480p. I am not convinced that it is as good as it was before, but (with a glass of wine) it is good enough.

I had a gut feeling that good decoding would not come cheap but I also have the gut feeling that any amount of electronic manipulation will never get the DVD's to look anything like the Blu-Rays. I'm thinking the money would be better spent replacing the films I really love. Since I started collecting I have libraries containing reel-to-reel, Betamax, VHS, Laserdisc, and now DVD's which finally looked "good enough". Oh well, I guess technology will force me into yet another collection. The DVD's look good enough for most of the films, but I will replace all the ones I really enjoy with Blu-Rays.

I do appreciate all of the input, thanks.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by Ron Walker

I also have the gut feeling that any amount of electronic manipulation will never get the DVD's to look anything like the Blu-Rays. I'm thinking the money would be better spent replacing the films I really love.

You are 100% correct there.

[ryoohki]

Originally Posted by Ron Walker

I did find a button on the front of my player that sets the output and I do believe that I see a noticeable improvement when set to 480p. I am not convinced that it is as good as it was before, but (with a glass of wine) it is good enough.

I had a gut feeling that good decoding would not come cheap but I also have the gut feeling that any amount of electronic manipulation will never get the DVD's to look anything like the Blu-Rays. I'm thinking the money would be better spent replacing the films I really love. Since I started collecting I have libraries containing reel-to-reel, Betamax, VHS, Laserdisc, and now DVD's which finally looked "good enough". Oh well, I guess technology will force me into yet another collection. The DVD's look good enough for most of the films, but I will replace all the ones I really enjoy with Blu-Rays.

I do appreciate all of the input, thanks.

Well you can't created what's not there.

Different upscaling have different outcome. Some smooth edge to no end, some add SharpnessMask to the pictures, some are very bad at d'interlacing etc etc. There's so many issue that a 480i encode can have, like really bad flagging (Fox TV show are notorious for that on DVD)

[kpkelley]

Originally Posted by Ron Walker

I'm using a Philips BDP7200 player.

You should check out the owner's thread for that player to see how well the dvd upconversion works as well as the proper settings for the player. Once that is done, you should be able to make some minor adjustments, if any, so that your dvd's look better than they did on the other projector.

Phillips BDP7200 Owner's Thread

If the upconverter in this player isn't up to snuff, then the oppo is a very good option. I'm not familiar with the upconvert abilities of the projector, but it should be a quick enough check to attach an old dvd player to your receiver and allow the projector to upconvert the signal.

Good luck and enjoy your new toy

[kefrank]

Originally Posted by Ron Walker

The Panasonic is indeed sharper as playback of Blu-Ray's will attest. Since the old projector was 720p and the new one is 1080p, I would assume (and I know what that means ) that all of the information would be available to both projectors and that neither would reproduce an image of the dvd sharper then the other. I certainly wouldn't expect the higher definition projector to look worse, but perhaps my thinking is flawed in this.

I know this is a somewhat old thread, but I thought I'd jump in and say that your thinking is somewhat flawed on this.

In general, the more you blow up an image, the more flaws in the source are visible and the more artifacts you introduce. There's an easy, if not entirely relevant way to see what I mean. Open up a digital photo you've taken in the image editor of your choice. Crop an interesting 720x480 section of the photo. Then, change the size of that cropped section to 1280x720. Change the size of the original cropped section again, this time to 1920x1080. Compare both blown-up images and see which one seems more pleasing to the eye. Obviously, these aren't moving images and the "upconversion" algorithm being used probably isn't as sophisticated as what is in most consumer electronics, but you get the idea.

The ideal way to watch a standard DVD is on a 480p native display. In my experience, a 720p display is sort of the "sweet spot" between the advantages of added pseudo-detail and the disadvantages of artifacts and flaw visibility that results from upconversion. Watching a DVD on a 1080p display is generally too heavy on the upconverting disadvantages, especially when talking about front projectors. I prefer to watch DVDs on my 37" 720p LCD rather than my 1080p front projector, unless the DVD has an absolutely stellar transfer.

[Ron Walker]

That makes sense.

I have found that the quality of transfers (encoding) on my DVD's stands out much more then before. Bad ones look worse and the best ones look about the same.

One thing I have found, if I plan to watch both DVD's and Blu-Rays in the same session, watch the DVD's first. Any DVD after a Blu-Ray just looks bad.

[Travis]

Good brings out the worst. Equipment and sources need to match. Upscaling and converting images aside, There is nothing like something good to bring out the worst in something else.

I found when I switched from a tube to a 720p LCD TV, some DVDs looked terrible, the good TV brought out the worst in the lower quality DVDs. Also 10 years ago, when I got my Marantz AVR and B&W speakers some CDs sounnded like crap. Really was easy to pick out the low quality transfers.

Even a good CD, something with brass, strings or a high pitched vocalist, can make a stereo (not mine) really sound terrible. Nothing like a TAS CD to bring out the worst in a system. In this case, nothing like an excellent 1080p PJ to bring out the worst in a DVD.

I've been looking to get a projector. Was leaning towards 1080p. Since I have a large DVD collection and a small Blu-ray collection, and I still want to watch the DVDs, I am now leaning towards 720p. Also my screen may only be 8' wide, so the 720p to 1080p difference may be negligible.

Anyone now a great 720p projector with excellent black levels (leaning towards DLP), and color (want realistic skin tones)? Will watch DVDs and Blu-ray.

[Ron Walker]

I'd go for the 1080P. The difference in Blu-Ray is unbelievable. Most of my complaining is just that. The DVD's are perfectly watchable but as mentioned above, there are good ones and bad ones. The bad not as noticeable on 720P projection. Also, since your only blowing up eight feet, the bad probably won't look as bad. (If that makes any sense.)

[Travis]

Originally Posted by Ron Walker

I'd go for the 1080P. The difference in Blu-Ray is unbelievable. Most of my complaining is just that. The DVD's are perfectly watchable but as mentioned above, there are good ones and bad ones. The bad not as noticeable on 720P projection. Also, since your only blowing up eight feet, the bad probably won't look as bad. (If that makes any sense.)

Makes sense.

Another reason for 720p is I hope to be all in at 2,000US$ after PJ, screen (don't many people underestimate the role of a good screen and it's ability in making a beautiful picture?), cable(important too, not radio shack stuff, good stuff) and ceiling mount.

If I go for 1080p, I may have to hang a bed sheet (wish all of ours weren't plaid ), buy a HDMI cable from the dollar store, and ask my wife to hold the projector up everytime I watch a movie.

I believe there is a difference for Blu-ray at 1080p and 720p. But since 8 feet is relatively small for a screen, will the diffference be there?

I know its probably apples and oranges, but I got a 32" 720p TV because at that size, 32", 1080p isn't much different (Also I bougt a Toshiba REGZA, not a ViewSonic, BenQ,Vizio, or Chimei. As we all know, many other things other than rez make or break the picture quality). Also at the time of purchase, there weren't (m)any 1080p 32" LCDs.

I've talked myself into it, I want a great 720p, a great screen, great HDMI cable and a wobbly ceiling mount for 2,00US$.

[jck]

Ron, I noticed that you used to use a Sanyo PLV-70 and in one of your previous posts you were worried about the light output of the Panasonic with a 20' screen. Has this turned out to be a problem? I have a Sanyo PLV-70 and I use an 11' diag screen in a dark room. I've been waiting for a 1080p projector with 2000+ Lumens, but there aren't many available at a reasonable price. If the Panasonic is bright enough on a 20' screen it should be fine for me. Do you use a high gain screen? I've gone through 4 lamps in the Sanyo in probably 2000 hours and I'm tired of replacing lamps in the thing. Even though the Sanyo is rated at 2000 Lum's, it probably only operates at full brightness for about the first 10 minutes and then it's all downhill from there. If the Panasonic can cool the lamp better it may same me some money over time. I'm interested to hear any comparisons you can offer between the 2 projectors; I'm sure the resolution is better, but what about color, brightness, etc.. BTW, I did read your comments about playing your old dvd's and that won't be a concern for me. Thanks in advance!

[Ron Walker]

Originally Posted by jck

Ron, I noticed that you used to use a Sanyo PLV-70 and in one of your previous posts you were worried about the light output of the Panasonic with a 20' screen. Has this turned out to be a problem? I have a Sanyo PLV-70 and I use an 11' diag screen in a dark room. I've been waiting for a 1080p projector with 2000+ Lumens, but there aren't many available at a reasonable price. If the Panasonic is bright enough on a 20' screen it should be fine for me. Do you use a high gain screen? I've gone through 4 lamps in the Sanyo in probably 2000 hours and I'm tired of replacing lamps in the thing. Even though the Sanyo is rated at 2000 Lum's, it probably only operates at full brightness for about the first 10 minutes and then it's all downhill from there. If the Panasonic can cool the lamp better it may same me some money over time. I'm interested to hear any comparisons you can offer between the 2 projectors; I'm sure the resolution is better, but what about color, brightness, etc.. BTW, I did read your comments about playing your old dvd's and that won't be a concern for me. Thanks in advance!

I don't think you will have any complaints especially with an 11 foot screen. The Panasonic is plenty bright. Brightness was my biggest worry when I made the switch as I really didn't want to go less then 2000 lumen's. This worry was unfounded. I have even been operating in the low power brightness mode with the iris on. This is the first projector I've ever had with auto iris and at first I didn't know what to think. Darker scenes are darker and things like white titles appear dull when the picture itself is night or very dark. After just a little while I realized that I liked it a lot as it looks much more like a film projection. The opening of "Prince Caspian" is a perfect example. When the group enters Narnia, the impact of the brilliant and colorful sharp picture on the beach takes ones breath away! The "price of admission" is worth it for that one Blu-Ray alone. I plan on running in the low power mode until I notice darkening, then switch to high brightness. However, if I have anyone over, high brightness is automatic. All in all, except for projection of DVD's, the new Panasonic is better in every department then the old Sanyo. Hopefully bulb life will be better as well.