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| Personal Experience |
I purchased the PT-L500U about a month ago, in large part due to it's strong reviews on this website, so I'd like to put something back into this forum. I'll start off by saying that overall I'm happy with my purchase. A 1280 X 720 rez at 850 lum at this price is a great deal. But there are several major issues that most of the other reviews on this site don't cover. The first is setup. I know that they've added the lens shift feature on the 700 and now I know why. It took a bit of creativity and several trips to Home Depot to rig my celing mount so that I could get the unit in the right spot. The 500 comes with keystone correction but it reduces the picture quality so positioning is important. The second issue is verical banding. It's beyond belief that the other reviews on this site don't cover the VB issue in more detail. Perhaps people are reluctant to discuss deficeincies after spending a considerable amount of money. I'll say this... VB is present...period. It doesn't matter where or when you bought it, it's there. Finding Nemo is particularly annoying because you can see the VB against the consistent light blue background. Outdoor scenes showing the sky, blue or cloudy, also bring out the VB. The good news is that there are a few things you can do to improve or fix the probelm. The first is the flicker tweak. This reduces the problem somewhat. In case you're wondering, I'm using a good quality component connection with a non-progressive scan dvd player. This leads me to the second fix, using a DVI connection. This will supposedly fix the vertical banding problem completely. Since I viewed this projector at two different stores using a DVI connection and saw no VB, I beleive it. The problem is that the purchase of a new dvd player and the DVI cable puts this projector in a different price bracket. I will admit however that I may have over researched this purchase. My wife, for example, thinks the picture is absolutely perfect. And it generates a huge wow factor from everyone we've shown it to. And at this price you will not find another projector with such great specs. So in summary, if you can deal with the setup and VB issues, or already have a DVI connection, this is a fantastic projector. If not, I'd suggest looking at a DLP model. Any by the way, the Sanyo PLV-Z2 and the new Panasonic 700 both suffer from the same VB issue.
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| Problems |
difficult setup
vertical banding |
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