Projector Reviews

The PT-AE2000U will accept a 1080p/24 source. It adds three repeated (not interpolated) frames to each original frame for a display frame rate of 96 frames per second.

The projector’s backlit, learning remote is excellent. Its only downsides are that it cannot select inputs directly and has a default (reset) button. The latter feature does not belong on a remote. It’s too easy to push it inadvertently.

Panasonic’s Smooth Screen technology is designed to reduce the LCD screen-door effect without softening the image. It works, although you could argue (depending on screen size and viewing distance) that a visible pixel structure is no longer a serious issue in a 1080p projector—even an LCD.

Performance
While the PT-AE2000U can’t compete in light output with a flat-panel plasma or LCD (few projectors can), it will produce a bright, punchy image on a screen of moderate size. I don’t recommend a screen larger than 84 inches wide (about 96 inches diagonal) if you want a properly calibrated picture that’s comparable in brightness to what you’ll see in the average movie theater.

Pre-calibration, the Panasonic’s picture modes varied widely in how well they complied with the D65 color standard. Color1 was the best, Dynamic the worst. I calibrated around the Color1 mode and used that for all of my viewing and testing.

Properly adjusted, the Panasonic produces an impressive picture. Its resolution on real program material is excellent, even with the Smooth Screen feature that slightly softens the visibility of individual pixels when you inspect the image from close up. The Detail Clarity control, the sort of enhancement I rarely recommend, actually does increase the subjective resolution without adding visible artifacts or making the picture look artificially sharpened.

After calibration, the Panasonic’s colors were never less than convincingly real—except where there was an obvious decision by a filmmaker to alter them. Fleshtones were right. Green and red were a little oversaturated in Color1 but never unnatural or cartoonish. The Blu-ray Disc Over America offers all the varieties of green you can imagine, none of them creatively enhanced. Here and elsewhere, the Panasonic easily passed the believability test.

But I did spot one downside: a visible redness at the leading edge of fast-moving objects, suggesting different response times for the set’s primary colors. But I didn’t see this often, and mainly on movement of white and near-white objects set against a solid black background.

The elephant in the room, of course, is black level. Does the Panasonic have what it takes here? The answer is yes, as long as you engage the dynamic iris. Without it, the set’s black level doubles, turning it into a respectable, but not special, LCD projector.

It’s simply in the nature of LCD that it takes features like a dynamic iris to make it competitive with projectors that use other imaging technologies, particularly DLP. With Panasonic’s dynamic iris in play, the PT-AE2000U can produce a black level and shadow detail that are deep and rich enough to keep you engaged in whatever you’re watching.

But that’s not to say it has better blacks than some of its competition. Really dark scenes look better on, say, either of JVC’s current projectors (the DLA-HD1 and the DLA-HD100, plus their DLA-RS1 and DLA-RS2 clones), neither of which uses a dynamic iris of any sort, or the Sony VPL-VW60, which does. But these LCOS designs cost multiples of the Panasonic’s price. While the PT-AE2000U doesn’t quite escape a mild case of the gray fog that has relegated most LCD home projectors to the budget category, it was rare and limited to the darkest scenes, such as the opening below-deck sequence in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. The Panasonic performed respectably here; it just didn’t knock me out the way a (very) few other projectors can.

But when I watched the recent Blu-ray release of Crimson Tide, the combination of the Panasonic and this movie made a strong case for a good home theater projection system. I’ve been waiting years for a dynamite transfer of this movie; the DVD version is riddled with edge enhancement to the point of being unwatchable. But the BD version is something else. The Panasonic didn’t miss a thing on the dark scenes that dominate much of this film (most of them typical dark scenes with some contrasting elements rather than the less common, super-dark ones). The colors, ranging from natural with nearly ideal fleshtones to scenes saturated by red or multicolored atmospheric lighting, were solid. And no details were shortchanged.

Even though the Panasonic falls into the near-economy category as projectors go, nothing about it screams “budget.” Set it up properly, calibrate it, and don’t try to push the envelope on screen size, and this Panasonic will deliver.

Highlights
Good black-level performance (with dynamic iris)
Natural color and crisp detail
Good brightness—but not on a JumboTron-sized screen