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PT-AE700U Widescreen High-Definition Home Cinema Projector (discontinued)

PT-AE700U Widescreen High-Definition Home Cinema Projector

Entered CNET Catalog: 11/10/2004

SKU: PT-AE700U

Manufacturer: Panasonic

Manufacturer description

The PT-AE700U is the most impressive home cinema projector ever from Panasonic. Compact enough to sit on a bookshelf, it is packed with advanced features designed to bring you a whole new level of home theater enjoyment. Dynamic contrast is now 2000: 1, by far the best in its class, so the picture is sharp and clear even in a well-lit room. New integrated cinema quality circuitry includes a Dynamic Iris optical system that constantly adjusts the brightness and gamma characteristics in real time, so the picture is always optimal and transitions betweens scenes are more natural. An innovative color correction system - developed after consultation with top Hollywood colorist David Bernstein 1 - incorporates Cinema Color Management technology to ensure faithful color reproduction. This cinema-quality integrated circuitry brings you on-screen colors just as you would see them in a movie theater. And the PT-AE700U comes with advanced Smooth Screen technology that effectively eliminates the typical "screen door" effect, so the images you see on the screen are natural and lifelike.

User opinions

Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

User Rating: 9/10

Best at the time, 900U and 100U are even better.

Pros: Great picture, quiet

Cons: Touchy lens shift wand

Review: I installed this projector in my house before selling it (the house) as an upgrade to the well used Sanyo XP21N I had before. The panasonic was plenty bright, and the picture was amazing, with no screen door. A very slight amount of vertical banding was evident, but the Sanyo had it too and it's common among LCD technology (mostly seen in red). You want a 100" picture for less than $20k, nothing will be perfect. But this unit, at the time it was released, was as close to perfect as you could reasonably buy.

User Rating: 3/10

Awlful Bulb Life

Pros: Great Picture

Cons: Expensive Frequent Bulb Replacement

Review: I got 695 hours on low power(extended life) with fan on high. Its suppose to be 3000. Bulb dims with use. While picture is excellant and far better than expected , be ready to pay thru the nose for constant bulb replacement.(Typically $300) Wait until they fix their bulb problem.before buying.

User Rating: 3/10

Short bulb life

Pros: Great Machine but....

Cons: Short bulb life

Review: Bulb was supposed to last 3000 hours in economy mode. I figure I got about 1100 hours.
It cost me $427 dollars plus over 100 miles of
driving to get it fixed. Great repair crew in El Cajon Calif.

User Rating: 9/10

Superb LCD Projector. High Quality. Lots of Features

Pros: Lens shift joystick. Good zoom range. Very good Contrast. True 1280 x 720 HD Resolution. Quiet. Love the aspect feature. Ease of use. Very good picture right out of the box. Remote control.

Cons: Brightness could be better. In a dark or dim room the brightness is very good. a small amount of ambient light is not noticable, but if outside light comes in it will be quite noticable. LAMP LIFE

Review: After reading many reviews here and on Proj. Central, I decided that the PT-AE700U was the projector for me. I was not disapointed. I have Dish Network HDTV and the HD channels (I wish there were more) are extremely clear. DVD's are extremely clear. Regular TV suffers but is still watchable. Garbage in, Garbage out. I have hooked up my DVI cable to the HD reciever and the Component goes to a splitter so that I can port in DVD's, Xbox, or Playstation. Xbox is very clear. I use the projectors remote to switch between the component (DVD) and DVI (HDTV).
I love the aspect feature that allows you to fill the whole screen with either widescreen or 4:3 effectively elliminating the black bars. The screendoor effect characteristic of LCD projectors is not noticable from more than 3 feet away.
I have a 110" diagonal widescreen from Da-lite. The Lens shift is an invaluable tool that allows you to move the picture up/down left/right. This was helpful for me because I mounted the projector from the ceiling. I didn't have to place the projector exactly correct, because I could shift the picture. For my mount I used a 2 in steel pipe and a piece of plywood. Pipe through the middle of the plywood. Screws go through the plywood into the projector. Wires go through pipe into ceiling.
There are horror stories of short lamp life. I hope this doesn't happen to me. I recommend a ups battery backup system for the projector so the AC line is cleaned up and so your projector will not be assaulted by Power interuptions.
This LED projector is the way to go for the money. The only better projectors than this are the seven segment high speed DLP projectors.

User Rating: 9/10

Gorgeous image, great price, unusual adjustability, quiet

Pros: Image quality, quiet, adaptablity

Cons: short warrenty compared to other brands

Review: I have used many Powerpoint Projectors in the past, but when I needed to buy one for home theater there was nowhere to try various models. I had to trust posts on several forums and Projector central.com. Fortunatly, they did not steer me wrong! I have never seen a projector with as much zoom range as this one. The joy stick to shift the lens is invaluable since I jury rigged my projector mount to allow the unit to dissappear into the cieling to please my spouse. Image quality, brightness color rendition, and lack of artifacts are all excellent. SInce this sits right above my head, the quietness is very important, this is one of the quieter projectors I have used. If Panasonic's warrenty was longer, I would have given it a 10. I purchaed the extended warrenty, these are expensive toys,

User Rating: 9/10

Great Deal works in living room with just blinds closed

Pros: bright, no drastic changes needed to view in living room

Cons: Boxy looks could be more high tech looking

Review: of course night time this puppy really shines, but I was afraid I'd have to black out the room during day... boy was I wrong, just close blinds and watch or play!!!

User Rating: 8/10

Amazingly good projector

Pros: This projector is a great value for the money -- it looks better than projectors in the $5000+ range. The has a great new feature called "dynamic iris" which gets you a much better light/dark range and extends bulb life to close to 5000 hours (which is u

Cons: On the downside. There is some vertical banding (not major, and it is almost unnoticeable in most scenes. But it is there). It doesn't bother me at all though. I occasionally get a pixel-level screen tear in high motion scenes. Again, its rare, and i

Review:

User Rating: 9/10

Definately a great projector

Pros: Real good brightness and contrast Fabulous color and clarity Menus easy to use and navagate Free spare lamp included with purchase (Panasonic Canada promo)

Cons: None that I have found so far and I don't really expect to find any either!

Review:

User Rating: 8/10

Best value on the market!!!

Pros: I've looked at a lot of different projectors at much more expensive prices and I can assure you this projector will totally blow your mind once you see it. Released Oct 2004, this projector will be the benchmark for all other projectors in this price rang

Cons: Vertical banding can appear if the unit is left in standby over time. Easy solution is to turn the power off when done. For the price and performance, it's definitely not a big deal.

Review:

User Rating: 9/10

Sick Projector... Best value for the money!

Pros: crystal clear picture, hdtv looks georgeous at 92" even in a fairly well lit room. Perfect for an HTPC, with a native resolution of 1280x720 you can easily browse the web, play games and the picture is excellent quality. No noticeable screen-door effect

Cons: none

Review:

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PT-AE700U Widescreen High-Definition Home Cinema Projector specifications

  • General
  • Device Type LCD projector - High Definition 720p
  • Width 13.2 in
  • Depth 10.6 in
  • Height 3.7 in
  • Weight 7.9 lbs
  • Projector / Panel
  • Image Brightness 1000.0 ANSI lumens
  • Image Contrast Ratio 2000:1
  • Image Size 3.3 ft - 25.0 ft
  • Uniformity 85.0 %
  • Resolution 1280 x 720 (native) / 1920 x 1080 (resized)
  • Native Aspect Ratio Widescreen
  • Display Format 2764800.0 pixels
  • Color Support 24-bit (16.7 million colors)
  • Max Sync Rate (V x H) 87.0 Hz x 70.0 KHz
  • Lamp Type UHM 130.0 Watt
  • OSD Languages Italian , Japanese , English , Spanish , Russian , Korean , French , Chinese , German
  • Projector Lens System
  • Lens Aperture F/1.9-3.1
  • Zoom Factor 2x
  • Keystone Correction Direction Horizontal
  • Horizontal Keystone Correction -30 / +30
  • Video Input
  • Analog video format PAL 60 , PAL-N , PAL-M , SECAM , NTSC , PAL , NTSC 4.43
  • Analog video signal Component video , RGB , S-Video , Composite video
  • Digital video input format HDTV
  • Video Input Device
  • Type None
  • Audio Input
  • Type None
  • Audio Output
  • Type None
  • Speaker(s) None
  • Input Device
  • Type Remote control - External - Wireless
  • Expansion / Connectivity
  • Expansion Slot(s) None
  • Interfaces 1.0 x VGA - RCA X 3 , 1.0 x Component video input - 4 pin mini-DIN , 1.0 x Composite video input - 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15) , 1.0 x S-video input - RCA
  • Power
  • Power Device Power supply - Internal
  • Voltage Required AC 120/230 V
  • Power Consumption Operational 180.0 Watt
  • Environmental Parameters
  • Min Operating Temperature 32.0 °F
  • Max Operating Temperature 104.0 °F
  • Humidity Range Operating 20 - 80%
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