Dangermouse78 Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 Hello projection people, I'm buying a new projector for our small theatre, I've narrowed down my options and in theory all of those listed below will meet our needs and be within our budget but I'd like some opinions/reviews before I jump in. My options are: Christie LWU501iSony VPL-FH35Hitatchi CPWU8450Panasonic PT-EZ570Christie LWU505 Are Christie's worth the extra money for essentially the same spec?Any of those have reliability issues?Any of them significantly better than the others?Any have especially high maintenance costs?Good customer service?Any horror stories?etc etc. Any other manufacturers/models I may not have considered? For info... Our throw distance is ~11m, screen size 6m(w) x 4.5m(h) (width is fixed but height can be flexible), WUXGA preferred, our old projector was 4500 lumens and was plenty bright enough and my budget is £6000 including lens and VAT. Apologies if this has been covered before, I did search but couldn't find anything. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas1987 Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 I can't help on the others, but just to say I just purchased 2 of the 6000 Panasonic models- personally quite impressed. It's effectively a rebadged Sanyo, with the same firmware which I find quite nice to use. (but mainly as we had Sanyo's before). E2A - I just got the standard lens with it, which seems good to me. Shortthrow lenses available too. And cheap - sure we paid about £2k per unit for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim gregory Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 The Christie projectors are re-badged Sanyo's and the Panasonic units replace the Sanyo's. So you should find the Christie LWU505 and the Panasonic PT-EZ570 are identical units. I brought the Christie LX605 which is the 1024x768 version of what you are looking at and they are nice units.I would recomend trying AC Entertainment for Christie prices as they did ours cheaper than the equivalent Sanyo. Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lampygirl Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 +1 for AC if you are considering the Christie. They knocked a fair whack off our 505 and the support has been excellent. I've also used the Panasonic unit in a different venue but similar scenario, but never compared the 2 side by side. Couldn't complain with the performance of either though for the price range. I would recommend giving Stuart or Alistar at AC a shout to see what they can do for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AHYoung Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 First off clearly my outfit are worth considering if you are looking to purchase, but once thats out the way... The christie and LCD bsed panasonic are made in the same factory owned by Panasonic. The Panasonic 6000s are something totally different alltogether . With the panasonic manufactured christies, the only real difference betwee the units {and the Eiki ones which are also identical} is the route to market and warranty procedure. Ultimately they are all built in china by panasonic to a sanyo design. My observations are... all the units on your list are very similar centre lens lcd units. however 3 are effectively the same unit... They would all be good shouts, but in reality the sensible move is to go Panasonic as its the same a a christie with a more direct route to market. Id discount the others for no better reason than if you need a second panasonic or a different lens, you will find an increasingly large number availble, a simple test is this - stick hire and then the model no. into google. The Sanyo units which morphed into the Ez570s were pretty popular so there are a lot of lenses out there... from an operational point of view the ez570 is pretty decent with full lens shift and fairly advanced keystone plus all the ins and control features you need. For the money its hard to fault. The supplied lens will fill your screen from the distance , and your budget would easily allow a couple of others ie a 0.8 wide angle and long zoom which would increase the flexibility. The downside {and this applies to all those suggested} is its an LCD unit and will require to regular optical cleaning and if its used in the prescence of haze, its not going to end well.Thety are all also single lamp units so there is no redundancy. in a dual lamp unit, if a lamp goes it just gets darker, but you still have a show... if you want a more robust and fully pro unit look at the DLP panasonic Dz770 range. The Wuxga DZ770 is outwith you budget, but the Xga Dx810 or wxga dw730 are just within it. http://panasonic.net/avc/projector/products/dz770/ The Dx810 is a insane 8200 lumens at 4:3 so what you allready have, or you can look at the xwga version. These are not HD units, but super bright and sealed optically. Its worth noting that we have these and not the lcd uits in hire stock as they are as indestructable as you can get and thats often more important than price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyMitchell Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 First off clearly my outfit are worth considering if you are looking to purchase, but once thats out the way... +1...we bought a Pana EX600E + 0.8:1 lens from Alastair's company a few months ago - top service & advice - highly recommended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dangermouse78 Posted November 20, 2012 Author Share Posted November 20, 2012 Looks like Panasonic might be the way to go. Thanks folks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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