Panasonic PT-AE1000U Projector

Review: Panasonic PT-AE1000U Projector New highs in 1080p performance

June 2007 By Greg Robinson

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After letting it run for a few hours, I started my evaluation by looking at some standard definition material from my off-air antenna and Oppo DVD player. Generally speaking, the PT-AE1000U did an excellent job making low resolution content look as good as it can. Visual artifacts such as “jaggies” were at a minimum and LCD’s notorious “screen door effect” (a visible pixel grid) was virtually nonexistent even at a close distance.

Looking at scenes from a few of my favorite high def reference discs, namely The Departed on HD DVD and The Prestige on Blu-ray, I was extremely impressed with the PT-AE1000U. Blacks were the deepest I’ve seen yet from an LCD machine. Colors using the “Cinema1” preset were natural and vibrant. There were a few times during my evaluation that I detected a slight softness to the image, but that was mainly when reading text on the projector’s on-screen menu. Film content consistently looked crisp and gorgeous. Having watched The Departed HD DVD on both my 720p Panasonic and its new 1080p sibling, there was definitely a noticeable increase in overall image detail with 1080p. While it isn’t what I would call a “night and day” difference, it was enough to make my wife notice it—and that’s saying something.

Isn’t there anything wrong with it? I have one gripe. While making the remote more elaborate and capable than previous models, Panasonic did away with direct access input buttons. This means you have to repeatedly press “Input” until you reach the one you want. Yes, it’s annoying, but it’s hardly a deal-breaker. There’s just no other way to say it: the PT-AE1000U is a homerun.