» Sanyo PLV-Z5 Home Theatre LCD Projector Review

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Editor's HDTV Pick

HP 47 inch MediaSmart 1080p LCD HDTV "Out of the box" digital media platform. Enjoy videos, pictures and music from home network + digital media delivered over your broadband Internet connection + 3 x HDMI

Highlights

The Sanyo PLV-Z5 home theatre projector has a 16:9 aspect ratio LCD microdisplay panel. Native resolution is 1280 x 720. Rated lamp brightness of 1,100 ANSI lumens is suitable for the low ambient light conditions of home theatre installations.

With the PLV-Z5, Sanyo have broken the 10,000:1 contrast ratio barrier spelling bright, rich colors. To achieve such a high dynamic contrast ratio, the PVL-Z5 has a twin-iris system combining a lens aperture and lamp aperture to deliver fine gradation. The PVL-Z5 has a powerful 12-Bit Digital Processing IC to analyze each frame and automatically adjust brightness (using its twin iris and lamp react functions) to suit. The aim of this “dynamic contrast ratio” is to reproduce more lifelike images.

As even the award winning Gennum GF9351 video processor only has 10 bit processing, the 12-bit IC is an impressive inclusion. Sanyo have provided 3D-color management that allows the viewer to adjust and save the hue, gamma curve, and level of any color.

Dust is the enemy of personal computers and it is no different with projectors. Sanyo have thought of this and provided a motor-operated sliding shutter that can be opened or closed automatically by remote control.

Installation Flexibility

With a 22dBA fan design, background cooling fan noise will not be a problem.

A number of features give the PLV-Z5 excellent installation flexibility. First, there is a lengthy 2X (manual) zoom lens for flexibility in distance from the screen. Second, the projector has both horizontal and vertical lens shift for projector height flexibility without a distorted image. Lens shift is about 50% horizontally and 100% vertically. The Sanyo PLV-Z5 can project images on a 100-inch screen from only 9.8 feet out to 20 feet.

Connections

Twin HDMI interfaces and two sets of component video inputs along with S-video connections provides excellent connections options. A D-sub 15 input for personal computer connection is also provided.

Warranty

Sanyo provide a comparatively long 3-year warranty for the PLV-ZA5.

Further Reading

Other home theatre projectors reviewed recently:

Mitsubishi 1080P HC5000BL

Epson PowerLite Pro Cinema 810 and 810 HQV

Optoma HD81 1080p DLP Projector.

BenQ PE7700 DLP Projector.