Panasonic PT-AT5000E review

For further tweaking, the menu system one of the most comprehensive around. Brightness, colour, sharpness and contrast controls are expected, but being able to tweak white balance and gamma is very useful. The preset Dynamic, Game and Cinema modes worked well in certain situations, but by far the best was Dark Cinema. In our dark test room, the 2,000 ANSI lumens lamp reproduced even the smallest details in a scene.

Switching to 3D mode, we were again impressed with the clarity of the image. Depth effects were verging on cinema quality, although there was an inevitable loss of colour and brightness. With almost no cross-talk between the left and right eye, we could enjoy flicker-free 3D using the bundled pair of active shutter glasses. Unfortunately, you’ll have to buy more (at £100 per pair from www.superfi.co.uk) if several people want to watch at once. The IR transmitter is built in, but there’s a port on its back to connect an external box if you plan on hiding the projector out of sight.

You’ll have to be serious about your home cinema to spend almost £3,000 on the PT-AT5000E, but its supreme image quality makes it worth every penny. It’s considerably cheaper than Sony’s HW30ES, has a better-implemented 3D system and picture quality is second to none for the price.