Just to put this in perspective, I saw a big improvement in
-black levels
-color accuracy
-brightness
-sharpness
Over my old projector that I just replaced. For $2000, I got a projector that performs quite well overall. I'm appreciating the improvements over my old projector since I had looked at the old one for several thousand hours and several things had started to bother me.
To a casual observer (or someone who isn't as picky about video quality), I don't think they would have noticed as much of a difference between an aging 720p projector from a few years ago vs. Panasonic's new top of the line projector.
Overall, even the $1000 projectors are going to be better looking that the $3000-$5000 projectors from several years ago. You're getting a lot of bang for your buck here since projector tech has gotten a lot better lately.
I would suspect that you'd be happy with just about any current generation projector you'd get.
If you're picky about color accuracy, black levels, contrast, etc.
Then it's going to make more sense to look at the more expensive units.
You also get more features as you move up in price.
Some of those involve placement flexibility (lens shift, zoom), while others are aimed at picture quality.
One of the things that I absolutely LOVE about my new projector is frame interpolation. I've been extremely bothered by the jerkiness / stuttering that happens in panning since movies are filmed at a frame rate that's too slow to capture motion effectively (24p). There's a lot of debate about features like this altering the intended "look" of filmmakers. I've considered both sides and I'm annoyed enough by the issue that I'd rather let technology take away some of the stutter.
Article on it:
http://www.projectorcentral.com/judder_24p.htm
I've been using Frame Creation Mode 2 on my projector for about 20 hours now. At first it seemed borderline "soap opera", but now I'm totally used to it and love it. With crappy frame interpolation technology, the "soap opera" effect means that the motion on the screen reminds people of what low budget "soap opera" tv shows look like on TV. Some people have described it as "hyper realistic" that takes away some of the "magic" of the way movies look. One person said that watching the Lord of the Rings on it made it look like they were watching a documentary on "the making of the Lord of the Rings" rather than the actual movie.
Anyway... there's debate about negative effects of it (both visually and destroying the directors intent), but it's a feature that's growing in popularity. I'm completely sold on it since I'm incredibly annoyed by stuttering motion. Maybe too many computer games growing up?
The $2000 range of LCD projector (AE4000U from Panasonic and the 8500UB from Epson) both have very good black levels and contrast compared to the lower cost projectors. Oh, I'm mentioning them since they're the ones that both have very good frame interpolation implementations.
About your masking system question....
(ask all the questions you want by the way)
Well...
First off, let me say that the blackest black a projector can give you is the color of the screen. Projectors can only add light to a surface, so if you want a very dark black in your picture, your wall/screen must appear dark to you when you have the room ready to go.
On top of that, projectors vary in their ability to go to black. They're getting much better at this, but on my old projector for example, if I tried to show a screen that was totally black, I'd get an image that was at best "dark gray". The LCDs in my old panasonic did their best to not let any light through, but they still let a lot through.
So... I started with a screen that was white... then made the room as dark as I could to make the white screen appear as dark as I could get it... then I turn the projector on that has a certain level of light coming through it even if I project a source image that is pure black.
That color on the screen is the blackest black I'm going to get in any image on my projected screen.
So, when I'm watching a movie that's not 16:9 aspect ratio, I'm going to have gray bars around it that are equivalent to the "black bars" you'd get on a regular TV. Since they are physically large, and your eyes have probably adjusted to a darkened room more... they might be distracting.
Having masking panels that are much, much darker than the original screen color (black velvet instead of white black-out cloth) and are physically structured to capture a lot of light makes the "black bars" appear to be true black.
Having the image framed on all sides by black makes the image appear to have more contrast. It also gives me nice clean edges around the frame. I have overscan disabled on my projector, and occasionally I get a DVD that has a little bit of crappy artifacting going on at one of the edges. By having the image slightly larger than the white area of the screen, I'm able to effectively crop the image just a few pixels on each side and get rid of any artifacts that may be on the disc at the edges.
So basically, the benefits are
- Better perceived contrast
- Not being distracted by gray bars visually
- Able to cut off just the edges of the video to hide any artifacts
That said, my new projector is a whole heck of a lot better at not adding extra light to a black source image. The blackest I can get is still the color of my white screen, but the new projector adds very very little light when it tries to go to true black vs. what my old one did. The distraction of "gray bars" would be minimal when watching a movie.
Still, the other two benefits are still valid in my case.
Along the lines of this topic, I'd also like to mention that I've read that painting your room a dark color can help quite a bit. Unfortunately, I've been in rented places for my entire projector history and haven't been inclined to paint a room a dark color only to have to paint it back to white when I move out a year or two later.
A dark room helps by not having light bouncing off the screen to then hit the wall and bounce off again. A dark colored wall will absorb a lot more light and that will help prevent getting a washed out image due to light reflections.
That said, I have a white room right now (although I have a boat load of black acoustic treatments in it now) and it's still a very good experience. I'd probably be able to get a slightly better black level and more contrast if I were to paint the walls a dark color.
Hmm.... I'd better get ready for work now
Sorry for what's probably too much info...
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