Panasonic PT-AE8000 Projector – Physical Tour

As always let’s start at the front!

The PT-AE8000 is a medium sized home theater projector. The dark gray finish works well in rooms with dark ceilings.  The lens is located to the right (if facing the PT-AE8000). The projector weighs a little less than 20 pounds, and can be operated when ceiling mounted, on table top, or on a rear shelf, in most rooms, thanks to truly excellent placement flexibility.  When you also consider the lens shift feature, this Panasonic may have the most flexible placement abilities of any projector without interchangeable lenses.  That means it will almost certainly work in whatever kind of setup you have.

The Panasonic control panel, at the front right side, is compact, and is laid out very nicely. Buttons are easy to “find” and feel good.

At the top left of the panel is the power switch (once for on, twice for off), and to its right, is the Input Select button which brings up your input choices.

The PT-AE8000’s navigation controls are right below, the four arrows in a round formation with the Enter button in the center.

Slightly below to the outsides are the Menu and Return button (called back or escape on some other projectors).

Finally, at the bottom of the panel are two buttons each to control the motorized focus and zoom.

Located on the back, is a healthy selection of inputs and connectors.

Starting from the left, are three HDMI 1.4a inputs (consider HDMI 1.4a necessary for Blu-ray 3D). I’ve always asked manufacturers for a third connector, for those who don’t want to rely on AV receivers or external switch boxes to handle the load. Today, having 3 HDMI sources is common among users (ex: cable/satellite, Blu-ray/DVD, game machine). Kudos to Panasonic for that 3rd one. Three is pretty rare, except on more expensive projectors with expensive external processor boxes.

Moving to the right, next comes a pair of HD15 connectors. The top one is your standard analog computer input, and below it, a Serial port for command and control.

Next over is component video (with three color coded RCA connectors).

S-video (DIN connector) and composite video (yellow RCA jack) come next.

Then come two small jacks for screen trigger, and for 3D shutter out, (for an external, and optional IR transmitter should you need more coverage for the 3D glasses, such as in a large room).

That’s all for the back, folks, except of course, for the power receptacle, Kensington lock slot, and master power switch.