Panasonic PT-AX200U Home Theater Projector: Physical Tour

Posted on October 27, 2007 by Art Feierman

We'll begin facing the front of the Panasonic PT-AX200U. The manual zoom lens is offset to the right side. It has a 2:1 zoom ratio, providing tremendous, front to back placement flexibility. To fill a 100" 16:9 screen, the front of the Panasonic PT-AX200U, can be as close to the screen as 10.2 feet, or as far back as 20.4 feet. This makes shelf mounting the PT-AX200U practical in almost any room. Focus and zoom are affected by rotating their respective trim rings around the lens. Just to the right of the lens is the joystick control for adjusting both vertical and horizontal lens shift. Twisting the joystick will lock your setting in place.

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The range of the lens shift allows the projector to be placed anywhere from below the bottom of the projector screen's surface, to above the top. Primary exhaust vents are on the front left, and blow the air out diagonally, so that hot air does not pass in front of the lens, where it could distort the projected image.

An infra-red sensor for the remote control is located in the center of the front, near the top. There are two adjustable front feet, at the far left and far right bottom.

Moving to the top of the PT-AX200U home theater projector, it is virtually identical to the older PT-AX100U. As on the older Panasonic home theater projector, the PT-AX200U has a large power button (press once for on, twice for off), in the center near the front of the projector. To its immediate right (looking at the top, from behind the projector) is the Input selector button that toggles you through the various inputs. Next is the Menu button and to its right, four arrow keys in a diamond configuration, with an Enter button in the middle of them. Near the Input and Menu buttons are three indicator lights (power, lamp, temp, etc.), and the Light Harmonizer 2 sensor, which reads room ambient light so the projector can compensate. That takes care of everything on the top of this Panasonic home theater projector.

Moving to the back, you'll find the input panel. The PT-AX200U is typically endowed, for a low cost (but not "entry level) home theater projector. There are, most importantly, two HDMI inputs and they are 1.3 compatible.

In addition, there is one other "high resolution" input, the component video input, which has the usual three color coordinated RCA jacks. You'll also find both a standard composite video, and an S-video input. There's also the traditional HD15 connector for a standard "VGA" analog computer input, and an RS-232 connector for command and control of the PT-AX200U projector from a computer, or a room control system.