{"id":980,"date":"2005-08-14T10:28:29","date_gmt":"2005-08-13T23:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/?p=980"},"modified":"2010-02-26T10:14:40","modified_gmt":"2010-02-25T23:14:40","slug":"panasonics-new-projector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/?p=980","title":{"rendered":"Panasonic’s new projector"},"content":{"rendered":"

In early September Panasonic is taking me and another Australia writer to the United States for the release of its new home theatre projector, the PT-AE900, in Hollywood. You can see my reviews of its predecessors, the Panasonic PT-AE700 here<\/a>, and the Panasonic PT-AE500 here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’m quite keen on these projectors because they offer a level of performance for under $4,000 that was achievable only for more than $10,000 just a few short years ago. So I’m hopeful that the new Panasonic projector will be a further improvement for a similar price.<\/p>\n

The only problem is that going to America is not a trivial undertaking for the likes of me. Now if I were going as a tourist, no problem. For Australian tourists, a visa waiver is granted upon entry. However journalists and writers must have a visa in order to enter the US. Molly Meldrum found out this to his distress a few years ago when he was stopped on entry, visa-less, and plonked onto the next plane coming back home.<\/p>\n

Getting such a visa normally takes six weeks I’m told, but the US Consulate is kindly rushing mine through. Unfortunately, in addition to a couple of hundred dollars in charges (which Panasonic has rather nicely offered to pay), I have to present myself personally at the Consulate. Now since I’m in Canberra, the diplomatic capital of Australia, you’d think I could just lob up at the US Embassy. No, they don’t offer consulate services. So I have to go to Sydney for this. And get there before 11:45am on the appointed weekday, since they don’t do visas after lunch.<\/p>\n

The good news is that once the visa is issued, it’s good for five years so I won’t have to go through this rigmarole again for a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In early September Panasonic is taking me and another Australia writer to the United States for the release of its new home theatre projector, the PT-AE900, in Hollywood. You can see my reviews of its predecessors, the Panasonic PT-AE700 here, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,12,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hifi-writer.com\/wpblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}