I've now been a proud owner of the X500 for 3½ weeks. To sum it up, it is one hell of a projector. The jump from my previous Sanyo PLV-Z700 is quite staggering. As for someone who occasionally works as a projectionist at a local small cinema, the picture produced by the X5000 compares rather favorably against the industry standard 2K cinema projector. As someone who really loves the "film look", watching productions shot on film with the proper restoration/(re)mastering truly gives that "I'm at the cinema watching the best possible film print (most likely even better)" feel that brings a smile to my face. Changing the aspect ratio for my new DIY scope screen by the press of a button is also a beautiful treat for a lazy man like myself - no more getting up on the couch/chair to fix zoom & focus, ugh!
As for calibration, I've only followed the video posted on this forum with a few small changes: e-shift off, Super White off, lens aperture -10 (instead of -15), color +6 (instead of 0). Any further advice later on when the hours on the lamp reach 150 would be nice.
In two fairly minor aspects the 2008 Sanyo model actually beats the X5000:
1) Motorized lens cover. No biggie, but because the living room is next to the kitchen area, there is a small worry about the lens perhaps getting dirty when cooking greasy food...
2) The noise. As many of you have discussed here, the noise gets significantly louder when the e-shift is engaged, which alone was a reason enough for me not to even experiment that much either (briefly sampled Gone Girl with the e-shift, didn't see much of a difference, at least not a positive one, and thus, decided to turn it off for now). However, even in low lamp & eco mode the X5000 is surprisingly loud, noticeably louder than the old Sanyo (both have an advertised 21 db noise level in low lamp mode), which in and of itself is not a dealbreaker, but it does irk me a bit, especially if a scene goes truly quiet in a movie, with little to no ambiance as you can pick out the projector sound. The projector is ceiling mounted, close to 1 meter behind us, maybe roughly 230 cm from the ground. Do any of you also notice the noise in low lamp mode?