The battle of the 1080p home theater projectors gets even more rip-roaring today with Sanyo tossing its somewhat clunky looking Sanyo LP-Z2000 projector into the ring, at least in Japan. This 3-LCD $3000-ish monster looks more like an industrial-strength toaster, but still nails the specs with an HDMI 1.3a port, 1200 lumens and a 15,000:1 contrast ratio.

It's also doing its best not to wake up the neighbors, matching that Mitsubishi LVP-HC6000 projector we showed you the other day in the noise department, also quoting a nearly inaudible 19dB sound emanating from its cooling fan. However, like that Mitsubishi, this Sanyo projector's aimed at the Japanese market first, set for an October release.

The big news is that there's a whole lot of activity now in the low-cost 1080p projector front, bound to find its way across the Pacific, and it's putting even more competitive heat on the Epson with its Powerlite and Panasonic and its PT-AE100U, both projectors already released for $3000 stateside. Will some enterprising manufacturer try to undercut these $3K players? Do we hear $2000 for a 1080p shiner? [Akihabara News]

Contact information for this author is not available.