Epson PowerLite Pro Cinema 1080 LCD Projector
- Light Source Power: 170W UHE
- Lamp Type: UHE
- Light Source Life: 3000 Hours
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Excellent Home Theatre Projector, Especially for the $$!!!
Pros
Picture quality, 1080p for less than $1,300, well-designed remote control.
Cons
The neighbors want to watch the game here all the time, manual focus and shift.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
This is an excellent HD Home Projector that excels at projecting mixed content, even in rooms without perfectly controlled ambient lighting. An excellent projector!
Summary: If you can install yourself, this is an excellent projector for Home Theatre. Colors are rich, blacks are "black enough", features are plenty.
How We Use It: When our home was built, we had the basement finished and cables pre-run, with power outlet in the ceiling. Therefore, for us, install was a snap. We have this hung in the walk-out basement, with the roll-up screen hanging in front of the windows. The projector is hanging about 14' from the screen; the seating area is about 13' from the screen. The screen is a 1.0g matte white with a diagonal measure of 92". We have the zoom at about 50 per cent of maximum; based on our mounting distances, this projector could easily fill a much larger screen.
Projector Connections: For HD connections, the projector has one HDMI and one component connection. There are other connections, but they are not HD. Using an A/V Receiver, we're able to route three video input devices (VCR, SD DVD, HD Cable Box) through the two HD connections.
Remote Control: The included remote control is very well-designed, with an easy-to-find backlight button, making it easy to find the right button in the dark. Using our cable remote control, we have to press one of the buttons in order for the backlight to light. (Whooops! Didn't mean to hit the "stop" button!) For the Epson, there is a well-placed light button at the very end of the remote. Pressing it fires up the very bright backlight, enabling easy reads of the buttons.
Picture Quality: As a 1080p projector, the image quality is astounding. Honestly, given that this is last year's model and has a contrast-ratio of 12,000:1, I didn't expect such a picture. With minor tweaking, the colors are excellent and the blacks are deep enough to be satisfying. Sure, there are projectors that are better at providing deeper blacks, but you can't touch them for 50 percent more money than this projector. (I would recommend not using a higher-gain screen, as too high a gain could cause the blacks to be less satisfying.) If you have a bright room, this projector could have trouble overcoming uncontrolled light, but unless you're a "cinema-phile", this projector has the power to overcome room lighting, including our overhead, recessed lighting.
Picture Formats: The projector is native 1080p, also supporting 1080i, 720p, 720i, and 480p. It's response time is quite good, meaning that channel surfers will not have to wait a long time as the projector switches modes when you cycle through channels/programs of different formats.
Video Upscaling:Playing SD DVDs on our Progressive Scan DVD player through the component connections reveals very sharp, almost-theatre-quality movie presentations. The projector handles 16:9 aspect and wide-screen with aplomb (the difference is 'wide-screen' movies are wider than 16:9 HD content). One can allow the projector to auto-scale or choose to present the wide-screen in either aspect. (At press-time, we had not tried a Blu Ray Player.)
HD Content:Here's where the projector shines. Displaying HD content from cable (and, we assume Blu Ray DVD) results in very satisfying images. Ouch! Watch out for the puck!!! Hockey games are so satisfying (in SD or HD), you want to move in your seat as the puck flies around the ice!
Lens Shift and Focus: The lens shift (very powerful) and focus are manual, so depending on where you mount this projector, you may need to keep the step ladder handy. However, once set, you should not need to make any adjustments to the shift/focus. The lens shift on this projector is among the most powerful available. One can shift the lens horizontally or vertically, making it easy to adjust the projector beam to account for having the screen mounted slightly off-center from the lens. The vertical shift is the most powerful, allowing the projector to be mounted very close to the ceiling, while projecting a distortion-free image on a screen set far below the projector. In our case, the center of the lens is about 7.5" from the ceiling, but the top of the image-area on the screen is about 16" from the ceiling. This means that the top of the image is well below the center of the lens and the bottom of the projected image is about 4' below that. This makes it very easy to hang the projector close to the ceiling (more attractive, I think) while projecting the image at a comfortable level for viewing.
How We Use It: When our home was built, we had the basement finished and cables pre-run, with power outlet in the ceiling. Therefore, for us, install was a snap. We have this hung in the walk-out basement, with the roll-up screen hanging in front of the windows. The projector is hanging about 14' from the screen; the seating area is about 13' from the screen. The screen is a 1.0g matte white with a diagonal measure of 92". We have the zoom at about 50 per cent of maximum; based on our mounting distances, this projector could easily fill a much larger screen.
Projector Connections: For HD connections, the projector has one HDMI and one component connection. There are other connections, but they are not HD. Using an A/V Receiver, we're able to route three video input devices (VCR, SD DVD, HD Cable Box) through the two HD connections.
Remote Control: The included remote control is very well-designed, with an easy-to-find backlight button, making it easy to find the right button in the dark. Using our cable remote control, we have to press one of the buttons in order for the backlight to light. (Whooops! Didn't mean to hit the "stop" button!) For the Epson, there is a well-placed light button at the very end of the remote. Pressing it fires up the very bright backlight, enabling easy reads of the buttons.
Picture Quality: As a 1080p projector, the image quality is astounding. Honestly, given that this is last year's model and has a contrast-ratio of 12,000:1, I didn't expect such a picture. With minor tweaking, the colors are excellent and the blacks are deep enough to be satisfying. Sure, there are projectors that are better at providing deeper blacks, but you can't touch them for 50 percent more money than this projector. (I would recommend not using a higher-gain screen, as too high a gain could cause the blacks to be less satisfying.) If you have a bright room, this projector could have trouble overcoming uncontrolled light, but unless you're a "cinema-phile", this projector has the power to overcome room lighting, including our overhead, recessed lighting.
Picture Formats: The projector is native 1080p, also supporting 1080i, 720p, 720i, and 480p. It's response time is quite good, meaning that channel surfers will not have to wait a long time as the projector switches modes when you cycle through channels/programs of different formats.
Video Upscaling:Playing SD DVDs on our Progressive Scan DVD player through the component connections reveals very sharp, almost-theatre-quality movie presentations. The projector handles 16:9 aspect and wide-screen with aplomb (the difference is 'wide-screen' movies are wider than 16:9 HD content). One can allow the projector to auto-scale or choose to present the wide-screen in either aspect. (At press-time, we had not tried a Blu Ray Player.)
HD Content:Here's where the projector shines. Displaying HD content from cable (and, we assume Blu Ray DVD) results in very satisfying images. Ouch! Watch out for the puck!!! Hockey games are so satisfying (in SD or HD), you want to move in your seat as the puck flies around the ice!
Lens Shift and Focus: The lens shift (very powerful) and focus are manual, so depending on where you mount this projector, you may need to keep the step ladder handy. However, once set, you should not need to make any adjustments to the shift/focus. The lens shift on this projector is among the most powerful available. One can shift the lens horizontally or vertically, making it easy to adjust the projector beam to account for having the screen mounted slightly off-center from the lens. The vertical shift is the most powerful, allowing the projector to be mounted very close to the ceiling, while projecting a distortion-free image on a screen set far below the projector. In our case, the center of the lens is about 7.5" from the ceiling, but the top of the image-area on the screen is about 16" from the ceiling. This means that the top of the image is well below the center of the lens and the bottom of the projected image is about 4' below that. This makes it very easy to hang the projector close to the ceiling (more attractive, I think) while projecting the image at a comfortable level for viewing.
