Projector Reviews

The user menu also features an advanced area that allows full adjustment of grayscale and the color points for the primary (red, green, blue) and secondary (cyan, yellow, magenta) colors. Unlike may of these adjustments we've seen, this one absolutely allows someone with proper instruments to adjust for highly accurate colors. The down side is that not many calibrators have the expensive equipment required to make sufficiently fine, accurate adjustments.

Remote Love
Epson's remote is a killer- easy and intuitive to use with utility like all get out. It includes backlighting, direct access to all source inputs and many other critical features. The one meager, from the cheap seats suggestion I have is that instead of offering direct buttons for Gamma, Color Temp, Skin Tone, and a couple of the other esoteric adjustments, offer single button pushes for the separate memories. This projector is loaded with user memories that allow you to access different setups optimized for myriad viewing conditions. It's easier to set those up than adjust one parameter at a time. But that's just taking an already great remote and making it heaven in a handset.

Performance
I used the Epson projector with my standard reference video products, including an 80" wide, 16:9 Stewart Filmscreen Studiotek 130 screen (1.3-gain, white). Sources included the Toshiba HD-XA2 HD DVD player and the Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray Disc player. A Comcast/Motorola DTC3416 HD set-top box/DVR.

There are only two things that detract from the Epson's image quality, and I want to get them out of the way so I can rightfully sing this projector's considerable praises. Compared to the better, and to be fair, more expensive 1080p projectors I've seen the Epson's image is noticeably softer and while the blacks are excellent the light output is noticeably dim.

Regarding the first point, watching the very best HD transfers and broadcasts revealed an image that always noticeably and obviously hi-def and very rich in detail. But even compared to Sony's Pearl at $5K, which itself isn't the last word in sharpness in this category, the image isn't as crisp and snappy, an attribute the lower overall light output certainly didn't help any.

TJN's measurements will reveal the numbers but I didn't need that to see that the Epson was indeed dim compared to my Marantz VP-11S1, which is hardly a torch itself. I didn't find this problematic during nighttime movie watching, which is what I prioritize as a viewer. But on occasions when sports, like the NBA playoffs, were running in HD I wanted more oomph than I could get from the Epson. Powering up the lamp (Brightness Control set to High) and/or driving up the Contrast control did give me more light output for those applications but I wasn't satisfied with it for movies as I felt it robbed the inky blacks of some of their punch. Now, on to the good!

The first thing that struck me here were the gorgeous, natural colors. TJN had Epson send this projector directly to him, and dialed in the Custom 1 setting with a calibrated grayscale, and dialed in Custom 2 with the color points for red, green and blue dialed I using a Photo Research Spectroradiometer. The factory colors from Custom 1 were good, and TJN's calibration on Custom 2 was spectacular. In particular I like to see greens that aren't overly yellow, or nuclear lime. Grass fields and foliage of all kinds looked right, striking in depth and natural shading. And reds were a deep crimson, with no touch of the orange tint that I still see too often with digital displays.

A number of companies have brought products to market with a dynamic iris system. The number of companies who have brought dynamic irises to market that work as advertised without obvious and unwanted artifacts are much fewer and farther between. Epson is on that short list.

The dynamic iris system works extremely well, which is to say its operation was essentially invisible while watching program material and still difficult to trip up with torture material designed to do just that. While my overall impression is that Sony's Pearl has better light output and therefore better contrast, I've no idea if that's due to the dynamic iris or other factors. This projector never let me see the iris working, and more importantly never left me wanting for more in the black department and never left me less than completely immersed in a movie when the program material held up its end. The dynamic iris delivered enough of the deep, inky blacks that make movie watching so pleasurable and called no attention to itself while doing so.

Watching the best transfers on next-gen media, like Children of Men on HD DVD, the Epson shows very rich, film-like detail and a strikingly natural depth that I've come to associate with three-chip projectors. I own and use a single-chip 1080p DLP, which is sharper than any of the three-chippers I've seen, and in some respects has more dynamic punch to the image than the LCoS or LCD designs. I can watch it for hours on end with no headaches, fatigue or other artifacts intruding on the experience. But there's still something that happens with three-chip, and a dimensionality that is present even when the projector in question isn't as tack-sharp. I don't exactly know what that is, but I like it!

While 1080p imagery is available now from Blu-ray and HD DVD, the bulk of our broadcast HD is going to remain 1080i for the foreseeable future. And in spite of claims by some that 1080i can equal 1080p in image quality if the deinterlacing is done really well, the fact is that 1080i-1080p deinterlacing is seldom done that well, especially with film-based material. As with 480i material, deinterlacing movie-based 1080i properly requires the ability to recognize and compensate for 3/2 pulldown, and this is something that very, very few displays have the ability to do at all, let alone do flawlessly. But this Epson is firmly entrenched in the latter camp.

Setting my Toshiba HD-XA2 HD DVD player to 1080i output and using the test patterns from the Silicon Optix HD HQV Benchmark revealed absolutely flawless perfection in its 1080i deinterlacing with both film and video based material. In fact, the Epson's processing on this disc was a match for the Silicon Optix Processing in the Toshiba HD-XA2. Backing this up with the Vatican scene from HD DVD of Mission: Impossible III over 1080i, the Epson was as sure-footed as any processing solution I've seen, maintaining all the resolution in these most challenging sequences. There's no name brand video processing solution cited in the lit, but this projector sure hell performs like there is!

Conclusion
In spite of the stiff competition that's out there in this surprisingly crowded category, this Epson projector is a standout in many critical respects. The dynamic iris system is seamless, and gives the Pro Cinema 1080p some of the best blacks you'll see from a digital front projector. The colors are natural and "un-digital" right out of the box and even more superlative after calibration. And the video processing is first-rate, even with the most difficult HD material. However, I can't downplay that its primary shortcoming- that soft image- is one that might well hold the trump card for many potential buyers.

Although "street prices" are much closer, this projector's $4K MSRP is considerably less expensive than Sony's Pearl at $5K or even Panasonic's PT-AE1000U which has an MSRP of $5,999. And let's not forget that the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080p appears to be the same projector, minus some user memories and a couple of included accessories, for $2,999.

This Epson projector is such a good projector for the money that I can't believe that I need to qualify my recommendation based on the competing products. Nevertheless, this projector does have competitors, selling near its price point, that lack its few shortcomings. Does that mean you shouldn't consider this projector, or that it doesn't get my recommendation? Heck no. This 1080p projector should be on the short list if you're shopping in the sub-$5K market. And if it were just a hair sharper, it would be at the very top of that list.

Highs
Gorgeous, natural colors
Excellent blacks and contrast
Superlative video processing of 1080i HD video
Slick remote control

Lows
Softer than other 1080p PJs we've seen
Lower light output overall than its prime competition