Bought this projector from Amazon a couple of weeks ago. I've been having some issues, but I will place them in a response further down.
The projector is well packed and very easy to set up. It is quite large by today's standards and doesn't have a lot of style. Kind of a big white box 6"h x 18"w x 14"d.
The remote is easy to understand and is backlit, Although most of us will likely set and forget. I already have my Harmony set up to control it. The projector has 2 ir sensors, and I get good remote response, even when bouncing off the 'screen'
Ventilation is good with a large outlet port on the front and filtered input port on the rear. The filter is paper and easily accessible. Everyone says the filter needs to be cleaned at frequent intervals. Since it is paper, I would recommend keeping a spare around as simple cleaning won't get the crud out of the paper after awhile. Haven't priced filters yet.
I bought this unit over others mostly because of the lens offset feature. Unlike other projectors in this class, the projector does not have keystone adjustment. Instead there is a pair of mechanical wheels that will offset the picture horizontally and vertically. They work very well and provide a wide range of adjustment. You level the projector and get it square to the wall and then use the offset feature to place the image. Some have complained that the adjustments are sloppy, but I had no trouble getting the image exactly where I wanted it. Once it was set, it did not wander. I was interested in the lens shift feature because a keystone adjustment will affect resolution to a surprising degree. The lens shift feature is purely optical, so does not hurt resolution.
The projector is extremely bright. It is too bright at its highest settings, even with room lights on. It has different preset modes for various light conditions and viewing habits. I have found natural and theater dark1 to be good starting points.
This projector uses LCD panels for image generation. Many of the others are DLP based. This means that the absolute contrast ratio is a little lower on this set. Epson has addressed this by adding an automatic iris feature that will lower the output light levels in darker scenes. The slew rate is adjustable from the menus.
That brings us to noise levels. The fan is whisper quiet. I have the projector temporarily set up about 3 feet behind and 2 feet above the seating position. I cannot hear the fan even when sound is off. I do hear the BluRay disk spinning, but not the projector. However, the automatic iris is fairly loud and can be heard at softer volume levels. Many people turn this off, or move it to the slow slew rate.
Color reproduction is as good as I have seen from a projector. Not quite up to my Panasonic plasma, but some of that might be that I am still projecting onto a white wall.
The projector is currently about 15 feet back from the wall and has no problem projecting a 130" image. The manual zoom has over a 2:1 range, so that coupled with lens shift makes setup easy and very flexible. I had this set up and running in less than 10 minutes, including unpacking the box.
Epson claims a 4000 hour lamp life. Some have reported significantly less than that, but Epson has been very responsive with replacements and upgrades. It seems like there was a problem with early units and several folks have reported that their units were exchanged after early bulb problems. This has been reported as having been fixed, but the newer units haven't had much of a chance to build up hours yet, so we will see.
Geometry is excellent. I have looked at the patterns and everything is spot on. Convergence is also perfect. Some have reported some pixel shift on reds in the corners, but I don't see it. Again, most of the complaints came from early production units.
The key is in the viewing. The set does its job and I quickly become immersed in the theater experience. The image is better than at my local cineplex and with a 130" image viewed from 12' back, about the same impact. I am able to totally forget the projector and enjoy the movie, which at the bottom line is where you need to be.
The projector is well packed and very easy to set up. It is quite large by today's standards and doesn't have a lot of style. Kind of a big white box 6"h x 18"w x 14"d.
The remote is easy to understand and is backlit, Although most of us will likely set and forget. I already have my Harmony set up to control it. The projector has 2 ir sensors, and I get good remote response, even when bouncing off the 'screen'
Ventilation is good with a large outlet port on the front and filtered input port on the rear. The filter is paper and easily accessible. Everyone says the filter needs to be cleaned at frequent intervals. Since it is paper, I would recommend keeping a spare around as simple cleaning won't get the crud out of the paper after awhile. Haven't priced filters yet.
I bought this unit over others mostly because of the lens offset feature. Unlike other projectors in this class, the projector does not have keystone adjustment. Instead there is a pair of mechanical wheels that will offset the picture horizontally and vertically. They work very well and provide a wide range of adjustment. You level the projector and get it square to the wall and then use the offset feature to place the image. Some have complained that the adjustments are sloppy, but I had no trouble getting the image exactly where I wanted it. Once it was set, it did not wander. I was interested in the lens shift feature because a keystone adjustment will affect resolution to a surprising degree. The lens shift feature is purely optical, so does not hurt resolution.
The projector is extremely bright. It is too bright at its highest settings, even with room lights on. It has different preset modes for various light conditions and viewing habits. I have found natural and theater dark1 to be good starting points.
This projector uses LCD panels for image generation. Many of the others are DLP based. This means that the absolute contrast ratio is a little lower on this set. Epson has addressed this by adding an automatic iris feature that will lower the output light levels in darker scenes. The slew rate is adjustable from the menus.
That brings us to noise levels. The fan is whisper quiet. I have the projector temporarily set up about 3 feet behind and 2 feet above the seating position. I cannot hear the fan even when sound is off. I do hear the BluRay disk spinning, but not the projector. However, the automatic iris is fairly loud and can be heard at softer volume levels. Many people turn this off, or move it to the slow slew rate.
Color reproduction is as good as I have seen from a projector. Not quite up to my Panasonic plasma, but some of that might be that I am still projecting onto a white wall.
The projector is currently about 15 feet back from the wall and has no problem projecting a 130" image. The manual zoom has over a 2:1 range, so that coupled with lens shift makes setup easy and very flexible. I had this set up and running in less than 10 minutes, including unpacking the box.
Epson claims a 4000 hour lamp life. Some have reported significantly less than that, but Epson has been very responsive with replacements and upgrades. It seems like there was a problem with early units and several folks have reported that their units were exchanged after early bulb problems. This has been reported as having been fixed, but the newer units haven't had much of a chance to build up hours yet, so we will see.
Geometry is excellent. I have looked at the patterns and everything is spot on. Convergence is also perfect. Some have reported some pixel shift on reds in the corners, but I don't see it. Again, most of the complaints came from early production units.
The key is in the viewing. The set does its job and I quickly become immersed in the theater experience. The image is better than at my local cineplex and with a 130" image viewed from 12' back, about the same impact. I am able to totally forget the projector and enjoy the movie, which at the bottom line is where you need to be.
