Epson is one of the pioneers of modern project technology and has built a milestone over the years. Few know that Epson is also dominating the market behind the scenes, because Epson is “the” supplier for LCD panels on the world market. If you can not build your own panels like JVC or Sony, you’ll buy them from the Japanese.
Picture gallery
The EH-TW8100 tested here is the Benjamin of the current top series of Epson projectors designed for home cinema. It is based on the chassis that has been in use for some time now, with the latest LCD panels and all the current features expected from a good mid-range projector today. For LCD devices, this mainly involves functions that are related to the flexible positioning of the projector and the screen.
Shift and Zoom: huge
This makes it possible, in particular, to adjust the lens which is extremely widely adjustable in terms of focal length and position. Here again, Epson was able to score points in the past generations, but not without disadvantages. For example, previous models tended to shift focus when the unit became warm. The problem does not show our test device.
Connections
Epson is also one of the very few projectors who produce light sources themselves, while most competitors use third-party products. Epson's luminaries have the reputation of being indestructible, and the developers do everything they can to keep up with it. No other projector is cooled down as little as the Epson devices, and the cooling fan is switched off just a few seconds after the lamp has been extinguished
Criticism from the laboratory
This makes the EH-TW8100, together with its super-flexible lens, also ideal for mobile use. Instead of installing it permanently, you can get it out of the closet, just to watch a movie or a football game, and resume it there after use Disappear. Epson has a three-year warranty for its own lamps.
In terms of other flexibility, the Japanese provides all the common connections - including two HDMI 1.4 interfaces, component and composite RCA inputs and a classic VGA socket. A trigger port allows the control of a motorized screen.
The comparatively large remote control is easy to find in the dark cinema. All relevant keys are pleasantly glare-free illuminated and the large number of direct keys makes the walk through the menus in everyday life unnecessary. Exemplary and unfortunately with too few projectors to apply is a proper storage management as Epson offers.
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Other details of the projector are also thought through. For example, the lamp can be exchanged - no matter how you set up or suspend the projector. The air filters can also be easily changed or cleaned by removing the air inlet grille. There is a proper power switch, and next to the standby button, the operator panel hides behind a discreet slider.
The lens is protected by a sliding door, which releases the image after starting the projector.
In the lab, the Epson showed a solid result. It is very bright in the high lamp mode. Also the color balance could be adjusted well. However, the gamma drifted fairly well and the predetermined value of 2.2 fluctuated from 1.9 to 2.25. This costs subjective depth, because the shading in the picture is not exactly correct. With the built-in gamma equalizer, the testers could do better.
The calibration of the color space and the color mixture got however to the patience sample and were necessary because of the factory quite unbalanced colorful impression also necessary. After a standard calibration, the image was still unbalanced and still quite slippery. After a detailed investigation, it turned out that the Japanese developers use a non-linear color space that does not conform to any standard that deletes standard calibrations.
The EH-TW8100 behaves linearly up to a saturation of approximately 80%, in order to then increase the last 20% saturation above-average. It was only when the testers brought the color management to standard at lower saturation values that a sensible color palette was found in most of the motifs, which only showed a marked difference in extreme colors and had a bright color.
Large CinemaScope possible
Practice: The right projector in the home cinema
In the Testkino, the Epson was easy to set up. Unfortunately, the large adjustment range of the lens is probably the achievable sharpness. Small pixel clusters formed a distinct courtyard. In addition, the not inconsiderable light emission from the exhaust air grille was also inadequate.
Conclusion
For this purpose, Epson's convergence correction functioned to adjust the color coverage of the three panels. Other software functions seemed to be very sophisticated like the intermediate image computation, which had little artificial effect, produced hardly visible artefacts and did not spoof the film look.
At least at a high lamp level, the EH-TW8100 casually filled the 3.5-meter CinemaScope screen with sweeping, well-lit Western panoramas. The fans kept their noise level, although many competitors are much quieter. If the lamp is set to ECO, the Epson also whispers inconspicuously. 3D, the EH-TW8100 showed a pleasurable plasticity with the optional wireless shutter glasses, with low conversions and good tracing, even in dark subjects.
Epsons EH-TW8100 is particularly impressive for its flexibility in installation. On the target side are the sub-sharpness of the lens, the secondary light output and the unbalanced color representation. On the have side: Brightness, handling and good 3D.
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