Brightlink 595Wi - Brightness
As Art noted in his recent review of the Epson BrightLink 585Wi, "we still haven’t figured out a good way to accurately measure the brightness of an ultra short projector like this Epson". Because the angle of the light varies from moderate to steep, and the distance so short, it's really is a challenge. Thus different reviewers may come up with different lumens values for the 595Wi as well as other ultra short throw projectors, even if they are using identical light meters/sensors.
There are several possible ways to measure brightness values with this and similar projectors, but most have real shortcomings. We could measure reflected light off of the screen, at “eye level”, but that puts the screen's characteristics also into the resulting measurements.
The technique I ultimately used to measure the projector's lumens output in each of its various color modes should be with perhaps within 10% of what might be expected from a measurement using some "ideal" method (if someone could tell me what that method is). I did use two different techniques (and two different sensors) to measure the relative brightness between the projector's 7 different color modes and obtained consistent results with both methods.
It should also be noted that with ultra short throw interactive projectors, you can only go so large in terms of screen size. If the screen’s too big – then it’s too tall for the people using the pens or fingers interactively, to reach up to the top of the screen. For that reason, few ultra short throw interactive projectors are designed to work with screens larger than 100″ diagonal. (Which in a 16:10 format is about 66 inches tall. So, if the bottom of the screen is a low 36 inches off the floor a 100″ diagonal would have the top of the screen around 36+66 = 114, which is 8.5 feet. Few can reach that high without a ladder.
My point is this, for screen sizes around 100″ diagonal or less, 3000+ lumens is a whole lot of lumens and even a little under 2000 lumens produces an image capable of dealing with a fair amount of ambient light!
For my measurements I had the projector table mounted and projecting a 16 x 10 image that was 84.5 inch diagonal. Factory default settings were used for all color modes.
Color Mode Measured Lumens
Dynamic 3176*
Presentation 2644
Theater 2213
Sports 2857
Photo 1835
sRGB 1848
Blackboard 1453
Whiteboard 1843
* While with the default settings for Dynamic Mode I did not measure the Epson spec'ed 3300 lumens, I was able to adjust the contrast up a little to obtain the correct reference white level and when I measured the brightness again I obtained 3561 lumens. I feel this validates Epson's claimed 3300 lumen value.
Note that Sports mode is only available with a input signal in component (YCbCr) format and Photo mode is only available with an input signal in RGB format.
I found brightness uniformity to be good with a maximum of 20% light variation from the center of the image to the corners.
Color uniformity also looked good when viewing a full screen white image.
Eco mode decreased the light output by about one third, measured in Dynamic mode.
Epson’s rated lamp life improves 50% going from 4000 hours to 6000 hours when switching to Eco mode. If you have sufficient brightness in Eco mode, likely when running in one of the better bright modes such as Sports or Presentation, then it makes sense to run the projector in Eco mode and save the lamp and reduce the electric bill as well.
With most projectors we provide our measurements with the lens at mid-point of its zoom range, but with these ultra short throw projectors there is no zoom range.
Brightlink 595Wi - Audible Noise
There’s not much to report. The Brightlink 595Wi is reasonably quiet at full power, and certainly quiet enough to not matter at all, when in Eco mode.
We do not measure audible noise. None-the-less, Epson’s claims of 35 db at full power and 28 db in Eco mode are very believable. At full power most home theater projectors tend to be between about 27 and 33 db. Consider that the demand for quiet projectors is much greater in the theater, than a training room or classroom, so any projector that’s really not significantly noisier than a quality home projector is doing just great. For perspective, Epson’s own 5030UB home theater projector claims 32 db at full power, so the 595Wi is just one small increment louder.
And of course 28 db in Eco mode is quieter than most home theater projectors can do at full power. That’s pretty quiet!
Finally, by virtue of the ultra short throw, the projector is right up by the projection surface, far from the audience or students, so they are far less likely to notice than if it was a projector with an average throw distance, which would have it mounted above their heads. Bottom line: No issue!
Brightlink 595Wi - Sharpness
Sharpness issues have plagued many ultra short throw projectors. Over the years we’ve seen some pretty poor attempts at edge to edge sharpness, and even some that never really look sharp at all. These days that’s more the exception, than the rule, which is a good thing.
The Epson ultra short throw projectors including this Brightlink 595Wi and it’s siblings the 575Wi and 585Wi, follow in the footsteps of the the projectors they replace, including 485Wi, in that they are the true exception. This projector is extremely sharp, rivaling any longer throw projectors.
Bottom Line on Brightlink 585Wi sharpness: Outstanding!
