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Pete, try this. Go to my review of the 1080 UB, to the general performance page. Find the Calibration section, and drop in all the settings into one of your user savable memories. Then compare. Theoretically, you’ll like our settings even better than the defaults, and since you are already pleased, you can probably save that money and put it to something else you need for your theater.

Back when I reviewed the HC1080 UB, I didn’t always drop in our Brightness, Contrast and saturation settings, but you can handle that. A number of discs have all you need to adjust, such as most of the star wars discs, and a number of Disney animations. (or you can buy a calibration disc). Color saturation is easy. Adjust by eye – if skin tones are too intense, reduce, if things are too pale, raise it. The proper setting should look good on almost everything. -art

Thanks for all your incredible reviews.

I’ve just got a Pro 1080 UB that’s been pro ISF calibrated on an Elite screen CineWhite 1.1 gain. My question is : should I buy the same type of screen? And that way the calibration would still be effective? Or I do’nt mind and I can go with a Da-Lite HC cinema vision for exemple…?

And for the throw distance, is a lens at its best at mid range zoom?

Thank you very much in advance.

Steve

p.s.: sorry if my english is’nt good… I live in Quebec, Canada. French is my 1st language.

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Greetings Steve,
OK consider:
1. Contact the person who calibrated your projector, if you don’t already have them, find out the settings he used (ISF Day, Night) in calibrating those modes. And hang onto a print copy of the settings as well.
2. Duplicate those settings in two of the 10 user savable settings areas.
3. Ask the calibrator if any of the work he did, is screen dependent.
4. To answer your question, most of a calibration is screen independent, although changing to a high contrast screen is likely to cause you to make minor adjustments to brightness, contrast, and, likely, color saturation. The color aspects should remain essentially unchanged.
5. You’ll want those duplicate settings (#2) to test minor changes against the calibrator’s original settings.
6. Lens – well, best not to use the extreme range (most wide angle, most telephoto. No lens is at it’s best at the extremes. That said, backing off a little from the extremes is probably sufficient. If you mount close (lens toward wide-angle) you’ll get more brightness. You will also get a bit more roll-off to the sides, corners, in brightness, in a wide angle setting than mid-point, and more at mid-point than telephoto. If you can, stay within the 10% to 90% range of the lens. Other than brightness and hot spotting, any other aspects should be very minor.

Hope that helps! -art

I picked up a demo Pro Cinema 1080ub that included a bulb with 2000 hours on it. The dealer will order a free bulb if I decide to keep it. I have been comparing it with the W5000 with a brand new bulb side by side.

The Epson is VERY dim compared to the BenQ in `best mode`…and thats with the benQ iris set to zero and brilliant colour off. The differences in contrast are dramatic in favour of the BenQ.

I hesitate to return the epson because of your review. Is it possible that a bulb at the end of its life would seriously cut the brightness and contrast of the EpsonÉ Can I expect a large difference with the new bulbÉ I am really sitting on the fence here with just 3 days decide on which projector to return.

Thanks so much for such a valuable resource.

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Hi Mike,

The BenQ would still be a step brighter than the Epson even with a brand new lamp. Still, at the end of the lamp’s life, you probably have no more than 60% of the lamp’s original brightness, if that. So, try switching from low to high lamp, and figure a new lamp would give you about the same brightness increase as two increases, each the amount of the difference between low and high.

The BenQ is also a hell of a good projector. I really liked it last year, it shared a Best in Class, Runner-up Award (along with the Sony VW40), right behind the 1080UB. And that was when it still had too much image noise – corrected by newer firmware. If you like the horsepower, and the picture overall, it too, is an excellent choice. -a

What mount would you recommend for the epson 1080 UB?

Thanks

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Hi Arminn,

I’m afraid I’m not qualified to recommend one. I just don’t get to play with different mounts. Your dealer is likely a much better source of information. Other than that, over the years, I’ve had good luck with Premier Mounts universal mounts. When I owned a dealership, we sold their mounts for most projectors to the tune of 50 – 100 mounts per month, with good success. (That was more than 3 years ago, though). -art

I finally pulled the trigger on the UB and I love it! I’m still playing around with the settings to figure out what I like the most.

One quick question – your review refers to the setting “Theater Black”, is this the same as “Cinema Dark”?

Thanks for the informative site!

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I use the Theater Black 1, option. I just can’t recall, which is the equivalent mode, but comparing the manuals probably will allow you to figure it out. Anyone else recall?

I know you have heard this a million times but I have to say how informative and appreciated your reviews are. I am considering the Epson Home Cinema 1080UB as I can get a great deal right now due to the soon to be released 6500 and 7500. Are there any glaring upgrades to the 6500 over the Home Cinema 1080UB ? I have 120″ screen and would like to place the projector at a distance of about 17′ (front of the lens to the screen) At that disitance, are there any loss of brightness concerns. Finally, I have heard rumors about the 6500 coming in at around $3999US and the 7500 at $4999US. I live in Canada and can pick up the Home Cinema 1080UB for $2700CAD. I like the savings, but would you pay the differnce for the 6500 ? I know its a personal choice, just looking for your opinion. Many Thanks. Looking for forward to your feed back.

Noel

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Thanks Noel,

Tough call. Let me put it this way. the 1080 UB is a great projector for the money. The 6500 will be better, but, most likely not a great improvement. There are few people who would ever complain about the 1080 UB’s black level performance, even if the Home Cinema 6500 UB is a little better. The new model will have creative frame interpolation, which is a nice touch, but I’m not fully sold on its importance yet. Still, it is a benefit. I’m really more interested in whether there will be subtle improvements in the naturalness of the overall image. I’ve said that the 1080 UB is not the most film-like, but has a lot of “wow factor” – a dynamic looking image. To guess at those differences would be just that, an uneducated guess.

So, hang in there if you can. I imagine there will still be 1080 UB’s around after the 6500 UB starts shipping, and their pricing isn’t likely to go anywhere but down slightly.

With luck, after talking to epson today, the 6500 UB (or the 7500 UB) may well arrive in time for me to have a full review published before Christmas. No promises, I’m at their mercy, waiting for the first shipment of review units to land, but Epson is optimistic, in that I may well get the projector in two weeks or so.. It is my highest priority, so I’ll publish within 7 days of its arrival. -art

First, thanks for your review give me the confidence to let me bought the amazing Epson 1080UB.
Second, during the several months I find out this projector still has some minor issue:
1. Still can fell the noise when in high light mode
2. When turn Irie on can clearly hear the noise (like a computer hard drive reading) from the lens side.
3. The manual H&V key can’t stay in the place after setup and use for a time. Because several times when I turn on the projector, I find out the image movie out from projector screen.
Third, pleas give me some advice for the following questions:
Watching env& machine:
Light cond: Full dark basment
Bluray player: Denon 2500BT
Amp: Onkyo 805
Speaker: KEF 3005SE 7.1
Projector: EPSON 1080UB celling mount
Screen: Elite VMAX moto 92″ matte white
Most time watch Bluray movie with Cinema 1 mode
1. What kind of screen suggest to use in the full dark env with this projector. What gain is best? The reason I want to change my screen is when has the big white color image (like white cloud on the sky, snow…)project on the screen I can clear to see the screen painting material and small shine spot reject to my eyes, that make the image unclear. For example ,when watching the movie “House of Flying Daggers”, I get the better image on my white wall that the screen. But the other side, got no problem on the other without white color image on this screen. I think maybe this screen is old model not good for HD projector, the painting material is not small and smooth enough, and the gain is too hight.
2. Why can’t see any different when set Irie to on&off
3. Weather need the Bluray movie also support the x.v deep color, otherwise you can’t see any advantage even the player, amp and projector set to deep color support.
4. How to know this is a deep color image when check the source option on the projector.
5. Why can’t see any different when set the projector 24P support to on, weather it also very depends on weather the bluray movie support it or not?

Thanks!
Philip

Greetings Philip, As you can see, I’m way behind on answering questions. I’ll try to be brief: You have two sets of numbers above, I’m answering the lower ones. But first, regarding the iris noise.
Seems to be some variation in the noise the iris makes from projector to projector. Mine is reasonably quiet, but I can still pick it up during silent scenes. If it’s bad, that’s why Epson has a replacement warranty.

1. Well, some companies have come out with screens with finer surfaces for 1080p work. The Stewart Firehawk G3 which I own, is an example, and I could see the difference, though not great, compared to my older Firehawk that I replaced. As to a bright spot, most better screens should not have a hot spot, at least not one that would normally be noticeable.

2. On the right scenes, you can definitely see it. For example if you have a fade to black between scenes, you should see it there. Also on very dark scenes with no really bright areas. A night scene with more than the tiniest amount of pure white, won’t allow the iris to stop down, so on those mixed scenes, the iris does little (but the eye adjusts to the bright area, a partial offset).

3. yes, so far Blu-ray will be the primary source of Deep Color and x.v. color, but I’m not aware of any titles offering this yet. It’s a “future” feature, but true 10 bit/channel source material should provide a visible (though not great) improvement, especially on closeups of faces.

4. Don’t know what the projector info will say, when they find a Deep Color source, as I haven’t seen one yet.

5. Yes, you need 24 fps source, which most blu-ray discs now have. However, be sure your player is set up to output 24fps. Some players have an “auto” feature to determine whether to send 24fps, but there’s no guaranty that it recognizes every display devices ability to support it. Such a feature will not output 24fps unless it understands that the display can accept it. Also many AV receivers (other than the newest) and HDMI switch boxes do not fully support. For example, my old Marantz THX cert. receiver doesn’t. (And I don’t use it for switching, for that reason, among others). Also some of my switch boxes are really 1.2 devices, even though they recognize 1.3 data with 24 fps. What happens is that my switch box sees the 1.3, but tells the source to send it 1.2 so it can distribute that.

Hope that helps. -art

thanks,

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Hi fleck,

Assuming no side ambient light conditions, I’d say you can go either size, however, considering the 1080 UB’s excellent blacks, unless you are a real black level fanatic, I’d say go white surface, the usual 1.0 to 1.4 gain screens, like the Carada Brilliant White, the Studiotek 130, and equivalents from Da-Lite, Draper, etc. If you are strictly movies, (no lighting on for HDTV, sports, you could go with a high contrast gray at 106, or even 110″. As per my review, I did much of my watching of the 1080UB with about a 110 inch image shining on my 128″ Firehawk, which is an HC gray. -art

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Greetings Stan,

Yes, acoustic screens can have an impact on image quality, such as noted in the Elite Acoustic screen surface I reviewed early this year. In that case, there is enough reflected light (if the wall behind your screen isn’t black, to ruin the picture. (BTW, I’ll be reviewing their new, improved acoustic material in the next month or two.) It’s a trade-off, but with the best acoustic screens any loss of quality is minimal. -a