Epson Home Cinema 3010 Projector Calibration and Settings

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Art Feierman

The Home Cinema 3010 projector engineering sample we received was calibrated by Mike. When the second, production projector arrived, I tried Mike's settings and they still looked good, give or take minor lamp variations. As a result, we have published Mike's settings below, and decided not to do a fresh calibration on the production projector.

Our calibrations, including the Epson Home Cinema 3010, are normally limited to a grayscale calibration, along with brightness, contrast, color saturation, tint (where applicable), etc. Only in very special circumstances will we calibrate the individual colors, in which case we discuss why.

Epson Home Cinema 3010 Color Temperature

Color Temp over IRE Range (Pre calibration, best mode – Cinema):
Cinema	Cinema (in Eco lamp)
30 IRE – 5873	6741
50 IRE – 6036	6836
80 IRE – 6128	6815
100 IRE – 6166	6849

A quick fix for the low / warm temp in Cinema mode at full lamp, is to adjust the color temp from its default 6500K to 7000K. That makes a real improvement, short of a real calibration.

Lumen Output and Color Temp at 100 IRE:
Dynamic	1925 @ 6852
Living Room	1602 @ 7633
Natural	1402 @ 6155, 923 @ 6912 in Eco lamp mode (default)
Cinema	1402 @ 6166, 923 @ 6849 in Eco lamp mode (default)
Auto	923 @ 6704

Ipretty much ignored the Auto mode. I like to know where I am, mode wise. Some folks will be perfectly happy using it.Most movies cause it to drop into Cinema mode, etc. Besides, I like the Living Room mode, the way I have it set up, a lot better than Dynamic, and it’s not that much less bright. I mean I still have plenty of brightness when desired or needed.

Epson Home Cinema 3010 Basic Settings

Settings for measurements (default values are in parenthesis):
Cinema	Dynamic	Living Room	Natural
Contrast	= (0)	0	0	-1	0
Brightness	= (0)	0	0	2	1
Color Saturation	= (0 for all)
Tint	= (0 for all)	6500	6500	7500	6500

Auto Iris is on Normal by default. All other settings at default (untouched) Auto picture mode has none of the above adjustable settings as it uses its light sensor to switch to whatever picture mode works with the ambient light conditions. Zoom at mid range and Lamp mode on Normal unless noted otherwise.

Epson Home Cinema 3010 Post Calibration Grayscale: User Mode

Color Temp over IRE Range (Post calibration): UserCalibrated color temps, 20 – 100 IRE:
User 1	Column Content
20 IRE=	6506
30 IRE =	6421
40 IRE =	6436
50 IRE =	6508
60 IRE =	6536
70 IRE =	6570
80 IRE =	6551
90 IRE =	6578
100 IRE =	6271
Average gamma =	2.27

Home Cinema 3010 RGB Settings

Header Content
Cinema (on User 1)	Quick Cal of Dynamic (on User 2)
Offset	R = -3 R= 0
G = 0	G= 0
B = 8	B= 0
Gain	R = -1 R= 0
G = 0	G= -10
B = 3	B = 3
Color Saturation:	-5 0
Tint:	0 0
Gamma:	2.4 2.4
Lumens at 100 IRE:	1424 1758

Mike provided these additional notes, regarding the ability to calibrate different settings, limitations, etc.:

Dynamic is high in green, low in red at 100 IRE, despite the good color temp shown on the previous page. Knocking green down helps, but doesn’t end up with much more in the way of lumens than Living Room, which looks better.

Ultimately, the Home Cinema 3010 produces reasonably good color, even better if calibrated. It should prove more than satisfactory for the Home Cinema 3010′s target market, and even please many enthusiasts on a reasonable budget.