Epson Home Cinema 3020 Projector - Performance 3

Posted on July 16, 2013 by Art Feierman

Epson Home Cinema 3020 3D Brightness

Outstanding! While there might be one or two lower cost gaming projectors out there that can match the 3020's brightness for 3D, nothing else in the price range and quality can without spending an extra grand. Epson's own HC5020UB is essentially the same in terms of 3D brightness, and the Panasonic PT-AE8000 and the Sony VPL-HW50ES aren't a whole lot less bright. Still, all of those are at least $1000 more.

That makes the HC3020 - for the bucks - the King of 3D viewing in rooms without great lighting control. Mind you, there are other bright projectors in 2D, that are similarly suitable for family rooms, etc. Consider the BenQ W7000 an old favorite of ours, in its second full year. Pricing has dropped to below $2000, so in the ballpark The BenQ is plenty bright in 2D, but still not a match in terms of 3D brightness.

I've resurrected these comparison images from the HC3010 review. Basically the one lens of the glasses is placed between the camera and the screen, to show relative brightness. The first image below is with the glasses setting (in the projector's menus) set to high, the second image at medium, and the third at low. As you can see, there's a rather significant difference. With the low setting, crosstalk is essentially gone except for source related. Most will still prefer the compromise of Medium.

3D Brightness

Glasses setting

Medium setting

Low Setting

Epson Home Cinema 3020 Sharpness

I said this a year ago about the HC3010. Not one thing has changed, except I've updated the model number to 3020:

The Home Cinema 3020 performs very well for a lower cost home projector. Optics seem better than on many less expensive projectors, and convergence of the panels seems to be typical for an Epson 3LCD projector, regardless of the price. In addition to our playstation logo image below, I've left some menus on a number of images we placed on other parts of the review, viewing menus up close is good way to take a close look at sharpness.

I don't believe anyone will have any issues regarding the sharpness. I also note, that I didn't notice any defocusing as the projector warms up.