Epson MovieMate 60 Projector - Physical Tour
12/22/2009 - Art Feierman
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Appearance
The MovieMate 60 is very nicely portable, measuring just 13.2" wide, by 9.4 inches deep, and 5 inches tall. And it weighs in at 9.3 pounds. It comes with a basic foamlike padded carry bag, which is very nice. It has no strap, but the handle of the projector is accessible. The projector is small enough and light enough to easily carry in its case.
From the front, you'll find the recessed lens (not a zoom lens) off to the right (when looking 
from the front). There's a sliding door that protects the lens and mutes the image, when closed. Below, on the left is the DVD/CD door to load/unload discs. To its right is the eject button, and an indicator light, while in the lower right corner, you'll find a headphone jack. Releases for the drop down feet are at the front of the left and right sides, way down at the bottom. You can just see one of these light gray release buttons in the picture at the top of this page.
Moving to the top is a rather extensive Control Panel, which is to be expected, as you aren't just operating a
projector, but a full system, with DVD player, sound, etc.
The lamp door is located on the back top of the Moviemate.
The back of the projector houses all the usual inputs and outputs, found on most projectors, but also has a Coaxial audio output, a USB input, and a microphone input, all three of which are mounted below the main input panel.
The twin 10 watt speaker are rear facing, and also on the back.
Looking from the front, the extendable handle is located on the left side, along with the air filter door. The lamp door is located on the top of the projector.
The remote is nice sized, but unfortunately, lacks a backlight. Well, I guess lacking a backlight is to be expected on an all-in-one projector in this price range. Hey, when I bought my PS3s they were $400 and even their optional full remote control has no backlight!
Control Panel
Extensive is the word! From the left: The all important power switch and the Temp and Lamp indicator lights below it. Next comes the Source control, followed by the Pause/Play button and the stop buttons for the internal DVD player. Next in line are the volume controls, the four arrow keys for navigation, in diamond configuration, with the Enter button in the center of the arrows.
Above them are the Setup and the Menu (that would be the menu for the DVD player, not the projector in general). Below the arrows are the Return button (for navigating menus), and the Visual Setup, which is your primary adjustment menu for the projector's image quality. The Visual Setup has four menus, discussed below.
MovieMate 60 Inputs
The MovieMate 60 is reasonably well endowed when it comes to inputs (and outputs). Compared to most home theater projectors, it is missing a few items, but, for an all-in-one device, it is very nicely equipped.
There is one HDMI. That's my only real complaint, a second one would be nice. True, there's a DVD player built in, but many may ultimately want to be able to hook up to both a satellite/cable box, and a Blu-ray player, or even a game machine with HDMI.
That said, if you run short of HDMI, there's always the similarly high performance component video input (3 RCA color coded jacks).
In addition, feel free to hook up your laptop or desktop, there's the usual analog computer input (which can be used instead as a second component video), should you have the need. Lastly, you'll find the standard composite video, with stereo audio inputs. And on the far right, is a service port.
Located lower on the back of the MovieMate 60, and shown above, are the coaxial audio output, the USB input, handy for showing photos, etc. from memory cards and flash drives, and finally, an interesting addition, a microphone input. Hmm, Karaoke? or for a business presentation, or...?
Epson MovieMate 60 Menus
There are two menu structures. The first are general projector controls, the second menu groupings cover some of the "all-in-one" aspects.
To the right, is the Visual Setup. Each of the first three options, when selected, brings up a single item at a time. For example selecting Image brings up Brightness, with a slider control. Hitting the left or right adjusts the brightness. Pressing up or down, though takes you to the next item, such as Contrast, or Power Consumption (shown below), or Dynamic Iris (off/on). The MovieMate 60 offers good basic 
controls but, for example there are no RGB controls for doing a calibration and grayscale balance. Finally, there's the Info button which provides some basic info such as resolution.
The second menu 
group, for the whole unit, starts with Language selection (the A icon below). To its right are the audio, and then the Setup menus.
Shown in the image to the right, are the Audio controls. As you can see you can control the digital audio out, and there's a very handy option (that every AV receiver should have), which is Night Mode.
Night mode is great when you want to watch, but people are sleeping or want the noise kept under control. Basically it compresses the audio range so that there isn't as big a jump from quiet conversation to noisy action filled type audio. You know how sometimes you have to turn down the action because it's too noisy, then 
you can't hear the people's conversation in the next scene? Well, this helps.
To the right is Setup page where you can navigate those images from that memory card, or flash drive, you can password protect up to 40 movies, and even select screen saving options. The MovieMate 60 also supports DivX.
MovieMate 60 Remote Control
I love all-in-one projector's remotes (not really). Basically it translates into a million buttons and no backlight, with most of the few such devices on the market.
This remote has 40 buttons and a switch! That should keep you busy. Actually the layout is pretty respectable.
At the top, you've got the orange Power button (once for on, twice for off), a toggle switch between function and numeric operation of the 12 buttons immediately below. You need the numerics for things like passwords. When not in numeric, those bottoms control a wide range of unit features, including On Screen, Program, Sleep, Surround, Sound, Aspect ratio, Zoom (digital), and a User button, which you can select its function in the menus.
Next comes three white buttons for Source select, Color Mode (Theatre, Dynamic...), and a really great button, called Break. Now many projectors have a Mute button which darkens everything, but the Break button has a picture of a coffee cup. When you press it, the screen turns white. Brilliant! both literally and figuratively. With the screen bathed in white, you can actually see what you are doing, you can get that cup of Java, or find the next disc, or your USB adapter, so you can plug in your photos. Usually when we finish something, we have to go turn on the lights, to see anything. This Break button is great!
OK, continuing on, next comes our DVD player controls with Play, the fast forward and reverse, chapter forward and reverse, pause, and of course, Stop.
Below that, are our four navigation arrows in a round configuration, with the Enter button in the center. To the top left of the arrow ring is the Setup button, to the right top, the Menu (for the DVD). To the bottom left is the Visual Setup, we discussed in the Menu section, and to the lower right, a Return button - part of the navigation.
That leaves only a two pair of large buttons, one pair for keystone correction, and a similar pair, for volume Up and Down. Finally smaller buttons for Mic, Audio, Subtitle and picture Angle.
That's it. All considered pretty good, although it takes the manual, or playing around to sort out what's on the Setup, Visual Setup, and Menu menus, as each of those functions sounds a lot alike. No big deal though, any owner will have it figured out quickly enough.
MovieMate 60 Lens Throw
The MovieMate 60 has a fixed lens - no zoom. Ideally you will want to place the projector exactly where it needs to be to fill your screen, should you have one. If you are just shining on the wall, then you can place the projector where you want, to get the approximate size desired.
To fill a 100" 16:9 screen with the MovieMate 60 image, you'll need the projector to be placed 9.9 feet back from the screen. That would be 9.9 feet measured from the front of the projector to the screen surface.
If, however, you have something more business-like to project, the projector supports 16:10 as well (typical widescreen business projector ratio). In that mode, the projector sits 10.7 feet back. For 4:3 viewing, such as conventional TV, if you were using a screen you would be 12.1 feet back, for a 100" diagonal image.
Because the MovieMate 60 also has a digital zoom, you can further alter the placement, but, given a choice, don't use the digital. It can make the image smaller (up to 35%) from a given distance, but it is also lowering the resolution at the same time - you just aren't using the full projected area. Try to set up the MovieMate so it works without using the digital zoom.
MovieMate 60 Lens Shift
The MovieMate 60 has no adjustable lens shift. The projector is designed however to be placed a bit below the bottom of the screen area. That makes it work nicely for placing the MovieMate 60 on a low table.