Epson Home Cinema 4010/Pro Cinema 4050 4K Capable Home Theater Projector Review – Hardware 2

Epson Home Cinema 4010, Pro Cinema 4050 Projector Review – Hardware 2:  Control Panel, Remote Control, The Menus

The Epson Home Cinema 4010/Pro Cinema 4050 offer a basic, yet functional, control panel.  It is expected that the control panels on home theater projectors will be simple and small as they are rarely used, seeing as most of these projectors will be ceiling mounted.  This projector hides its control panel beneath a sliding door on the projector’s left side – save for two larger buttons.  The two larger buttons are, of course, the Power button and the Source button.

The concealed control panel offers a Menu button, a directional keypad with an Enter button in the center.  There is a Lens button in the bottom left corner, which cycles through the adjustment options, and an Escape button in the bottom right corner.

Epson has long made rather excellent remotes.  The HC4010/PC4050 remote control is no different.  The HC4010 and PC4050 offer a highly functional, backlit remote. Its amber colored backlight could be a touch brighter, but “close enough.”  It is one of the larger remotes, feels solid, and uses all that real estate to provide lots of buttons and a lot of shortcuts to menus and submenus.  I especially like that this Epson offers HDMI-Link, allowing its remote to control another HDMI device that also has HDMI-Link (many companies change the name, i.e. Sanyo-Link, but if you see that word Link…)  I hate that a couple of my 4K UHD Blu-ray players have remotes that aren’t backlit.  It’s great, for example, to control my old Samsung, or my current favorite, the Sony UBP-X1000ES 4K UHD player.  Of course it can’t easily do everything, but it lets me handle all the transport functions (play, rewind, pause, forward chapter, power, and more, of a compatible HDMI-link device.

There are several distinct groupings on the remote, and we’ll start with the first, at the top of the remote and move from left to right.  First, we have a larger On button, with a smaller Standby button next to it.  In the top-right corner we have a greenish button to turn on the remote’s backlight (without having to hit another button first, potentially change settings.)  The next row consists of the Home button, and a Blank button which serves the function of temporarily turning off video projection.

The next section consists of Source buttons laid out in two rows.  They are HDMI1, HDMI2 and P-in=P in the first row, and PC and LAN in the second row.

The next section is made up of video playback control buttons, for control over playback and other features of connected devices that support the HDMI CEC standard.  The first row has Rewind, Play, and Fast-Forward.  The second row, Chapter Back, Pause, and Next Chapter.  The next row has a button for Link Memory, Stop and Audio Mute.  The last row of this section consists of HDMI Link, Volume Down and Volume Up.

The next section consists of three buttons in a single row; they are Lens, Color Mode and Image Enhancement.  Below that, we find a typical directional keypad with Enter in the center.  Just below the keypad we find a Default button, Menu button and Escape button.

The final section is made up of nine buttons over three rows.  First we have memory, Lens1 and Lens2 – these two buttons adjust the lens to a saved configuration for viewing different content, as we discussed in the Special Features and previous Hardware page.  The second row starts with Frame Interpolation, followed by RGBCMY and Pattern.  The final row is User, 3D Format and Aspect Ratio.

An almost full set of menus (almost all, including most sub-menus, but not some obvious features) will be uploaded to this photo player shortly. 

Image Menu: Color Mode, Brightness, Contrast, Color Saturation, Tint, Sharpness, Color Temp…., Frame Interpolation, Image Enhancement…, Advanced…, Power Consumption, Auto Iris, Reset

Image Color Temperature Sub-Menu: Color Temp, Skin Tone, Customized

Image Enhancement Sub-Menu: 4K Enhancement, Image Preset Mode, Noise Reduction, MPEG Noise Reduction, Super-resolution, Detail Enhancement

Image Advanced Sub-Menu: Gamma, RGBCMY, Deinterlacing, EPSON Super White

Signal Menu: 3D Setup…, Aspect, Overscan, Blanking, Advanced…, Reset

Signal 3D Setup Sub-Menu: 3D Display, 3D Format, 2D-to-3D Conversion, 3D Depth, Diagonal Screen Size, 3D Brightness, Inverse 3D Glasses, 3D Viewing Notice

Signal Advanced Sub-Menu: HDMI Video Range, Color Space, Dynamic Range, Image Processing

Settings Menu: Keystone, Picture in Picture, HDMI Link…, Lock Setting…, User Button, Memory…, Reset

Settings HDMI Link Sub-Menu: Device Connections, HDMI Link, Power On Link, Power Off Link, Link Buffer

Settings Lock Setting Sub-Menu: Lens Lock, Child Lock, Control Panel Lock

Settings Memory Sub-Menu: Load Memory, Save Memory, Erase memory, Rename Memory, Load Lens Position, Save Lens Position, Erase Lens Position, Rename Lens Position

Extended Menu: Home Screen…, Display…, Projection, Operation…, Standby Mode, Language, Reset

Extended Home Screen Sub-Menu: Home Screen Auto Disp., Custom Function 1, Custom Function 2.

Extended Display Sub-Menu: Menu Position, Messages, Display Background, Startup Screen, Standby Confirmation, Panel Alignment, Color Uniformity

Extended Operation Sub-Menu: Direct Power On, Sleep Mode, Sleep Mode Timer, Illumination, Trigger Out, High Altitude Mode

Network Menu: Wireless LAN Power, Net. Info. – Wireless LAN, Net. Info. – Wired LAN, Display the QR Code, Network Configuration

Info Menu: Lamp Hours, Source, Input Signal, Resolution, Scan Mode, Refresh Rate, 3D Format, Sync Info, Color Depth, Color Format, Status, Serial Number, Event ID

Reset Menu: Reset Lamp Hours, Reset Memory, Reset Lens Position, Reset All Config