Epson Home Cinema 700 - Image Quality 3

Posted on April 19, 2009 by Art Feierman

Shadow Detail Performance

While black level performance may be a weakness, there's not a thing wrong with the Home Cinema 700's ability to resolve dark shadow detail. I've commented in other reviews and articles, that projectors with weaker black levels are often stronger performers at shadow details, in part because the "near blacks" are noticeably brighter.

Home Cinema 700

Panasonic PT-AX200U

Optoma HD71

Next is this very dark scene from Space Cowboys. It is a good one for checking out both shadow detail and black level performance. All the images are seriously overexposed, for that purpose. Don't worry about contrast or skin tones as they tend to get exaggerated on long time exposures on dark images like this one. Look at the shades in the back for shadow details. Consider, that some that have very good shadow detail do not seem to do particularly black, blacks.

Epson HC700 projector

Epson HC720

PT-AX200U

Optoma HD71

Sanyo PLV-Z60

Optoma HD65

Again, from Space Cowboys, this is a cropped image. the right side, is very bright (so dynamic irises will not be effective). The Epson (top left) provides very good detail in the dark areas of the satellite. Next to it on the first row, is the Epson MovieMate 72 - an all-in-one projector system with built in sound and DVD player. You might think of the MovieMate 72 as an all-in-one equivalent to the HC700, but, in fairness, the HC700 does do better on black levels. On the next row: the Mitsubishi HC1600 and the Optoma HD71.

Home Cinema 700