Epson Home Cinema 8500UB Projector Calibration and Settings

We calibrate each home theater that is reviewed. It is a pretty standard calibration, there’s always more that can be done by some of the “hi-end” calibrators. Our calibrations, including the Home Cinema 8500UB, are normally limited to a grayscale calibration, along with brightness, contrast, color saturation, etc. We did not adjust the individual colors.

Epson Home Cinema 8500UB Color Temperature

Let’s start by repeating the pre-calibration measurements of the THX mode (which is based on the REC 709 standard on the 8500UB,) but on the 9500UB you can change that to the European EBU standard, or to the SMPTE-C standard:

Epson Home Cinema 8500UB Basic Settings

In addition to calibrating Red Green and Blue for a correct grayscale balance (6500K), there are a number of other settings that come into play. Typically Contrast and Brightness (white balance and black balance), need to be done first. Color saturation and gamma also need adjustment.

Settings for measurements (default values are in parenthesis):

Epson Home Cinema 8500UB Post Calibration Grayscale: THX mode (REC 709) (stored on User 1)

RGB Settings

Below are the RGB settings we ended up with post calibration. While there is some slight variation in color from one lamp to the next, you should find these provide a better picture than the defaults. Plug’em in, save them in one of the 9 User memory areas, and try them out.

To get the color temp settings above, the following adjustments were made to gain and bias: