Epson Home Cinema 1080 and Pro Cinema 1080 Projector Reviews: Summary, Pros, Cons

et's start with the Home Cinema 1080, since that's the only one I actually got to play with. I am impressed. Of the three 1080p LCD projectors, this is my new favorite. The Panasonic may have a pixel structure that is for all practical purposes invisible, and has some great features built in for optimizing its performance, and the Mitsubishi, does give the feeling of being slightly sharper, whether or not it resolves any more detail, plus the Mitsubishi is super quiet. The Epson is the noisiest of the three, by the way.

Still, the Home Cinema 1080 has a killer list of strengths, the most significant are:

It's brighter than the competition.
It's the most flexible (although not by much compared to the other 2 LCD models).
It's out of the box colors are pretty impressive, as is black level performance.
It's got a great warranty, and support program.
And, if that weren't enough - it costs less than any other 1080p projector at the time of this writing (4/07).

Pro Cinema 1080 - Ok this is basically the same projector but it lives in a different world, so it's time to talk about all of that.

Epson has decided to market two lines of similar projectors. They have a good reason, but whether that matters to you or not, we shall see. The high volume market for projectors is mostly internet based, which, is strongest on projectors under $2000. On the other hand, there are literally thousands and thousands of local "install" dealers - many of them referred to as CEDIA dealers (the CEDIA organization dealers all do installation, often have a staff of people who are trained and certified, and most of them either have a professional calibrator on staff, or work closely with one. They also are generally allergic to any real discounting. As a result, local dealers tend to avoid carrying any projector that can easily be obtained online at heavy discount prices. Think I'm kidding, in most major cities (in the US) you can't even find a place to get a demo of the most popular home theater projectors from Optoma, Panasonic, etc. So here comes Epson - on he lower end, the Cinema 400, and now the Home Cinema 1080, both Ok for online and "big box" houses (like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.)

Then there is the Pro Cinema 810 (720p resolution) and the new Pro Cinema 1080.