Epson is bringing you three new home entertainment projectors - or home theater projectors, if you have the right room.  They are, as noted above, the Home Cinema 3000, Home Cinema 3500, and the Home Cinema 3600e projectors. Where to start? These new Epson projectors are pretty bright, with the base model - the Home Cinema 3000 claiming 2300 lumens and the other two projectors both at 2500 lumens.  All three have vertical and horizontal lens shift and 1.6:1 zoom lenses! Think of the line-up this way:  The Home Cinema 3000 is the economy model, while (more…)Greetings everyone,  As mentioned in my last post, I had to fly out of CEDIA before day two, and never got to meet with Sony, but have since spoken with them.  Of primary interest was the status of the VPL-VW300ES, which was launched in Europe at IFA. UPDATE  Jan 11th 2015:  Sony showed the US version of the VW300ES in a large meeting room at the Mirage in Las Vegas at CES 2015.  I got to see the new VPL-VW350ES (the US version) in action, even viewing it switching back and forth for comparison with one of JVC's higher end projectors.   There's a newer blog that discusses the VW350ES projector.  The VPL-VW350ES is now in stock in the US, as of this writing.  Note that Sony has a special intro launch price, through Feb 28th, of $7999, but after that it goes back up to the official price of $9999. Below I've summarized the situation, and the projector's basic specs. Originally Ron had gotten conflicting info - "no, the VW300ES is not coming to the US" and "it might be here in Q1." From my discussion with Sony is plays out this way.  Yes, it' will be shipping to Europe this fall.  No, it won't be shipping in the US this fall." "Could we see it in Q1?" I asked.  Basically, the answer was a nice, politically evasive/correct response of:   (more…)Greetings and aplogies projector fans, only half information for you. A family emergency caused me to fly out early Friday morning after only one day at CEDIA. Due to that, I had to cancel more meetings than I attended, and the last day, I walk the show, and see even more new "stuff." I didn’t get to meet with Sony and some others. The good news is Ron, who reviews biz/edu projectors, should have hooked up with Sony for that meeting. He therefore should have info to report about the new Sony, so let’s start with how little I know about it.  Truth is, I haven't even been on my site since I left CEDIA  until just now. Sony announced the VPL-VW300ES at IFA. I believe (more…)Greetings.  Seems the word is out about Epson's new higher end home theater projectors thanks to the IFA show in Europe.  There are two, but I want to share information primarily on the new Pro Cinema LS10000.  This projector has a lot of new firsts for Epson.  And I should mention, it's pretty good looking, very "Euro", reminding me of SIM2 projectors.  Note, you can click on any of these images for a larger version. First, let me say, I received an engineering sample, and am reviewing it.  I am hoping to have the review ready for the first day of CEDIA next week, when Epson formally announces the LS10000 in the US. What's so special?  Let's start with the light engine.  The LS10000 and the less expensive LS9600e (price also to be determined) sport a dual laser based light engine.  OK, so that means long life, but what else?  The color gamut - the range of colors its capable of is massively large - it supports the DCI (that's Digital Cinema) color system, which has more range than REC709, etc. that we're used to.  Of course, we'll need Hollywood to start offering DCI content to us poor home theater folks, to fully appreciate.  On regular content the LS10000's performance seems as natural as any lamp based projector, and that's impressive since generally previous attempts at lasers and LED hybrids in home theater projectors have not reviewed that well, due to a large part with getting the color right.  BTW, this laser engine based projector is pretty bright - after we calibrated it, it still managed almost 1300 lumens!  According to Epson, this is a 1500 lumen projector, and per our measurements, it beat that claim in brightest mode. No lamps to buy, and even better perhaps, the Laser engine should (more…)Greetings home theater and projector fans, The 2014 report just went live. https://www.projectorreviews.com/best-home-theater-projectors-report-2014/ We will still be proofing, and adding minor content over the first week, but this year's Best In Class awards are all there.  There really aren't any great surprises for those of you who pat attention to a lot of the reviews, as there were fewer new HT projectors launched in the last 10 months than in most years.  We also lost Mitsubishi which exited both home and commercial projetors.  Check out the report, it's a lot more condensed than usual, with more (more…)Greetings Projector Fans, It's about time for our annual Best In Class awards for the best Home Theater projectors.  This past year - starting with the CEDIA show, there simply weren't the usual number of home theater projectors launched.  And so, a few less reviews.  There was a particular shortage of new projectors in the $1000 - $2000 price range. We tend to focus our reviews on home theater - and home entertainment projectors with 1080p native resolution, from over $500 up to $30,000, with most of the reviews in the $800 to $8000 range. There were just less new projectors than most years.   Plus, unfortunately, due to some late first shipments (and manufacturers running late to ship review units), the annual Best Home Theater Projectors report which we usually publish in the March timeframe, had to be delayed to include some recent reviews.  (Sony HW40ES, Optoma HD91, and a little further back, JVC DLA-RS4910/X500R). This year due to those delays, I was forced to delay any report until after I published our annual Classroom Projector report which due to the seasonal buying requirements of K-12 schools, cannot be delayed past early May.  So, that got in front. And a couple of key projectors arrived since then. Well, with our review of Sony's new VPL-HW40ES projector, we've reviewed all the home theater projectors we're likely to get to until "next year's" crop is announced in September, and manufacturers start rolling out new product between September and March. Some of the factors limiting the number of projectors:

• Last October Mitsubishi announced they were quitting projectors.  Not just home theater projectors but all.  That was a major announcement as Mitsubishi probably had close to 40 projectors (mostly business and education projectors) in their line-up.
• Panasonic launched no new home projectors!   I believe Panasonic has had at least one new home projector every year but one, since about 2001, prior to this past year.  Until about 6 years ago, Panasonic had a line-up of one projector for the home, always a PT-AE series.  Then they launched a second one (projectors like the PT-AR100U) which were a step down.  Those lower cost projectors though, Panasonic normally gets two years out of (or three?).  That Panasonic had nothing new was a real surprise, but we're sure hoping Panasonic is planning to keep bringing out home theater projectors, although whether that will happen has been the cause of a lot of discussion among dealers.  We can use a new PT-AE projector.  Someone's got to keep Epson "honest", in that the PT-AE projectors use the same Epson 3LCD chips as the Epson UB, and therefore is the most direct competitor those Epsons have.
• JVC brought out new projectors, except for their least expensive, the DLA-X35 aka the RS46, which remains in the line-up for another year.  Normally JVC replaces all their models each year.  Count that as one less than usual for JVC.
• While there was some activity from BenQ and Optoma, who we can normally count on for lower cost projectors, BenQ rolled out their $2799 W7500 which replaces the W7000, but the W1070 and its siblings remained in the lineup - the popular W1070 was first announced almost two years ago (at CEDIA 2012), and we reviewed it 18 months back.

I could go on, but the point is, less home projectors to review this past year.  The market segment with the most action, was what I call the market sweet spot - $2000 to $3500 projectors.  As many of you know We just published an extensive comparison piece between four of the projectors in that group. As a result, this year we'll have a rather truncated Best (1080p) Home Theater Projector report.   We will look at all the projectors that we've reviewed that are still current, do our usual positioning of the projectors, and give out a handful of Best in Class, and Best in Class Runner-up awards.   All of this year's report and awards will be published over the next two weeks. For those of you who read all, or most of our reviews of home projectors, I doubt there will be a whole lot of surprises, but here's some of the key award questions that will have to be decided: In the $2000 to $3500 "street" price range, who will rule?  Will it be the particularly price performance oriented Epson Home Cinema 5030UB, or will the roughly $1000 more expensive Sony VPL-HW55ES win the day? And how well do the BenQ W7500 and Sony VPL-HW40ES do compared to those other two? Then the real conundrum, since our high tier is $3500 -  ??? price range, that covers a lot of turf.  Looks like the serious battle is between two hugely different projectors, in both price, and performance:  Sony's VPL-VW600ES - a true 4K projector, or JVC's much less expensive DLA-X500R/RS49/RS4910 projector. I will mention that this year we have one new thing happening.  We're considering a couple of pocket projectors in the under $2000 price range.  While they aren't a match for the best low cost lamp projectors, their portability and interest from younger folks to use them for gaming and home viewing, sort of demands that we look at how they stack up against some projectors like the BenQ W1070 or Epson Home Cinema 2000/2030. So, folks, stay tuned.  Perhaps I'll be able to surprise you with a couple of the awards.  -art  Greetings projector folks, I'm pleased to let you know that the bulk of the Optoma HD91 projector review is now live.  This is a single chip DLP projector, claiming 1000 lumens, and an LED light source.  It has an impressive 1.9:1 manual zoom lens and a good amount of lens shift. The HD91 also does 3D, using RF glasses and an included, outboard very small emitter. As you will find out in the report, the HD91 is rather interesting.  It's the best attempt at a reasonably affordable solid state light engine (LED in this case), for the home theater. Warning:  Out of the box the color is way off - in all modes, but it calibrates - cleans up, pretty nicely. After Mike's calibration I'm still not 100% happy with skin tones - but then with their larger color space, I figure the calibrating is a little tougher.  After chatting with Mike and taking some advice, (more…)Greetings Home Theater Projector fans, the Optoma HD91 is here. I spent about four hours playing with it last night, mostly getting a handle on how the LED light engine affects the picture (compared to conventional lamps) and how good/accurate the HD91 is in terms of out of the box color performance. This afternoon Mike stopped by to pick up the HD91 projector to calibrate it.  I'll have it back (more…)Greetings projector fans -  I just want to say for now that I really am impressed with JVC's DLA-RS4910.  This projector doesn't exist in the consumer X series, only on the pro RS.  With a sticker price of about $5500 list.   What I really wanted to say is that the picture is extremely saturated and rich looking, reminds me of a good DLP projector.  I found the iris to be about as invisible as one can hope for, and the blacks really good. This JVC RS4910 projector isn't yet calibrated but it has a couple of great looking modes to start with.  Mike will calibrate it when he gets back from his travels, this weekend.  I'll shoot the movie photos then, do the HDTV in the meantime. It's been a few months since I've had the Sony HW55ES here, so I'm working from memory.  I figure the JVC has more pop, (more…)Greetings everyone!   It's been a slow Q1 for home theater projector reviews.    As many of you know, there were less true home theater projectors announced this year at CEDIA, than I can remember since the early days more than a decade ago. The good news, is that finally, I've got a new JVC projector inbound for review.  I want to thank the great folks at AV Science - you know -  the folks that created and brought you the AVSforum, have been kind enough to ship me a DLA-RS4910.  For those not familiar, the JVC DLA-RS4910 is a slightly different version, but almost identical to the DLA-X500R.   I've received the tracking number on the JVC projector, so know it's arriving this coming week.   Best I can tell, the delays in review units from JVC are apparently due to some firmware fixes JVC wanted to accomplish with the new models.  My contact at JVC has only been able to say that he has no units to lend for review.  I hear that firmware fix now exists, although I haven't looked into the nature of the issue, I assume the one being sent to me has the latest.) We've gotten to all the Sonys and Epsons released at CEDIA, and I'm finishing off the BenQ W7500 right now (6 pages are finished, about 12 to go, it will publish in a couple more days). The other exciting news is that Optoma is Alive!  I'm talking about in terms of real home theater projectors with great color and great black levels.  It's been a long time since Optoma has released any real, serious home theater projectors - really just home entertainment models under $2000, although you could argue that the HD25 projectors are HT, not HE.  Optoma still have a couple in the lineup that are now getting pretty old. But this is truly exciting - the HD91 is coming my way.  This is an LED projector - perhaps the first modern serious one at anything resembling a reachable price.  I believe the MSRP is $3999.  the Optoma HD91 projector is  perhaps the first one that can really slug things out with the lamp based competition.   It's no light canon, claiming only 1000 lumens, but that's plenty (at least in 2D) for most home theaters.   I've reviewed a couple other home theater LED projectors in the past, the  Cinetron, and a Viewsonic, but the Cinetron was absurdly expensive (hey 4+ years ago), and the Viewsonic simply wasn't capable of great color, even calibrated. But I have my hopes up.  After all, if Optoma can pull this off, there are real advantages to LED, including, obviously, the long life lamp, but perhaps more important, that colors won't shift significantly over time, as lamps do.  (Of course self calibrating projectors, or perhaps self re-calibrating projectors are likely to start hitting the market, which might negate that advantage.) I'm hoping for a good color management system, and I'm assuming it has a dynamic iris, after seeing a 500,000:1 contrast spec listed. While the JVC DLA-RS4910 is in transit, I don't know yet, about the HD91.  I am definitely hoping it will arrive before the end of this month and the review published in early April. After those two, I will finally have enough projectors reviewed to create our 2014 Best Home Theater Projectors report.  Ideally, I'll also have a crack at the JVC DLA-RS700R or RS-900R, in time for the report, but we can make do, without it. That's it for now.  I'm going back to getting that BenQ review finished, and posted!  -art