Epson Home 10 Review (2 Viewers)

[Dean T]

Is it just me or do your shots of the Charlies Angels movie look like the image has been stretched??? is a Pan-aScan version that the projector is stretching??

Just curious as the Episode 1 and 2 shots look fine...

 

[Emanuel]

Yes... You are correct. I am in my custom setting (2.35:1) to get the movie into a theaterwide view.

Well here are some words of wisdom for anyone of you that are interested in HTPC's. Once you get it setup to the point where you want it. Make a backup image of the computer so if it does crash you can just do a quick image restore. I've been fighting with my HTPC all week to get it to the point where I can burn a backup of all of my files and settings. Looks like I'm going to have to rebuild the whole computer from scratch. I might be offline for some time.

 

[Randy A Salas]

I recently had this projector for a one-month in-home evaluation. I was giddily happy with it, although I should note that this was my first real experience with a front projector.

But I have to emphasize one of the weaker aspects of the projector, something that I was glad to see noted by Widescreen Review. The projector has a very noticeable green push when showing gray-scale in black-and-white movies. If you watch a lot of old movies, it might just drive you crazy. This, coupled with a noticeable drop in image quality for 4:3 material, might be enough to put off fans of those films.

I asked Epson about it, and they admitted to a technical spec that is causing the problem. They have deliberately pushed the green to give a boost to the brightness, and that's what's being seen during gray-scale scenes.

I never found a satisfactory way to solve the problem, and I was watching in Theater Black, the mode least affected by it. Adjusting the tint just made the picture go red. Desaturating the image had little effect.

Just an FYI.

 

[Dick K]

I have the Home 10. Great unit. I haven't viewed any b&w movies yet, but I do have a few that I intend on viewing with the projector, so thanks for the information.

I don't have my screen yet, it was shipped today, so I haven't seen the unit at it's best yet. I'm pleased with what I can get from viewing off a sheet.

This is my first projector, lots of fun.

 

[Emanuel]

Hi Everyone:

I'm back online. I got the htpc running again, and got my files and settings all saved for the reimage project in the near future. I played with the image settings. My image didn't appear really sharp at 800x600 (svga). I went up to 1024x768 (xga), but the image actually dropped off since the projectors native resolution is WVGA. I did some research on image size, h&v lines, and pixels. What I came up with was maximum vertical line resolution for DVD is 480p for 480 vertical progressive pixels. I also found out maximum horizontal dvd pixels are around 720 to 754,756.
I decided to try the 720x480 pixel setting since this sounded like a good overall compromise that would do the trick. I went to select the setting. I hit a snag. ATI doesn't offer any 720 settings. So ATI if you're reading and listening please add some more standard resolution settings. I ended up having to load Powerstrip (a custom resolution software package). With powerstrip loaded I went in and found a predefined 720x480 progressive scan/digital setting for my ATI AIW 8500DV card. I selected it restarted my computer and then Ran Zoomplayer. I was still in the Zoom setting on my Home 10 and the images looked distorted. I changed it to Normal and the image was too small now. I went into Squeeze mode and Voila... Resolution was sharp, image was large, and picture didn't appear to be distorted. I still have the aspect ratio control through the software to tailor my image based on the movie.

Also another nice aside, which I think I had mentioned earlier in one of the posts here. The nice thing about a HTPC or a higher end DVD player is that you can go in an tweak the color settings on the player to compensate for the projector. If you're running a newer digital tv I think they have an option to save a color setting or two. You can tweak your tv to compensate for the green color push of the projector and have a small workaround for the lack of tweakability on the projector. Also as a projector's lcd panels and/or bulb become older. Colors do tend to change.