Epson's New Native UltraHD 3LCD Panels

[Dylan Seeger]

I think this model was announced a while ago, but the Epson Pro L12000QNL native UltraHD (3840 x 2160) projector is shipping as of yesterday. This is a commercial/large venue-type projector.

I'm hoping this means Epson has something native UltraHD in the works for the consumer space come CEDIA in the fall.

Thoughts?

[TRainH2O]

I have always like Epson and am currently running one of their projectors. Hopefully this is a good sign of things to come.

[AVSCraig]

Someone mentioned elsewhere that the 4K chips in this are large - 1" - not suitable for small consumer models. I'd still be willing to bet no 4K consumer projector this year. It's been an easy bet with Epson so far. 

[Manni]

Someone mentioned elsewhere that the 4K chips in this are large - 1" - not suitable for small consumer models. I'd still be willing to bet no 4K consumer projector this year. It's been an easy bet with Epson so far.

Also has Epson started to provide IP control and proper calibration tools apart from their broken CMS? The LS10000 was pathetic in these area (no IP control, no decent calibration tools compared to JVC’s excellent Autocal). I don’t need an internal calibration tool that much anymore with an Envy Extreme in the chain, but no IP control means no sale here. It’s 2020, not 2001

[AVSMike]

Epson first showed this projector in 2018 at Infocomm. Sure has taken a long time to finally get it on the market. Nothing in this projector would be used for an HT projector. Besides the 1,200:1 native would cross it off my list. 

[Dylan Seeger]

It's definitely a large venue projector. I just thought the prospect of native 4K 3LCD panels from Epson was promising. I really hope they're using these panels as a foundation for something smaller to put inside a home theater based projector. I also really want them to continue developing their LCoQ technology. The LS10000 was an excellent projector, only bested by JVC at the time. With some more effort they could take a chunk of the market away from Sony and JVC in the higher priced segment of the market.

[TRainH2O]

Epson first showed this projector in 2018 at Infocomm. Sure has taken a long time to finally get it on the market. Nothing in this projector would be used for an HT projector. Besides the 1,200:1 native would cross it off my list.

1,200:1 native? WOW, that's low.

Even my 5025 says "up to" 600,000:1 whatever that really means in the real world. Better than 1,200:1 as I've never had an issue in my light-controlled room.

[SirMaster]

Also has Epson started to provide IP control and proper calibration tools apart from their broken CMS? The LS10000 was pathetic in these area (no IP control, no decent calibration tools compared to JVC’s excellent Autocal). I don’t need an internal calibration tool that much anymore with an Envy Extreme in the chain, but no IP control means no sale here. It’s 2020, not 2001

The LS10000 has IP control.

My friend has one and I wrote him an app to control some functions of it from his PC over the LAN port.

On/Off, source input, blank image, 2D/3D toggle, and lens memory load at least.

He really only needed on/off and lens memory load so I didn't dig too much farther for other commands I could send to it.

I doubt it was anywhere near as robust as JVC of course.  But the newer Epsons like the 5050 have very full IP control.

[AVSMike]

1,200:1 native? WOW, that's low.

Even my 5025 says "up to" 600,000:1 whatever that really means in the real world. Better than 1,200:1 as I've never had an issue in my light-controlled room.

1,200:1 is the native. I do not know what the 5025 has for native but it is probably around 5,000:1 native. That 600,000:1 number is a BS number.

[AVSCraig]

1,200:1 native? WOW, that's low.

Even my 5025 says "up to" 600,000:1 whatever that really means in the real world. Better than 1,200:1 as I've never had an issue in my light-controlled room.

As measured by the I.Y.D. Institute For Standards. *




* In Your Dreams ! 

[Manni]

The LS10000 has IP control.

My friend has one and I wrote him an app to control some functions of it from his PC over the LAN port.

On/Off, source input, blank image, 2D/3D toggle, and lens memory load at least.

He really only needed on/off and lens memory load so I didn't dig too much farther for other commands I could send to it.

I doubt it was anywhere near as robust as JVC of course.  But the newer Epsons like the 5050 have very full IP control.

Thanks, at the time of release, Epson was unable or unwilling to provide any IP control info, at least my dealer didn’t manage to source any from them. Good to know it’s not the case anymore, but the internal calibration tools were very poor. No autocal isn’t nice unless you have an external LUT box (or don’t care about calibration).

[Zebra]

Epson first showed this projector in 2018 at Infocomm. Sure has taken a long time to finally get it on the market. Nothing in this projector would be used for an HT projector. Besides the 1,200:1 native would cross it off my list.

You should never cross any projector off your list based on specs IMO. The full on / full off contrast ratio is one of the least useful for image quality or actual contrast.

Manufacturers know we've all had it hammered into us by well-meaning reviewers that nothing matters more than contrast. That full on / full off ratio is not really a measure of contrast performance though and is incredibly misleading. It's easy to manipulate too...

The contrast that matters is the ability to show fine detail by displaying bright colors next to darker ones without washing out the image. It's about far more than just black levels. Few, if any, movies have all black or all white screens for long. 

These insane 600,000:1 numbers become 200:1 if you're lucky when watching an actual movie.

A lot of people also seem to overlook the point that contrast ratios are relative to brightness. If a police man told you he'd single-handedly reduced crime by 50%, you'd need to know how many crimes there were before to know if it was impressive. If there was only two, you'd ask what he'd been doing the rest of the year...

A high end 10,000 lumen projector with a 10,000:1 CR delivers a far greater difference in light output between it's brightest and darkest image (i.e. 9,999 lumen) than a 1000 lumen HT projector with a CR of 100,000:1 (I.e. 999.99L). 

I've bought a lot more projectors than most (for work related reasons). My experience has been that most of what matters isn't always stated in the specs. Cheap entry-level devices often look the same or better on paper than $50,000+ ones but they aren't even close when you see them in person.

The features that seem to matter most for image quality are:

Lens size and precision - the best projectors usually sell lenses separately and they often costs more than entire HT projectors. The high end glass lets more light through and scatters less light which helps contrast and accuracy. Using better glass is often more noticeable on-screen than going from 1080p to 4k.

Chip size - high end projectors often use chips that are double the size of entry to mid-level HT projectors. This help image clarity on it's own but also usually comes alongside the use of other higher quality components. 

Color accuracy - perhaps the most important factor. If every pixel is the correct color, you have a great image. If colors are wrong and bleed into each others you don't. 

Ansi contrast - i.e. The real world contrast 

Brightness - when I was in the business, customers would usually choose the brighter one when asked which image they preferred (which I used to find frustrating). It's at least as important to creating a high contrast punchy image as black levels. Forget about ever seeing "good HDR" on a projector without significantly higher brightness than current mid-range HT projectors. High brightness is not just a compromise needed to use larger screens...

Motion handling and scaling. Digital projectors suck at this so the quality of the image processing is massively important. It's easily enough to be the difference between a great and a terrible image on otherwise identical hardware. 

[AVSCraig]

You should never cross any projector off your list based on specs IMO. The full on / full off contrast ratio is one of the least useful for image quality or actual contrast.

Manufacturers know we've all had it hammered into us by well-meaning reviewers that nothing matters more than contrast. That full on / full off ratio is not really a measure of contrast performance though and is incredibly misleading. It's easy to manipulate too...

The contrast that matters is the ability to show fine detail by displaying bright colors next to darker ones without washing out the image. It's about far more than just black levels. Few, if any, movies have all black or all white screens for long.

These insane 600,000:1 numbers become 200:1 if you're lucky when watching an actual movie.

A lot of people also seem to overlook the point that contrast ratios are relative to brightness. If a police man told you he'd single-handedly reduced crime by 50%, you'd need to know how many crimes there were before to know if it was impressive. If there was only two, you'd ask what he'd been doing the rest of the year...

A high end 10,000 lumen projector with a 10,000:1 CR delivers a far greater difference in light output between it's brightest and darkest image (i.e. 9,999 lumen) than a 1000 lumen HT projector with a CR of 100,000:1 (I.e. 999.99L).

I've bought a lot more projectors than most (for work related reasons). My experience has been that most of what matters isn't always stated in the specs. Cheap entry-level devices often look the same or better on paper than $50,000+ ones but they aren't even close when you see them in person.

The features that seem to matter most for image quality are:

Lens size and precision - the best projectors usually sell lenses separately and they often costs more than entire HT projectors. The high end glass lets more light through and scatters less light which helps contrast and accuracy. Using better glass is often more noticeable on-screen than going from 1080p to 4k.

Chip size - high end projectors often use chips that are double the size of entry to mid-level HT projectors. This help image clarity on it's own but also usually comes alongside the use of other higher quality components.

Color accuracy - perhaps the most important factor. If every pixel is the correct color, you have a great image. If colors are wrong and bleed into each others you don't.

Ansi contrast - i.e. The real world contrast

Brightness - when I was in the business, customers would usually choose the brighter one when asked which image they preferred (which I used to find frustrating). It's at least as important to creating a high contrast punchy image as black levels. Forget about ever seeing "good HDR" on a projector without significantly higher brightness than current mid-range HT projectors. High brightness is not just a compromise needed to use larger screens...

Motion handling and scaling. Digital projectors suck at this so the quality of the image processing is massively important. It's easily enough to be the difference between a great and a terrible image on otherwise identical hardware.

While it's true that there are many other factors that make up a good picture ( brightness for sure ), at least in a good light controlled room, poor contrast really stands out on a lot of content these days. That said, when / if Epson brings out a native 4K home theater projector, I'd bet it has decent native and dynamic contrast. 

[AVSMike]

You should never cross any projector off your list based on specs IMO. The full on / full off contrast ratio is one of the least useful for image quality or actual contrast.

Manufacturers know we've all had it hammered into us by well-meaning reviewers that nothing matters more than contrast. That full on / full off ratio is not really a measure of contrast performance though and is incredibly misleading. It's easy to manipulate too...

The contrast that matters is the ability to show fine detail by displaying bright colors next to darker ones without washing out the image. It's about far more than just black levels. Few, if any, movies have all black or all white screens for long.

These insane 600,000:1 numbers become 200:1 if you're lucky when watching an actual movie.

A lot of people also seem to overlook the point that contrast ratios are relative to brightness. If a police man told you he'd single-handedly reduced crime by 50%, you'd need to know how many crimes there were before to know if it was impressive. If there was only two, you'd ask what he'd been doing the rest of the year...

A high end 10,000 lumen projector with a 10,000:1 CR delivers a far greater difference in light output between it's brightest and darkest image (i.e. 9,999 lumen) than a 1000 lumen HT projector with a CR of 100,000:1 (I.e. 999.99L).

I've bought a lot more projectors than most (for work related reasons). My experience has been that most of what matters isn't always stated in the specs. Cheap entry-level devices often look the same or better on paper than $50,000+ ones but they aren't even close when you see them in person.

The features that seem to matter most for image quality are:

Lens size and precision - the best projectors usually sell lenses separately and they often costs more than entire HT projectors. The high end glass lets more light through and scatters less light which helps contrast and accuracy. Using better glass is often more noticeable on-screen than going from 1080p to 4k.

Chip size - high end projectors often use chips that are double the size of entry to mid-level HT projectors. This help image clarity on it's own but also usually comes alongside the use of other higher quality components.

Color accuracy - perhaps the most important factor. If every pixel is the correct color, you have a great image. If colors are wrong and bleed into each others you don't.

Ansi contrast - i.e. The real world contrast

Brightness - when I was in the business, customers would usually choose the brighter one when asked which image they preferred (which I used to find frustrating). It's at least as important to creating a high contrast punchy image as black levels. Forget about ever seeing "good HDR" on a projector without significantly higher brightness than current mid-range HT projectors. High brightness is not just a compromise needed to use larger screens...

Motion handling and scaling. Digital projectors suck at this so the quality of the image processing is massively important. It's easily enough to be the difference between a great and a terrible image on otherwise identical hardware.

Native contrast is very important. In fact ISF considers it one of the most important aspects of an image. As for manufactures specs, correct you should not just go by specs. But the problem is when manufacturers exaggerate, by giving ridiculously high numbers. None of them under rate the contrast spec, so if Epson is listing 1,200:1, we know the contrast is not very good. I am in this industry. Have seen 100's of projectors and have had many different ones in my fully blacked out theater.

[Dylan Seeger]

You should never cross any projector off your list based on specs IMO. The full on / full off contrast ratio is one of the least useful for image quality or actual contrast.

Manufacturers know we've all had it hammered into us by well-meaning reviewers that nothing matters more than contrast. That full on / full off ratio is not really a measure of contrast performance though and is incredibly misleading. It's easy to manipulate too...

The contrast that matters is the ability to show fine detail by displaying bright colors next to darker ones without washing out the image. It's about far more than just black levels. Few, if any, movies have all black or all white screens for long.

These insane 600,000:1 numbers become 200:1 if you're lucky when watching an actual movie.

A lot of people also seem to overlook the point that contrast ratios are relative to brightness. If a police man told you he'd single-handedly reduced crime by 50%, you'd need to know how many crimes there were before to know if it was impressive. If there was only two, you'd ask what he'd been doing the rest of the year...

A high end 10,000 lumen projector with a 10,000:1 CR delivers a far greater difference in light output between it's brightest and darkest image (i.e. 9,999 lumen) than a 1000 lumen HT projector with a CR of 100,000:1 (I.e. 999.99L).

I've bought a lot more projectors than most (for work related reasons). My experience has been that most of what matters isn't always stated in the specs. Cheap entry-level devices often look the same or better on paper than $50,000+ ones but they aren't even close when you see them in person.

The features that seem to matter most for image quality are:

Lens size and precision - the best projectors usually sell lenses separately and they often costs more than entire HT projectors. The high end glass lets more light through and scatters less light which helps contrast and accuracy. Using better glass is often more noticeable on-screen than going from 1080p to 4k.

Chip size - high end projectors often use chips that are double the size of entry to mid-level HT projectors. This help image clarity on it's own but also usually comes alongside the use of other higher quality components.

Color accuracy - perhaps the most important factor. If every pixel is the correct color, you have a great image. If colors are wrong and bleed into each others you don't.

Ansi contrast - i.e. The real world contrast

Brightness - when I was in the business, customers would usually choose the brighter one when asked which image they preferred (which I used to find frustrating). It's at least as important to creating a high contrast punchy image as black levels. Forget about ever seeing "good HDR" on a projector without significantly higher brightness than current mid-range HT projectors. High brightness is not just a compromise needed to use larger screens...

Motion handling and scaling. Digital projectors suck at this so the quality of the image processing is massively important. It's easily enough to be the difference between a great and a terrible image on otherwise identical hardware.

The problem with your argument is that the vast majority of Hollywood movie content has an ADL of less than 10%. This means ANSI contrast performance is nearly meaningless. Below 10%, on/off contrast matters MUCH more in terms of intrascene contrast. This has been discussed ad naseum. For context an ANSI contrast test patter has an ADL of 50%, ie insanely higher than what Hollywood films are mastered at. See here for some more info:

http://projectiondream.com/en/movie-brightness-adl-contrast-measurements/

On/off contrast and image brightness are the two most important aspects of subjective image quality given that all images have calibrated color, greyscale and gamma. Absolute resolution, given that the display is at least 1080p and absolute color saturation are not that important. Saying on/off contrast performance is not one of the most important aspects of a subjectively good image is irresponsible. What have all of the premium displays sold over the years have in common? High contrast is the answer and there's a reason why people are willing to pay more to get it.