Official Epson 7500UB owner's thread - Page 2

According to the specs posted on line I do no see where the lumens of the new JVC units are significantly higher than those of the previous models. As far as calibration I never had my Canon calibrated professionally and found the RGB mode to be fairly accurate. I use the Epson Pro 1080ub in the Daytime Theater mode and it is plenty bright using the low lamp setting. I have yet to find the need to put the Epson in anything other than the low lamp setting. Even with that, I do find that the Epson appears to be brighter than my Canon since, as you pointed out, about one-third of the Canon's lamp energy is lost outside the 16x9 image area.

I don't see this smoothness superiority in the LCOS versus LCD any longer. I did see where the Canon LCOS units looked more film-like than the LCD and DLP units out at that time but that was due to the near invisibility of the screen door creating pixel lines but that is no longer true now with Epson's new 1080p C2Fine LCD panels.

Deandob, go to your local Epson dealer and see for yourself how Epson has the most bang of the "buck" projectors on the market. Also if you have a JVC dealer handy ask them how much JVC charges for their replacement lamps. The Epson lamps cost $395. I seem to recall the old JVC lamps running around $1000. I could not find the lamp cost for the two new JVC units via a quick search on the internet. Is something being hidden here? The Epson 7500 model even ships with a spare lamp.

You might benefit from reading the 6500 UB thread or Art's blog on his review. but, bottom line, even though you can engage 4:4 for 1080i content, it is not meant for that and what you see is expected. only use it if you want to for 1080p 24p sources like a Blu-Ray player that supports such.

I have spent hours today testing on different content and have decided that for my Blu-Ray 1080p movies in 24p I will use 4:4 and not use any other FI. For all other content, I will not use FI. Some have decided that there could be some benefit to using the FI (not 4:4) for broadcast sports, but for other 1080i bcast TV (television series, etc.) it caused problems or unnatural representations. But, I tried to see the benefit today between NFL and NBA content and did not see any....so, I have decided to leave FI itself off all the time (note, you can see the FI make a big difference in certain scenes for cinema, etc., and depending on what you want, I think it does fine...but it si not without fault or possible mistreatment relative to what the director intended). I think the only time I will seriously look at engaging FI is for my own home videos themselves....I bet it will be useful there at times and not impactful of an "over video like" look because that is video content anyway...

As I've written in some JVC threads, I continue to be blown away by the picture produced in a local high end AV store by the Epson projector (I think it's the previous years powerlight pro or whatever) on a big 2:35:1 Firehawk screen. I don't know if it's sheer lumens or what, but the image just POPS even at that size and it's incredibly sharp! Frankly, to my eyes it destroys the JVC RS2 which is demoed in the same room on a much smaller Firehawk screen. Not what I want to see since I've been set on the JVC and really need the motorized lens features of the new JVC models - a feature Epson seems resolute against adding to their projectors, unfortunately.

In looking at NBA and NFL action today on the 6500 UB and playing with FI, I was unable to detect noticeable difference. Others have reported some mild improvement with this capability, but I guess I just cant' identify it.

Can you help me to understand what is it that you really need FI to do for you in sports? At 1080i via Dish Network, all the sports looked good.......independent of the FI mode.

I was also at that same store & think otherwise, the JVC was clearly better but the Epson was much brighter hence giving you the impression that it was better imo.

I am not bias either, I already have an Epson 7500UB on order for the family room & already have a JVC RS20 in my basement home theater that I'm enjoying.

The Epsons are nice for what they cost no question about it.

It could be sheer brightness, I dunno. But I've been visiting Bay Bloor for months now on and off and every time I see something new playing on the Epson I'm blown away. I also got a demo of the RS2 in that room, lights off, only the RS2 playing, Casino Royal Blu Ray...the RS2 looked very good. But even though the RS2 had the advantage of being on a much smaller screen it still didn't look as sharp as the Epson, nor did it produce as much "wow" as I see with the Epson.

Unfortunately I think a lot of it is due to the Epson's ability to have a decent image on it's very bright mode (second to brightest mode). There's no way the Epson, being played as bright as it is in that room is going to be calibrated as close to spec as it could be. But all I can say is that every time I see it I don't have any outstanding issues with the color or much else. I'm just floored by the picture. I saw it yet again today and the difference in sharpness, image depth, apparent contrast etc to the RS2 in that room was very big. (Although of course you can't fully judge any projector with other projectors playing in the room...but as I said I've seen the RS2 in that room with the other projectors off).

I'm not sure what to think of the sharpness advantage I see with the Epson in that room. I don't think it's sheer brightness though.

I want to believe in the RS20...boy do I ever. I need those lens controls!

How is this possible? An LCD taking on the mighty RS-20?

More and more the 6500/7500UB is starting to sound like the shocker of the year. Sure everyone had high hopes for it. But did anyone expect that it could actually be better than the much higher priced RS-20?

For smoother sports action...I have a Samsung 120hz 52" LCD, and the Autoflow (or whatever they call it) - while making movies look artificial and is thus not usable for that - nonetheless makes hockey and football games much better to watch. Motion blur is reduced quite a bit. I am hoping the 120hz capability will offer a similar benefit with the 7500 on broadcast 1080i 60hz material...

Note that I referred to the previous JVC RS2 model, not the newest RS20. I haven't seen the new RS20 model, which is among other things brighter than the RS2.

For me personally, I am even surprised that it is better than the RS-1.

I have a feeling the 6500UB will bring RS-1 resale values down if this keeps up. Better sell em while you can! Okay I admit it...I am in the market for a used RS-1, but of course it will need to be significantly less than the 6500UB or I might as well pick that up new.

Actually if this keeps up I might have no choice but to get a 6500UB.

I still don't understand how the picture can be noticeably better than the RS2. Is it some sort of real-time aggressive gamma adjustments? Has anyone measured the ANSI on this thing yet? What is Epson's secret?

And an older Epson too. I believe you saw what you saw, but others shouldn't take this as some revelation that all of a sudden the current Epson is generally considered as better than the current JVC since you were talking about last year's models most likely (and definitely for JVC) and these did not include the 6500 or 7500. I think the majority of reviewers who got to use both of last years top models from each on the same screen considered the RS2 as superior to the 1080UB, although the 1080UB is a nice unit (especially for the money).

--Darin

7500UB, largest image size, light meter 60cm from lens, lamp set to low:
x.v.Color mode 240:1 (DI off)
HD mode 236:1 (DI set to Normal)

Both the new and old JVCs are brighter than the Epson 1080UB in best (calibrated) mode. (and the Epson can be very color correct when calibrated). Calibrated, the Epson puts out about 400 lumens, whereas the RS1 and RS2 approx. 600 and 500 respectively and the new RS10/RS20 7-900 (plus minus 10-20% due to unit-to-unit variation).

However, allowing the colors to be a bit off, the Epson 1080UB can be significantly brighter (over 1000) whereas the JVCs don't get much brighter than their best modes.

I would guess that the Daytime theather mode is one of the brighter ones on the Epson, albeit with less accurate colors. So if you're not picky about colors, the Epson is a great choice for bigger screens. If you are, I would go look elsewhere or at a HP screen.

How did you come up with those figures?

Yes, I'm glad you re-inforced that point.

When I talked about this in the JVC thread I made just that point too: that what I see is at odds with what I would expect, based on the facts you point out above. I attribute much of it (but I'm wondering if I should attribute all of it) to the more dynamic light levels the Epson can put out in it's "living room" mode. It's capable of much greater brightness in it's highest modes than most other below-10g projectors. It isn't as purely accurate in that mode but, damn, it still means the Epson can do something the dimmer displays can't do. The RS2 could never light up a Firehawk screen that big and look so dynamic.

Why do you need the lens controls? If it's because you want to do a constant area setup, why not use the Epson with a scaler with custom resolutions to do a "shrink" CIA setup? I think an Epson 6500UB + Lumagen HDP will still be cheaper than the RS20, and you can have the big, 'dynamic' image that you prefer.

These are the general lumen levels that have been obtained by various professional calibrators and reviewers (and I believe some amateur calibrators as well). I have got them from personal communications, forum posts (AVSF and Swedish sites) and internet reviews. They are all quite consistent. Just look around a bit, or ask an experienced ISF calibrator at AVSForum, and I think you will find similar figures.

The Epson is well known to be able to get very accurate colors after calibration, though it will be quite dim in this mode.

I meant the exact methodology with which those figures were obtained.

Thank you. Seems like it's around the same level as the JVC's or even a little lower.

A quick question for 7500 owners. I watched the Dark Knight today on a Pioneer Blu Ray player and I found the image on the 7500 to be problematic for my tastes. I found that if you look closely that you can see digital noise, for lack of a better term. In the scene where Bruce Wayne is sleeping in the boardroom, and many other scenes, the picture appears to have crawlies where you can almost see the pixels moving. This is not screen door effect as you cannot really see the pixels it is just that there appears to be digital noise that appears to be creeping. Also I noticed that in some of the shots of the daylight shots of the cityscape you can see digital noise (moire) on the buildings. Is this normal or is the source (Blu Ray player) causing this?

ANSI for JVC HD750/RS20, same measurement methodology
THX mode OOB, lamp low, iris fully open - 198:1
THX mode OOB, lamp high, iris fully open - 200:1

Wow, that' s not much higher than an LC CRT! Interesting.

Seems like you've had the most time with the 7500UB and the RS20 in the same room. Which one do you prefer and why?

Ask me again once I've clocked in a few hours of something else besides test patterns

You mean people on these forums actually watch things other than test patterns? How would you be able to notice every single minute flaw?

Where do you place the projector relative to the screen (vertically and horizontally)? With my RS20 I got numbers down not too far from what you got (although it was more like around 200:1 for the center 4 boxes which would have been more for ANSI CR using all 16) when I had the projector close to centered on the screen, but when I used lens shift for more like ceiling mount and I think some horizontal shift I measured about 300:1 ANSI CR from this RS20.

--Darin

I measure all projectors with the light meter sensor (NIST-calibrated Extech) pointing towards the lens, at a distance of 60 centimeters. That way I get usable data even from RS20's full black screen for on/off contrast calculations.

Check out Art's blog on projectorreviews.com. He has had the 6500 for a little while now, and his initial impressions are that the RS1 still outperforms the 6500 in regards to black level and brightness. He states in his blog that the Epson can not sufficiently light up his 128" diagonal screen in best mode. For those with bigger screens this could be an issue.

My point was that the lens shift position of the projector can affect the ANSI CR of the projector, so how you had the projector setup relative to the screen (image) matters, regardless of the light meter position. I was wondering if you had the projector setup to close to the center of the screen or more like a ceiling mount, since close to the center could explain lower numbers (or projector variance could explain them).

--Darin

Sorry, I misunderstood. I centered lens shift for ANSI and on/off measuring, as I had already found out the hard way what lens shift can do. Extreme horizontal lens shift really messes up the RS20 image.