Epson 8500UB 200,000:1 CR - Page 12

The 8500 comes in a white shell, you guys with black ceilings/bat caves how are you going to deal with this? Also since it has a manual zoom, how hard/easy it is to switch from 16.9 to 2:35.1? I am referring to adjusting the focus to get it just right everytime you go back and forth.

Like most, trying to decide between the panny and the epson. BTW will be my first projector. Will be watching mainly movies, some games(my son) and sports.

How much light is ambient light anyways? To me ambient light is dimmed light, but I see some people use the term with natual light.

Thanks

So for us new to the forum when/how do we know that Jason and AVS have start taking orders for the 8500?

Fair enough.

I just think people make too much about Evan's supposed bias. When you look at the reviews there is remarkable similarity between all the pros. Evan definitely has a more subjective style to his reviews, where Art really gets into the details. But when it comes down to it, they all like the same models for similar reasons, with some minor variations.

I don't agree one way or another, however, I think Evan was referring to ANSI contrast when he stated it was better suited to a batcave (as one needs dark walls and ceiling to get the most from a high ANSI pjs, whereas, a high on/off pj will be fine in a normal living room at night because on fade to blacks, there is no light coming from the pj to lighten anything in the room, so the screen is very dark)

Yeah, the extra ~440 dynamic lumens and the white case (living room w/ambient light) have me leaning this way also ... kind of a semi-steep premium for those two things though ...

(The AE4000 has some cool features, but I know once I set the projector up, I'm never going to touch it again, so those features are sort of lost on me.)

I had both the AE2000 and 1800UB. I thought the epson had darker blacks and higher contrast. The panny wasn't as bright in brightest mode, but I wouldn't use either's brightest mode b/c the colors were very off. However, the panny in its next to brightest mode had better colors than epson's next to brightest mode. Over all, despite having not as dark blacks and lower contrasts, I thought the panny had a more pleasing, natural, and balanced picture. the epson sometimes looked good, but sometimes looked garish depending on the material. I never felt I got the epson to look right, whereas the panny just did, despite falling short in the specs.

the panny had some nice features like auto zoom and auto focus. the epson was LOUD, with a very audible iris.

from what I've read, these differences have persisted through the years. If someone consistently prefers one over the other, I would not call it bias, simply a reasonable preference.

The 7000:1 was from a Light Power Edition version only available in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, customized by Cine4home with their filter in the dynamic mode In D65 mode, presumably without the custom filter, they got 5000:1. And who knows, these projectors may have been made with hand picked parts If you read the UK review of the AE4000, it had a contrast of basically 5000:1. And the UK review of the AE3000 measured it at 4200:1.

It's also interesting that if you really read Art's reviews that Evan is his friend, and Art even commented on Evan's site, apparently having trouble to locate the link to the comparison article. I'm surprised you aren't suspicious that Art has a bias toward Epson, considering that Epson flew him to Japan and wined/dined him a year and a half ago (he even blogged about it in two parts). Just for the record, I appreciate both Evan's and Art's reviews, but I read between the lines also

Right, and the important thing to remember about both Art and Evan are that they are our mouthpiece to the projector gods. When they try out a pj and something sucks (the FI and Focus drift in last years Epson; something else in Panny) they email/call the program manager at the manufacturer and tell them that they need to up their game and fix this problem now...why do you think these problems are addressed immediately in firmware updates and swap out programs? Surely you don't think our tiny voices on AVS are heard 10,000 links up the corporate ladder at Panasonic corp?

Bias aside, Art and Evan's efforts do two things. They make our recent pj purchases better (by applying pressure at corporate level to fix problems) and ensure that the problem is addressed before the next model is released (and voice our concerns of how pjs could be better).

We really owe them both a debt of gratitude, if you don't like their articles, you don't have to read them.

I probably did go a bit overboard in my response, but I think Evan does himself a disservice by appearing to be such a fanboy for Panasonic. I love my AE2000, and have had no problems with dust blobs, etc.

In saying that, I am planning to upgrade soon, and will most likely choose the 8500UB. Since I now have a batcave I can use the deeper blacks that the Epson provides. The bulb life/cost, and brightness is also a plus. I have a 16:9 screen, and no longer use my anamorphic lens, so those Panny features would not be used. If for some reason, I don't like the Epson I know there is an alternative out there waiting.

Art

You guys have a point. Art may also be biased towards the Epson, but at least Art does proper reviews. He does side by side comparisons, he backs up his findings with screenshots (yes, they can also be faked) he seems to spend at least a few hundred hours with a projector before he publishes his review, and I find that his findings are pretty accurate to what AVS users experience when they compare models, while Evans findings are usually the opposite of what pretty much everyone else. I could write an "Evan" review without ever seeing the projector itself. I'll just go to the official spec sheet and copy and paste that and violla you got yourself a review. Im gonna wait to get AVS forum members opinion eiherway.

I find the BS reviews can hype me up, but it's always the AVS members that ultimately help me decide on what to buy. Thats why I love AVS.

If I have the 8500UB set up for minimum throw maximum picture, will the image still shift downwards? Basically it will be mounted about 7.5' high (8 foot ceiling) and the top of the image will be perhaps 6" below the projector lens.

I'm looking at page 14 of the 6500 manual, and "Offset A" and "Offset B" make no sense to me yet:
http://files.support.epson.com/pdf/plhc61/plhc61ug.pdf

Just reading the manual's non-technical description (~85% up/down shift), it sounds like it has me totally covered, but it's always good to check ...

I don't think your statements re CINE4 is true. LPE was a specific mode which was clearly stated, producing 5400:1 and 8500:1 native depending on zoom range.

Other modes were not LPE, i.e. 4500:1 and 7400:1 in Natural. The native figures for Epson all far in excess to AE3000.

http://cine4home.de/tests/projektore...TW5000Test.htm

I owned AE2000, sold it for 6500, and was very impressed by the improvements in brightness and contrast. Those were far from cosmetic.

Not sure about AE4000, but AE3000 relatively poor CR and light output in "best" modes were noted by other reviewers

http://hometheatermag.com/frontproje...lcd_projector/

This is consistent with what I observed in AE2000.

Here Here!!

Jolly Good Commentary !

OK, the AE4000's are arriving and still no word on what the street price is going to be on the 8500's. Kinda ironic as we heard about the 8500 long before we even knew that the 4000's were going to be shipping to the US.

The longer they wait with pricing, the more sales they will lose to Panasonic.

Here's a link to the Cine4home article that I got my numbers and info from:

Click here for english translation using Google

I looked at your link (translated through Google) and it's also a Light Power Edition. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what I'm reading on Cine4home, but I thought they were involved in the LPE projectors, hand picking the external filters, etc. Regardless, it's not a review of a 6500. I've never seen a comparison between the U.S. model 6500 and the European LPE 5000. I suspect they are different in performance. I also might note that with Cine4home having a financial interest in the LPE projectors, some might consider the potential of a bias Once again, I enjoy reading the Cine4home reviews and appreciate them, but I read between the lines Anyway, perhaps I am tainted at this point too, since my AE4000 ships in a couple of days My main interest is watching films in a lights off environment. The main feature favoring Epson over Panasonic last year, to me, was the CMS. This difference is gone now and I like the other features of the 4000 too, not to mention the price! And no stupid rebate! I don't think anyone can go too far wrong this year. As that song (sort of) goes: projectors are great, beer is good... and people are crazy

If Panasonic offered a two year warranty as does Epson I wouldnt be so hesitant to buy the 4000. However the fact that you must send in a rebate, according to visualapex.com, to get a 2nd year warranty seems sketchy to me.

You are right.....who is this new Panasonic company anyway, never heard of them

Established manufactures just have different strategies when it comes to initial warranties, but it doesn't always reflect a product's reliability if it's shorter than what other companies offer.

I think a major reason they do it is so that you have to cut the UPC symbol out and then can't return the projector (at least I expect that is the policy at lots of places). And by the time some people decide they are definitely keeping the projector they might forget to send the rebate form in. So, maybe sketchy, but if you know you are going to keep the projector just send the rebate form in soon after you get the projector.

--Darin

Fogeting to mail in the rebate is the main reason manufatures do rebates in the first place. I am absolutly terrible on mailing them out. Either my Panasonic or my current Epson came with a $200 rebate that I mailed out on the last day and they would not honor it.. Not their fault, mine. I had like 30 day or maybe even 90, but some of us wiat till the last minute. That is pure profit for them.

Do I have a problem with rebates, nope not at all. I just need to get them in on time...

With the known specs, will the 8500ub be able to produce a great picture on a 120" 16:9 screen with 1.1 gain?

Hard to answer such a blanket question.

How far away will it be mounted? Is the room light controled? Is it a batcave?
What color mode do you plan to run it in?

If you don't care about complete color acuracy, it should be no problem, as it has a lot of lumens in dynamic mode. If it is mounted close enough, and there is good light control, or a completely black room, it should be fine in any mode.

Art

As the guy who works with Art and does the calibrations and tech eval of each projector, I can tell you that none of Art's photos are modified. He does spend a lot of time looking at each projector in a variety of lighting conditions as well. He and Evan do correspond on projector issues, which helps them to push the manuafacturers to improve.

I haven't got the AE4000 yet, but regarding the 8500/9500, it had the most accurate color gamut and grayscale tracking I've seen in awhile. For those who are interested, with the THX mode, the color gamut is quite close to the Rec.709 standard (delta E no greater than 5 and less than 3 for all but red and blue) and the calibrated grayscale had a delta E of less than 1 from 20-100 IRE. I'm thinking about getting one myself.

I have approx. 28' of room length, there will be some ambient light, not a batcave. As for color mode, this would be my first pj, but would be looking for a picture with punch. Would I be safer with a 110" or smaller screen?

Mike

Question for you.. I have always gotten my past projectors ISF Calibrated and have had great results each time. This time around I was thinking about buying my own calibration tools (CalMAN Enhanced Spyder 3 with CalMAN Home Edition) for about the same expense and do it myself. Plus since my receiver Onkyo 906 has the new ISF feature set, that I can calibrate all of my inputs indevidually. Anyways my question for you is since this projot has such a good THX video setting do you feel I will really get the $380 plus the time and learning curve, worth out of it?

These days money it tighter than usual, so $380 to get a very slight subtle in provemnt may not be worth it. In the old days and ISF calibration made a good projector look exceptional... I wonder now with this THX setting are we at the point of deminsihing return? Is it that good that professional calibration is not required?

Thank you in advance for your opinion.
Jerry

Jerry.......

Is the THX setting available on the 8500 as well as the 9500 or is it exclusive to the 9500 like the two isf memory settings are?

I have been told both 8500 and 9500 are THX, but only the 9500 has the ISF settings... again for now we are dealing with pre-release information, nothing is 100%...

Jerry

Does that mean that someone with a 9500 will have more/better calibration controls available to them, compared to the 8500?

Mike,

Have you considered measuring on/off CR for the projectors (with DI disabled and DI enabled)? I think it would help explain some of the reasons behind Art's impressions and get people away from trying to rely on the manufacturer's specs for that as much.

--Darin

Can it project a 120"-130" diag screen with reasonable quality from 13 feet?

Hi Darin,

I didn't measure the CR at all, as Art doesn't use that in his reviews. I really would like to do that with this projector as I think it's pretty good with the DI off (alll my measurements and calibration were done with it off). If you saw the 9500 at CEDIA, Kevin Miller had it set up with the DI off as well.
I'd like to compare it to my "old" RS1.

Should be getting a production 8500 pretty soon and I'll probably check the CR on that.