Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 705HD - Page 16

It's been along time since I recall the Optoma H31, that was a 480p projector and I can't honestly say. As compared to the Mitsubishi HC1500 (I really liked that projector), I would say the blacks on the Epson with the filter are probably still a shade lighter but pretty darn close.

**PLUS** Just had the national electronics store put it on sale for $549.99, brought my receipt in and a nice $100 savings.

That same national electronics store (BB) now has it on sale for $499.99! Call them for a price match... I just did and saved another $55. Amazing price for a projector with a 2 year warranty.

Hey members, I need help. I can not get my 705HD square on my 120 screen. Its a 1 inc off on the top left side. The bottom is straight, if I move the projector up or down and side to side I can not get it square. Please help.

Adjusting 'keystone' may help!

question fellas, i have a totaly light controlled room,black and dark red walls and black carpet, going for a 100" screen can do whatever i want (no waf). now i was reading about this projector being to bright and using a lens, would that be a must in my room?, and should i look at like the hd66?? trying to buy by tommorow, and wanna keep budget around 600.
thanks for any and all help.

well i picked up a 705 hd today. couldnt wait, and got the last one bb had. got it for 499, set it up just to see how it looks and i gotta say even for my 1st pj, wow why did i wait so long!!!
also got some boc, gonna get some wood and build a screen this week and order a 30' hdmi from monoprice.

I believe ND2/ND4 lens is a must with this. Since good glass ones (Tiffen) cost $20-25, your budget is not going to get impacted.
I tried ND2 with Matt White screen but Contrast and Black Levels are still not of acceptable quality (I do have dark walls and ceiling). Ordered an ND4.

so i'm happy with the pic quality of the 705 on my boc screen,but gonna sneak in buying a nd4 filter while x-mas shopping in next few weeks. only thing i noticed was some motion blur yesterday watching some football, is that from the pj or just crappy cable signal?

So, I have a dark dedicated home theatre room and I know everyone says that this is not the pj for that. But, how can I make it work with the 705hd? I have a 100 inch white screen and have read that either the nd 2/4 should work. Would the ND4 be better ? Plus , what settings would be suggested for the pj in a dark home theatre room? Thanks for all the help and great input on this thread.

Directly go for Nd4. I bought Nd2 and I am still unsatisfied with black levels on matte white screen.

Thank you....any suggested settings?

bigjjl, im only using a boc screen and tried the settings quoted on page 15, those were a good starting point. try those and adjust from there. im also trying to decide what kinda screen i want to build in couple months and plan on a nd 4 filter also.

I recently purchased my first projector, the 705HD. I read about the not so great blacks so I was prepared for it. However, when nothing but black is displayed, I can tell that the black is uneven -- it gets progressively more purple as you go to the right although it never gets to the point where it's more purple than black. The uneven tint is not noticeable when anything other than black is displayed.

I was wondering if this is normal or if I should exchange it.

Black is even throughout in my 705HD. There is something wrong with your setup/PJ. Get it exchanged if you are certain that its because of PJ.

I have a question regarding the offset... I have read that this projector must be above the image when using a ceiling mount AND below the image (not using keystone), which is it?

My setup will be a 90" screen, ceiling mounted 705hd. So when ceiling mounting this projector do I put the center of the lens 4.5" above the top of the screen, or 4.5" below the top of the screen? Manual says 4.5" below the top, but projectorreviews and SOME others say above the screen. The ceiling mount I am using screws into the projector, so I am assuming it will be upside down? Not on a shelf

Thank you

Lens center would be 4.5" below the top of the screen.

Yes, when mounted from the ceiling, it should be mounted upside down. Afterwards, you'll have to horizontally flip the image in options.

And then after I mount it upside down and flip the image, the projector lens will have to be 4.5 inches below the top of the screen as said by xplorar? Everyone agrees with this?

Hello everyone

Decided after much reading and based on my budget to go with the 705HD. Projector will be ceiling mounted but I have no idea what type of mount to go with. I have 9 1/2 ft ceiling and a DALITE CINEMA CONTOUR 106"HDTV FORMAT screen hung 24 inches from the ceiling. Any thoughts on a good mount for the 705hd? From reading I will need the projector to hang 4.5 inches below the top of the screen? Which will mean I will need a mount that extends 28.5"?

Thanks!

Get the ceiling mount referenced in the user manual. They have it and its associated extension at newegg.

Thanks. I did but it only extends 10" and I need way more than that.

I faced same problem. I just bought a standard mount and separately got extension to mount made after careful length calculations. As a result, my picture is now almost a perfect rectangle requiring no keystone corrections over a 120 inch screen.

I was looking for a new TV, for my Bedroom and I Stumbled along doing the research. I had a limited budget. While fishing around I came across a couple videos for pico-projectors and one thing lead to another and I ended up Buying the Epson 705HD. My first projector.

It only made sense, after all the investigation why settle for a 42 inch plasma, when I could have that plus 100 more inches all for the same price?

First impression...got the projector the day of the Superbowl set it up in 15 minutes on a small table a couple of hours before the party. I hooked it up to a high def cable box and nothing else and it was off and running. The Image was up, in the basement on a flat white wall at 138 inches and BRIGHT.

When I say basement its only 4 feet deep into the ground the room is 18'x35'x10' with a huge south facing picture window and two big side windows that face west. All the windows flood the room with sunlight during the day, and by no means is it even close to be dark in the basement. All the walls are white. I had all the windows put in like that so it wouldn't be dark in the basement, and nothing is covering them. Its one huge open bright space.

I watched all the pregame stuff, with tons of light flooding into the basement and the picture was impressive, colors all looked good, flesh tones looked ok, and the picture was HUGE. By Kickoff time the sunlight from outside was all gone but I had 5 canned lights on in the room where the projector was and 4 canned lights on in the other half of the room where the 65" TV was. The picture was easy to see and still very very bright, it had no problem with all the lights on! That was my biggest fear of having to sit in the dark-total dark to get a good picture and thats not the case with this PJ.

I have watched a number of DVDs--Basketball games--golf and HD cable shows and this thing is pretty stellar for the price. I have it calibrated with the setting from this thread, and Im waiting for the the ND2/ND4 lenses to come in. I cant be happier with its performance as of right now.

I know this is my FIRST PJ but I feel like I got a really good deal. Anyone looking for a good deal and wants a Entertainment PJ this is the one to get dont hesitate to pull the trigger.

Im still looking for the best option for placement and have been playing around with it, checking it out all over the basement. Im lucky in that I have 4-5 different spots I can set up a Screen on to have at least one dedicated viewing area. Thanks to everyone that posted in this thread.

Roll Tide!

Caveat Emptor: My bulb died at 2750 hours. I ran it in the Eco mode 99% of the time. So much for the 5000 hour claim. Anyone know what's the best place to get a genuine Epson replacement? It looks like the prices are between $150-$200.

I am just tempted to get the Acer LED unit rather than spending money on a bulb.

My final settings after few months of usage
----------------

My setup -
HDMI HD. Projecting on 120" 1.0 Gain screen from a distance of around 13-14 feet

Mode - Theater
Brightness - -4
Contrast - +8
Sharpness - +3
Auto Iris - On
Eco Mode
No ND2/ND4

I used ND2 and ND4 filters for few weeks but in the end I concluded that its neither helping Black Levels nor Contrast in my setup. In fact, I think it made Contrast worse because it made White color "muddy". Cleaner way to achieve better black levels is to leave Auto Iris On. I don't mind the Iris noise. Removal of ND2/ND4 made picture pop in a good way in my setup.

The primary aim of ND2/ND4 is to cut the light intensity. If after using either of them, things become too dark for you on Theater mode, then you don't really need them. If after using ND2/ND4, you feel need to jump to more intense 'Living Room' or 'Dynamic' mode, then what's the point?

One more thing - If you calibrate your settings through some tool like Sears & Munsil or AVSHD709, the resulting picture would be too dull in this projector. This because of inherent poor black levels and contrast of this projector. (The same calibration tools resulted in a great picture on my TV). To get better results, you need to sacrifice minor details by pumping up Contrast and reducing Brightness. I did that to such an extent that I "just" lost all flashing bars in calibration patterns for Contrast/Brightness. The resulting picture is the best I can get and I can't detect the loss of these minor details while watching movies.

[quote=xplorar;21643837]My final settings after few months of usage
----------------

My setup -
HDMI HD. Projecting on 120" 1.0 Gain screen from a distance of around 13-14 feet

Mode - Theater
Brightness - -4
Contrast - +8
Sharpness - +3
Auto Iris - On
Eco Mode
No ND2/ND4

I used ND2 and ND4 filters for few weeks but in the end I concluded that its neither helping Black Levels nor Contrast in my setup. In fact, I think it made Contrast worse because it made White color "muddy". Cleaner way to achieve better black levels is to leave Auto Iris On. I don't mind the Iris noise. Removal of ND2/ND4 made picture pop in a good way in my setup.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Theater mode: Yours
Brightness -7 (-4)
Contrast 0 (+8)
Color Sat -9
Tint 0
Sharpness 2 (+3)
Temp Medium
Color adj: Red 2, Green -2, Blue 5
Iris off (on)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the settings!

Nothing else on Color Sat/or Color adj?

I will play with the ND Filters when then come in in the next couple of days.

Perhaps because of my HDMI connection, the only color adjustments I can make is RGB values. Calibration patterns suggests that factory settings are okay and don't need adjustment except perhaps color Green which needs to be turned up a few notches. Initially I did just that, but this made picture visibly "greenish" while watching movies, so I reset it back to zero. So my final color settings are Red 0, Green 0, Blue 0.

Today, while watching a very dark movie, I realized that my settings have introduced a huge black crush in the picture. So I went back to drawing board with calibration patterns and came up with settings that let me see all possible details -
Brightness 0
Contrast -4
Sharpness 0
Red -1
Green +2
Blue 0

After calibration, while viewing movie -
- Colors didn't seem perfect so I moved back Red, Green and Blue to 0.
- Picture lacked punch, so I moved up Contrast to 0.
- Picture looked soft, so moved sharpness all the way up to 5.

Final settings -
Brightness 0
Contrast 0
Sharpness 5
Red 0
Green 0
Blue 0

Conclusion - Factory default settings are good enough in this projector and don't really need major changes.

Another day and another set of "final" settings :-)
I spent few more hours, validating and fine-tuning my settings with AVSHD709 suite. Here are my observations-
- With RGB values all being 0, there is very slight but noticeable red tint in flashing gray bars of contrast calibration patterns. Making Red -1 makes it go away and I get perfectly gray bars. Any further tinkering with RGB settings again introduces tint in gray bars.
- Brightness 0 is the only way to go. Drop any lower and you loose details by a significant magnitude.
- Contrast cannot be made higher than -3. Any more and you loose significant details in Color Clippings.
- Though Sharpness +5 is way too sharp for calibration patterns, the jaggies are barely noticeable in movies and create great sharp looking images. I think that dropping Contrast to -3 allowed me to increase Sharpness without introducing noticeable artifacts.
- Though I am no longer using ND2/ND4 filters, I would have used filters if my screen size were smaller than 120" as Projector light output would have been too intense to concentrate on a smaller area.

So here are my final "final settings" for projecting on a Matt White 120" screen from a distance of 14 feet -
Mode - Home Theater with Eco setting
Brightness 0
Contrast -3
Sharpness +5
Red -1
Green 0
Blue 0
Auto Iris On
No ND2/ND4 filters

Have fun!!

X! Thanks alot....I been playing along with you and I want to thank you for your work and settings...its been a learning process for Me as well!


What would you recomended for Cable TV watching in HD? anything different?