Epson at CEDIA

Last year's CEDIA saw Epson introduce a new generation of 3D capable projectors. While I certain expect Epson to show their new projectors at CEDIA 2012, I would expect refinements to the current generation of projectors, such as adding CFI in 3D mode, but not another new generation of projectors. As for reflective LCD, I suspect that is not in Epson's plans for 2013 models. All just speculation on my part.

The current crop of Epson's are darn good for the money. They could use FI and auto-iris in 3D. Moving to remote focus and zoom from manual would be a big benefit too and allow for 2.40:1 zooming like the Panasonics and JVCs. Personally, I'd like to see a feature that allows for turning off auto-iris and remotely setting it to different openings like the JVC. That might also make it easier for them to add a Game Mode or improve on their 80ms lag time.

All that could be put in but not at the current pice point. and its all about maximizing sales and return on the dollar. There would appear to be little incentive do do what you would like.

They could add it to the 6010 to greater differentiate it from the 5010. Even if they had to add $1000-1500 to the 6010 price, it would be worth it.

Get all of that into the 5010 or 6010 replacement and I am in!

As far as a gaming mode to cut down the lag, is there any technical limitation/reason why JVC and Epson do not incorporate this or is it just something they have decided not to invest time/resources on?

I'm curious about this too. Would they they have to make major changes to the panels they currently use, or is this a software issue?

There is no reason why JVC can't implement a gaming mode to reduce lag. JVC's closest competitor Sony, uses their proprietary SXRD technology which is based on LCOS and they have a gaming mode on both the hw30 and vw95. JVC's proprietary D-ILA technology is also based on LCOS, so it should definitely be possible for JVC to include a gaming mode. Either JVC doesn't care about that or they don't want to implement it because of budget concerns or something...I don't know. The reason, I believe, is certainly not technical. Maybe JVC does need to do some research and development in order to make the panels faster, but even so, it should be possible and JVC should invest their time and money for faster panels in order to improve motion and have a gaming mode. It will attract more customers for sure. I am all for gaming mode. It should be included in all higher end projectors. As for the Epson, I'm not sure but even with their 3LCD technology they should be able to have gaming mode.

From the previous threads on Epson lag, it seems to be integral to the new chipset for 3d processing in these projectors. Going to depend on cost to engineer the lag out vs. sales expectations. If they can sell them all 'as is', there is no incentive to fix and the gaming marking using front projection systems is relatively small.

Just curious, what statistics have you seen on this? From what I've read, 56% of U.S. households own an XBox 360, PS3 or Wii, and 72% of U.S. households play video games of some sort.

Certainly not all FPs will be used by the gamers in the house, but it seems to me that with a potential market that huge, FP gaming performance should be a very high priority.

Agree on the FPS games.. Most of the highest selling games are FPS so that should be in consideration

Do you guys expect replacements for the 3010/5010/6010 this autumn????

Epson is expected to announce their new models at the CEDIA show that starts in two weeks from now. In recent years their new projectors have started shipping to dealers late in the year.

I saw earlier post about "epson blackout" - I do not know how to interpret this - as "we have nothing really new to show you..." or as in "our new product is so much better that it will be hard to sell the current" :-D


I am actually about to pull the trigger on the 5010/TW9000W - unless something notably better is annonced at IFA/CEDIA..

I would assume the "blackout" means not letting any info leak out until the official Epson announcement. Epson has a booth at CEDIA and I assume they will officially introduce their new US models there (and perhaps equivalent European models a week earlier at IFA).

I totally agree. I think the real question isn't how many gamers own projectors (which would be an extremely small percentage), but how many projector owners play games. I would say up to 50% of projector owners like to play games as well as watch movies, regardless of the time ratio spent between the 2.

On a side note, I believe the processor they are using may be a real hurdle for the gaming aspect. Some processors are better than others, but can be slower or laggier. A game mode usually just turns off all processing like noise reduction, motion enhancement, etc. The user can really just go into the menu and manually turn of every aspect of additional processing that might be happening, and that would be equivalent to what they are giving you in "game mode"...basically just a short cut to 'all processing off'. At that point, the hardware is where the bottleneck would be IMO.
Edited by cbaseuser - 8/23/12 at 8:48am