Epson 8700UB or 5010

Well, I made the same choice a while ago.

I don't care about 3D at all, and went for the $1000 price difference. Despite some of the stories regarding the 8700UB I got a refurb from Projector People.

I'm projecting on a 110" screen and couldn't be happier. There is a chance you may get a bad unit and need to exchange it (possibly more than once) but Epson
is really outstanding in that 2 year warranty period. MY unit was pretty much perfect out of the box.

I fully realize that this technology is still evolving, so for me it was a place holder until we see affordable LED or Laser based 1080p units.
Given that criteria, the 8700ub is a wonderful unit. It is PLENTY bright, I have to run it in eco mode at night and there's plenty left in standard mode for some TV watching
in a non-blacked out room.

The 5010 may be a better projector on paper, but if you want to save some money and don't need 3D, the 8700UB does a fine job at a substantial cost saving.

Want 3D? That's a no brainer. The 5010.

The 8700 looks great with fully controlled lighting, you won't have any problem. Especially with only a 96" screen. I run a 106" screen with some very minor ambient lighting and it looks awesome even in ECO mode. If I have a lot of ambient light I just crank up Normal mode and it works great.

I have the Epson 8700 UB with a solid 120" screen with a gain of 1.1. I have about 3 hours on the projector and it is set up in THX mode. The room is a dedicated media room with Dolby 7.1. The whole house was wired for sound at construction (CO 2009) and Sonos is what I just had installed (May2013) along with the solid mount projector at right at 16' from screen. To me, the picture is better than a movie theatre. We thought about having sloped floor seating but decided against that thought. The entire floor has 15' ceilings so that the ceiling fan, which hangs down, does not interfere with the picture. The distance that the projector is mounted from the screen is very important even though you can make it fit the screen closer or further away. To maximize your lumens you should read about how it all works. My wife and I had a great professional do the entire install including the pre-wiring during construction. The blue ray technology is amazing and makes a considerable difference to the picture.