Totally wish I could afford the NX7... really, really love what it does at large... but not there yet. With my fourth about to graduate high school a year early, when I see a $7k projector, I see "I should go halves with my daughter on a used car for her". Maybe in another 8-10 years, in another house.
Epson Home Cinema PRO-UHD 5050UB vs BenQ HT3550 (I know 2 totally different price ranges)
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How much did projectors that were as good as the NX7 like 2 to 5 years ago ? A lot more or what ?
Kind of a hard comparison, and nOOb probably knows better--but I would say they didn't exist in the same way 5 years ago. 2 years ago is a closer match. (JVC does some great things with DTM in the recent NX series.) 5 years ago, Sony owned it and it was crazy in terms of price. 15k, 28k, and upward for 4k native. TI's 4k chip wasn't in consumer hands five years ago, and the advancements from the cheaper ranks has forced a lot more competition from JVC and Sony on pricing and features. Same with the LED TV prices.
Five years from now, I haven't kept up enough in terms of what's coming in the TI or Epson pipeline, but it's worth noting that laser is also starting to squeeze on lamp; it's not there yet in terms of price or quality, but it's gaining ground. I'm sure we'll see better pricing and features still.
These two reviews show the HT5550 as somewhat brighter at around 30FL, especially in Vivid mode for sports and the 2nd is a highly detailed look at both projectors:
Test: BenQ W5700 vs. Epson EH-TW9400 4K HDR | Cine4home.de (use google chrome's translate feature)
I would use SmartEco, especially for sports/daytime viewing for the added brightness and lamp life. The Epson is very loud in high lamp (with a short lamp life that will decline rapidly) and you'd be using low and mid lamp.
I'm curious what your thoughts are on the HT5550 itself. If you were able to get the 5050UB and HT5550 for the same price (sub-2400), which would you go with? Either? Neither?
I ask because Noob provided (and has historically provided) a lot of ammo on the Epson. The raw numbers on brightness do concern me, but in a dedicated room with black curtain walls, I'm less concerned than I would be otherwise. (I'm also taking into consideration the filter impact to lumens and fl if I went that route.)
I've spent many hours looking at an HC5040UB (at a neighbour's house in Arizona), fed by an Oppo 203, from about 8 ft, on a 120in screen and I wasn't impressed. 3LCD just doesn't have the sharpness and colour reproduction (as seen by my eyes rather than a meter) that I find satisfying, but these are my subjective opinions. Also the contrast is poor...now this might seem contradictory but the fact is that intrascene (similar to ANSI) contrast is not the same as on/off contrast and it seems to me that Epson's e-shift, which removes the SDE hurts intrascene contrast for fine detail, and this doesn't show up in on/off CR tests. Your HT3050 has high ANSI contrast, and that plus DLP's better motion handling make it better for sports, for example.
I am disenchanted with bulb based projectors and it's highly annoying that I can't get a UHD50L (a hypothetical laser UHD50) when Optoma is selling quiet, low cost, high brightness 1080P HDR laser projectors such as the GT1090HDR, ZH39HDR/ZH403 and ZH406. Right now I am tempted by the VAVA 4K UST laser because it can project a 150in image and has laser stability.
I would probably be happy with either projector if they were given to me, but if I had to spend my own money I'd get the HT5550. I would probably run it exclusively in Smart Eco and would not use the WCG filter, in favour of higher brightness, since it covers much of DCIP3 without the filter. I have nearly a 1000 hrs on my UHD50, all in Dynamic Black (Smart Eco) and I can't detect any loss of output yet and the UHD50 works fine on my 145in low gain grey screen. Although my UHD50 is very sharp the HT5550 should be sharper, with probably better contrast and has the lens shift for optimal placement and I could get about 150in from it vs 145in from my UHD50.
It's also annoying that Optoma hasn't updated the UHD60 and UHD65 with things like HLG and 3D and a slightly wider (-5 to 15% vertical lens shift), because they're very nice machines otherwise.
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It's about priorities, what is right for you. Personally if I were in your situation I would get the best CR model available, and move the seating backwards.
If you have a few hours you can research lumen measurements and will see that Gregory's DLP brightness measurements are abnormally high. Not sure why, probably has to do with technique. Over time I've come to know what sites are likely to be true with their measurements.
An 120" 16:9 screen is 42.71 ft². That fabric is 1.0 gain.
From 11'10" with both the HT5550 and 5050UB that's minimum throw.
From PC measurements, the HT5550 can do in Full lamp and Cinema preset 899 lumens with a new lamp.
Lamps loose ~25% brightness after ~500h.
899 / 42.71 = 21fL
674 (after 500h) / 42.71 = 15fL
On Vivid Brilliant Color is activated which color lumens stay the same as in Cinema, so lust 78%, with some color accuracy downgrade.
And yes, it does matter how bright color lumens are.
5050UB can do 1438 (color/white lumens) in Natural Cinema on Eco lamp.
1438 / 42.71 = 33fL
1078 (after 500h) / 42.71 = 25fL
Recommendation for SDR in a dark room is 15fL. For HDR it depends on the tone mapper. For JVC NX series I've seen 21fL recommendation. You can assume that for these two models it's more.
I do not believe the 15 000h on SmartEco for the HT5550 and others. If Benq really believes the lamp will last 15 000h why is the warranty for the lamp less then for the projector? It's usually 2000h or 1 year, whichever comes first.
ANSI CR vs. FOFO CR has been long debated, and almost everyone agrees that the FOFO spec is more important.
That's because most content is dark:
ANSI contrast in particular with JVC projectors
The same factor has been described by others on this forum, which they call "pop" and no one says LCOS or LCD had the pop factor that I only see described when talking about DLP or plasma. It's the extra sharpness and less dense pixel fill, generally speaking, it's not the ANSI contrast...
www.avsforum.com
What % ADL looks like:
ANSI contrast in particular with JVC projectors
I'm sorry, but now we're back to subjective opinions again. It is quantifiable that two projectors, one high ANSI contrast, and one low ANSI contrast will measure different contrast levels when projecting the same bright, high contrast image. Factors other than ANSI contrast will obviously...
www.avsforum.com
Measurement percentages aside, having a bad image will produce a larger bad impression then a number. Like a fly in a soup.
You can of course read the entire thread.
FOFO CR measures a black image and then a white image. The ratio between the two is the CR.
ANSI CR measures a black and white checkered pattern, taking the measurements for black and white off the same screen.
In actual content black level does not stay at the level it was measured with the FOFO CR, it climbs down in a gradient:
Contrast VS projector VS environment - Projection Dream
A study of the influence of the room and the projector on the resulting contrast performance. Examples with Sony VPL-VW520ES, Epson EH-TW9200 and Benq W1070
projectiondream.com
If you look at the example with the TW9200, which is the 5030UB in the US, which is practically the same as the 5050UB CR wise, you'll see that it performs much better than a 1080P DLP, the W1070, at low ADL.
Measurements taken by Projector Dream were without lamp dimming or iris.
Lamp dimming helps in a very small amount compared to irises.
Irises only work at ~1% ADL.
5050UB can do ~4500:1 native and ~37 000:1 dynamic (FOFO).
HT5550 can do ~700:1 native and ~6000:1 dynamic (iris).
HT3050 can do ~1500:1 native and ~2000-2500:1 dynamic (lamp).
That is a massive difference.
You can take Projection Dream's table and extrapolate what CR would look like at % ADL with the iris. It makes a huge difference at low ADL, where a lot of content is at.
This is a measurement of GoT S03.E10:
If a scene has a bright object next to a dark one models with better ANSI CR are supposed to do better, like with a star field. But in practice that's not true. Whatever advantage models with better ANSI CR, it's very minor compared to the black level of models with proper FOFO CR.
Here's what a knowledgeable person had to say about this:
ANSI contrast in particular with JVC projectors
I'm sorry, but now we're back to subjective opinions again. It is quantifiable that two projectors, one high ANSI contrast, and one low ANSI contrast will measure different contrast levels when projecting the same bright, high contrast image. Factors other than ANSI contrast will obviously...
www.avsforum.com
I also have an W2000 (HT3050) in a semi treated room with an ALR screen, and am not happy with low ADL performance. This model has a higher ANSI CR then others (~530:1), but low ADL scenes with bright/dark objects still look disappointing
From my experience and what others have said it's pretty clear that models that can do low black level (high FOFO CR) are better then those who can do high ANSI CR.
Also while some people on this forum say what they believe, some do it for money. It's a good idea to do research and judge accordingly.
@DunMunro @noob00224 I've finally pulled the trigger, and now have to figure out what I do for seating changes--5050UB. My reasoning was price/value. I know, that usually pushes people to the HT5550, but in my case, I was able to score the 5050UB for under $2200. (I'll detail how on the deals page.) At that point, I couldn't argue it any longer. I'll take the hit if I get it and don't like it, since there would be a restock/return fee--but I feel it's worth it despite the resolution differences. I'll post here once I have it set up (likely VERY late Friday night)!
Thank you both for your guidance and input, as well as the countless other threads in which you've done this for these same projectors time and time again!
Jamie
Thank you both for your guidance and input, as well as the countless other threads in which you've done this for these same projectors time and time again!
Jamie
Just remember that Epson doesn't do refunds on refurbs, if that's where you got it.
No refurb, brand new.
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