Epson EH-TW3200 - personal log

I have my Epson EH-TW3200 now exactly one year and it has 1592 hours on the counter.
In the winter time my eyes enjoyed more the extra lumen I get with the Living Room preset and since some days I even watch in Dynamic mode with the iris on slow.
I just enjoy the more punchier colors and brightness right now.
The flicker I had a few times did not return and so far I always was in Eco mode, except for some bright summer evenings where I needed all the light to combat the sun.
I noticed some big dust blobs when I have a black static picture but it is not visible during normal usage.

Epson 3D TW6000/5900, 3010, and TW9000, 5010/6010

The 3D Epsons are coming



The white models EH-TW 6000, 9000, 3010, 5010 and 6010 have wireless HD

In Europe there will be an even cheaper EH-TW5900 for 1149 Euro with half the contrast, and 2000 lumen in white.

In 2D mode there is a new Split Screen function. Brightest 3D projectors in their price range.

More info at the Home Theater 3D blog

Epson Home Cinema EH-TW know how

Thanks to the awesome work from cine4home.de some things of the inner working and the strange noises of my EPSON EH-TW3200 are now clear.
Pictures full credit goes to cine4home.

There are three things what influence the brightness of the picture:
The power of the lamp, the position of the iris and the cine filter who is not engaged in the first two modes vivid and living room.
Let´s meet the iris and the cine filter.

Epson EH-TW3200 - resources

The best info I have seen so far comes from cine4home, Germany.
Take a look at:
- some info in English about the Epson EMP-TW1000 what already has nearly everything all the newer Epson full HD projectors have with some good tear down explanations.
- the "short" info about the Epson EH-TW3800 Light Power Edition
- a Epson EH-TW4400 / 5500 Light Power Edition test

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Epson TW3200/TW3600 - FAQ and info guide
Epson TW3200/TW3600 - owners thread
The Offical Epson 8350 Owners Thread AVS forum
Epson 6100, 8100, 6500ub, 8500ub, 7500ub, 9500ub Pre-Mature Lamp Failure

Epson Home Cinema 8100 Projector Central review
Epson Home Cinema 8350 Projector Central review
Epson EH-TW3200 Trusted Reviews review
Epson EH-TW3600 Trusted Reviews review
Epson EH-TW3200 at Testfreaks
Epson EH-TW3200 micro review at DigitalVersus
I tried their recommended setting and it was awful, no detail in the shadows.
Home Cinema Central  Epson EH TW3600 vs. TW3200 comparison

Epson EH-TW3200 - additional fine tuning

My setting for the evening:
Color Mode: Cinema
Brightness: 0
Contrast: 0
Sharpness: Standard - no change
Abs. Color Temp. 6500 - this gives you the brightest image anything between 6500 and 7500 is fine
Skin Tone 3 to 4 (center position)
Power Consumption: Eco - if more brightness is needed Normal or Color Mode: Living Room
Auto Iris: Off

Epson EH-TW3200 - viewing photos

Windows Media Center was my favorite HTPC program until I tried to view my photos with it and wanted to zoom in. They take the screen resolution and just use digital zoom if you want to zoom in, I hoped that this would change in Windows 7 but sadly no it did not.
A year ago I found XBMC and fell in love with that gorgeous program.
If you want to zoom in with XBMC they use your photo resolution first before they use digital zoom. Looks so much better.

Now let me tell you a bit about what you can do with a nice projector, a HTPC and XBMC.
You heard of famous paintings by Dali and Picasso, but have you heard of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch?
No?
Bummer - no matter, get the 34 megapixel picture here.
Now get ready for a wild ride, sit back, zoom in and then let the cursor keys do, what people in a museum would love to do. Get up close and personal with one of the most amazing paintings ever. ( If you figure some of the scenes out, let me know in the comments below.)

1600 pixel wide, click for full size

Epson EH-TW3200 - how is the picture quality

One word is enough to describe how the picture of the Epson EH-TW3200 looks.
Gorgeous - if you set it up right so it is optimized for your viewing environment (see my post Epson EH-TW3200 - the right adjustment)

So far, except for 130 hours with the Sony VPL HS10 as an emergency measure after
my second ACER P1265 had to go to repair because off massive mirror failure (one ACER stuck the mirrors in on position the other one in off position) I had only data projectors, since the Home Cinema projectors were just too expensive and not bright enough for the way I watch.
Some pictures I have on the XBMC menu and The Garden of Earthly Delights were altered to brighten the shadows for better detail viewing.
Now with the Epson these pictures do not look so good anymore and I switched back to the unaltered originals.

like this one, where it looks so much better using the original and just having the Gamma CT2 adjsted

So with the Epson EH-TW3200 and my adjustments the details in the shadows are just a delight to discover - after that experience there is now way back to the data projectors.

even if the original ad from my first real computer is of low quality and resolution, it is a joy to see how clear it is to read in full HD

pictures like that just blow you away and when you watch Speed Racer on the Epson you get an eyegasm, or run out of the room screaming...

let´s get a bit closer to Alice

Epson EH-TW3200 - noise

I tried to capture the different noise levels with my Sony HX5 but auto gain sadly ruined it. They were all equal.

I am watching on the big screen since over 25 years and heard, or not, a lot of operating noise from projectors.
My last one before the Epson was a ACER P1265 and this one is quoted 24 to 28-31 dB.

Epson quotes the EH-TW3200 with 22 to 28 dB. but for my ears the Epson is quite a bit louder than the ACER.

The Epson in the lowest noise setting: Cinema, ECO, Iris off and not Ceiling Mount produces still a bit more noise than the Acer in Eco mode.
So I question the 22 dB according to my hearing and some similar forum posts. I think something in the 26 dB area is more correct.

Epson EH-TW3200 - the right adjustment

If you view this post on your notebook, adjust the angle of your screen so you can see a difference between the face of the man and the background also hit F11 for full screen.

So, you read all the reviews, look up all the recommended settings like use only Cinema mode, keep it in Eco mode, set Gamma to 2.3 or 2.4, tweak brightness and contrast a bit, do not Expand the HDMI Video Range and set Epson Super White to on.

The result is a nice picture with deep blacks, good whites and colors.
BUT all the recommended settings above are WRONG.
I had absolutely no detail in the shadows and it reminded me on a wedding photo I once saw.
I tracked it down to give you an idea.

Now I sit here with a highly praised home cinema projector displaying beautiful blacks who try to take over my picture, well at least my shadows and this Epson has much less detail compared to my simple ACER P1265 dlp projector.

OK let´s check everything.

Epson EH-TW3200 - the 5 Color Modes

All photos were shot with the same exposure and ISO setting to provide you with an exact visual about brightness and detail in shadow areas.

Epson EH-TW3200 - how bright are 1800 lumen?

You have seen part of my indoor living room with the 3 meter glass door already in my first post. Now double that glass area, pack one part of it behind the thin screen (remember it´s a bed sheet) and to top this off we add a huge window opposite to the screen. The big windows behind the screen have some sun cover.
Now lets add some clear blue sky and sunny afternoon weather to top this of.

It will look a bit like this here.

now let´s turn on the Epson EH-TW3200 in our favorite Cinema mode
can you guess who you see the in the next 3 pictures?

Epson EH-TW3200 - show me the pixel

The projected image looks sharp and even lit and has a very slight miss alignment (purple on top green at the bottom.

The pictures below are a bit soft since they are shot without a tripod.

Epson EH-TW3200 - the setup

Using the Projection Calculator it seemed that with squeezing the Epson EH-TW3200 against the wall there would be a good chance that with full zoom my high quality projection screen (model bed spread, unknown thread count) would just be filled to the max.

So I unscrewed my old ACER XGA who had suffered a massive dlp chip failure with getting a couple more mirrors stuck each evening and just came back from warranty repair and with some modifications screwed the Epson on to my trusty projector ceiling mount.
This mount is with me since over 10 years and is the best $7 I ever spend on a mount.
So far it carried 2 NEC VT series, 1 BENQ, 2 ACER and a big Sony VPL-HS10.
I got if from Walmart and it is a speaker wall mount.

this mount is pretty stable, it turns on the center mount screw and swivels on the speaker mounts

Epson EH-TW3200 - why this one?

Sony VPL-HS10 projecting into a mirror to get 1 meter more distance so my 2.70 meter wide screen gets used to the max. If you do the same with the Epson, you have a 120" (3meter) diagonal from 3 meter distance.

My quest for a 3D capable HD projector came to an end after discovering all the problems, incompatibilities, viewing problems, non support of drivers and the manufactures and lack of content.

Searching now for the best full HD projector in the low budged class I found that the Epson 8350 / TW3200 ticked all the right boxes.