8500Ub
Latest
Epson's 2010 PowerLite Home and Pro Cinema projector lineup given US pricing, dates
We already snuck a peak at the European version of Epson's Home Cinema 8500 UB (the EH-TW4400) and Pro Cinema 9500 UB (EH-TW5500) at the big IFA show in Berlin. Now they're US official, and joined by newly anointed PowerLite Home Cinema 8100 and Pro Cinema 9100 models. The new 8100 doubles the reported contrast of the old 6100 (on paper anyway) which should equate to a visible black level improvement for an asking price of just $1,500 after $100 rebate -- very reasonable for a Full HD home theater projector of Epson quality. The 9100 adds support for an anamorphic lens, ISF certification for professional setups, a bundled ceiling mount and spare E-TORL lamp, and a 3-year replacement warranty for a beefier $2,600. Expect the 8100 to hit US retail in October along side the "sub-$4,000" Pro Cinema 9500 UB while the 9100 lands in November with the "sub-$3,000" Home Cinema 8500 UB. Your holiday slide-shows will never be the same. [Via The Art of Home Theater Projectors]Read -- PowerLite Home Cinema 8100 and 8500 UB Read -- PowerLite Pro Cinema 9100 and 9500 UB
Epson's EH-TW5500 and EH-TW4400 flagship projectors seen hanging out with high contrast blacks, Germans
It's that time again: the end-of-year rush to launch the best and brightest home theater projectors for the holiday cocooning season. Epson's casting its 2009 lot with the EH-TW5500 and EH-TW4400 3LCD projectors featuring Full HD (1920x1080) resolutions, a 1600 ANSI lumen brightness, and quiet 22dB operation. The TW4400 (aka, Home Cinema 8500UB as it will be known Stateside) touts a 130000:1 contrast while the TW5500 (aka, Pro Cinema 9500UB) ratchets the hyperbole up to 200000:1 -- that's about double the claim of Epson's previous high-enders that already featured excellent black performance. To be fair, Epson makes some of, if not the best, home theater projectors for the money thanks to its D7 C2Fine LCD panels manufactured in-house. Other specs include 12bit video processing, improved frame interpolation and 4-4 pull-down, x.v. color mode, 2.1x optical zoom with horizontal/vertical lens shift, and a range of inputs including 2x HDMI, YUV, and RGB.We gave the TW5500 an eyes and ears-on here are IFA in Berlin in a finely-tuned home theater setup and came away extremely impressed with the image -- enough so that we'd be tempted to layout the €3,299 European asking price (€2,799 for the TW4400) come November if only we had the space to let this baby shine. But let's wait and see what the competition has in response when CEDIA kicks off later this week -- it's best to be informed and 3 grand ain't exactly chump change.Read -- Press ReleaseRead -- Art Feierman's opinion
