09/05/2008, 12:30am, EDT
Friday, September 5thEpson intros three HD home theater projectors
Epson on Thursday unveiled three new LCD projectors, all sporting 1080p resolution, at the CEDIA expo. The PowerLite Home Cinema 6100, PowerLite Pro Cinema 7100 and use the company's 3LCD imaging technology. The two Pro Cinema projectors are ISF certified, giving custom installers a standard to work with when integrating the units into customers' home theater set-ups. The flagship Pro Cinema 7500 UB, for UltraBlack, projector sports one of the highest dynamic contrast ratios found in commercial projectors, at 75,000:1. To enhance HD images further, Epson employs its C2Fine software in the 7500UB, while judder is decreased or eliminated thanks to the company's FineFrame technology. The use of a 12-bit 3LCD driver gives the projector a wider color range to work with, and Silicon Optix' HQV Reon-VX scaling and de-interlacing video processor enhances 1080i HD signals. An optional lens gets rid of the black bars above and below a picture, allowing for 2.35 or 2.4 aspect ratio viewing.
The new Pro Cinema 7100 projector is rated at a more pedestrian 18,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, along with 1,800 lumens of brightness and has a Day and Night mode which lets users switch between picture modes and lamp outputs based on the time of day and resulting ambient light levels.
The 6100 features a 18,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, which is 50 percent better than that of the model it replaces and the company's D7 optical imaging engine. A Dynamic Iris system that can adjust light levels up to 120 times per second is said to be responsible for the improvement. The projector also uses a new, more powerful 200W lamp, dubbed E-TORL, or Epson Twin Optics Reflection Lamp, that endows it with an 1,800 lumens brightness rating.
All three share a pair of HDMI 1.3a inputs, a high definition component video in as well as S-video, composite and VGA connections.
The Home Cinema 6100 will cost $1,999 when it ships in November, while the Pro Cinema 7100 is expected to cost less than $3,000 when it launches in November and the 7500 UB priced at under $4,500 when it hits stores in December.
Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 6100
Epson PowerLite Pro Cinema 7100
Epson PowerLite Pro Cinema 7500 UB
Filed under: digital imaging
Other story tags: HD, projector, epson
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