Going Pro

There’s a new top pick in Epson’s already-crowded 3LCD projector line.

The Pro Cinema 7500UB utilizes the company’s most advanced imaging technologies and has its most thorough assortment of features, yet it carries a price tag of just $4,199.

This 1080p projector uses Epson’s D7 C2Fine TFT LCD chipset with UltraBlack technology, two high-end video processing chips (the Silicon Optix Reon VX and Pixelworks 390) and a new auto iris. It also adds an Anamorphic Wide aspect ratio, for use with an optional anamorphic lens attachment, and a 120Hz mode that employs frame interpolation to produce smoother motion with 24p film sources.

Physical setup takes just seconds, thanks to a host of convenient features: 2.1x manual zoom, 100 percent vertical and 50 percent horizontal lens shift (via manual dials), adjustable feet and an onscreen test pattern to aid with sizing and focus. The remote is fully backlit and sports dedicated input buttons and direct access to the most commonly used picture controls.

Speaking of which, this model has the full complement of image adjustments we’ve come to expect from Epson, with a few new perks. The custom installer will find just about every control he or she needs to calibrate the image, including RGB offset and gain, advanced gamma and precise color management of all six color points. New this year are a contrast enhancement feature; a faster, quieter auto iris with normal, high speed and off modes (previous models had just on/off settings); and color isolation options (green, red, and blue) to aid in color and tint setup.

The 7500UB introduces some new picture modes for Epson, including Cinema Day and Night, an HD mode that’s “close to professional-use broadcast monitors” and a Silver Screen mode that “emphasizes rich colors, like those seen in movies at the theater.” I went with the HD mode for TV viewing and the Silver Screen mode for Blu-ray/DVD playback. In both cases, with only minor adjustments to the picture controls, the results were quite impressive.

Epson has accomplished the difficult task of simultaneously improving light output and black level, compared with previous models. The result is an image with excellent contrast. The numbers may not be quite as good as those of the best higher-end projectors, but the 7500UB’s performance is certainly competitive. Blacks look black, and the image has excellent depth and dimension in a dark room. On my 75-inch-diagonal screen, the 7500UB had ample light output to breathe life into bright scenes, even in a room with some ambient light.

Blu-ray demo scenes from Kingdom of Heaven, Casino Royale and The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl looked excellent. Colors were rich but natural, and the overall color temperature stayed fairly even across the board, producing neutral whites, blacks and skintones. With some fine-tuning of the gamma control, the projector did a good job rendering fine black details in Blu-ray and DVD scenes.

I was particularly impressed with the 7500UB’s detail, especially with 1080p Blu-ray content. Previous Epson projectors struggled with edge enhancement, which forced you to sacrifice fine detail by lowering the sharpness control to lessen the ringing and extraneous noise around edges. Thankfully, edge enhancement has been minimized here, while overall detail is improved.

The Silicon Optix and Pixelworks chips score high marks in the processing department. Good scaling results in nicely detailed DVD images, and the projector passed my deinterlacing tests with both 480i and 1080i content.

To reduce judder in 24p film sources, the 7500UB has two options: Film purists will appreciate the inclusion of a 4:4 pulldown mode that quadruples each frame (24 x 4 = 96Hz), which makes for slightly smoother motion than the traditional 3:2 process. The 120Hz FineFrame technology, meanwhile, pulls information from existing frames to create new ones, and the setup menu includes low, normal, high and off settings.

The smoothing effects of frame interpolation draw mixed reactions. Some people love it; others…not so much. With this projector, the high mode’s motion is so unnaturally smooth with Blu-ray and DVD movies, I found it incredibly distracting. The normal and high modes also created some processing errors in faster-moving scenes. The low mode performs more reliably and strikes a better balance, reducing judder without looking too artificial. For what it’s worth, Epson only recommends the normal and high modes for video-game playback and doesn’t recommend using the 120Hz feature with broadcast TV content; indeed, it performed poorly with my DirecTV signal, introducing a ton of processing errors.

For the most part, the 7500UB’s 12-bit panel creates a clean image, with minimal noise in backgrounds and light-to-dark transitions. Blu-ray content looked especially clean. However, the projector occasionally struggled with dimly lit DVD and HDTV scenes; in cases where there was a lot of grain in the film (or the HD cam was set for higher sensitivity), the 7500UB called more attention to the low-level noise in black backgrounds than other displays I’ve tested.

Epson claims a fan-noise level of 22 decibels. Upon initial power-up, the 7500UB’s darker picture modes seemed a little quieter than those of the Home Cinema 1080. However, I live at 5,000 feet, and this is the first projector I’ve encountered (including several other Epson models) in which I had to use the high-altitude mode to prevent overheating. This adds a fair amount of fan noise.

The Pro Cinema 7500UB is sold exclusively through custom channels, and its $4,199 price tag also gets you an additional lamp, ceiling-mount hardware and a rear-panel cable cover. All in all, the 7500UB is an excellent value, offering performance and features that are more than competitive with some of the higher-end players on the market.

PRICE:
7500UB: $4,199

CONTACT: epson.com