I was one of the earliest adopters of the whole home cinema projector idea. I inherited what was at the time a $5000 state of the art Epson machine in 1999. We bought it for our dot com start-up. Afterwards I took it home and bought a screen. I figured out how to connect it to my cable and surround sound and it has worked great for nearly 15 years. recently it just died - I think it was the fan blades.
So it was time to upgrade. I was all excited to find out I could replace it for as little as $400-$500 bucks. But then I found out there was a big divide between office powerpoint projectors and home cinema. When I originaly bought mine there was no difference. The guy at Office Depot told me that if I wanted it for movies that I'd be better off going to Best buy. I went to Best Buy and they only had like three choices in Home Cinema. I had rapidly figured out that in order to get true HD - i.e.. 1080 P the cost was like $1500 on up - ugh! I didn't want to spend that much. So I went on a crusade to find a 1080 P HD projector for under $1000 so I naturally went to Amazon. I read all kinds of reviews and went to sites like [...] which was very helpful. I finally narrowed it down to four all found on Amazon and studied at Projector Central:
These were all very highly rated. I was really tempted to get the Acer for the price but the machine did not seem to be compatible with as many formats as the others. I was really torn and couldn't decide. Then I read about the brand new machine from Epson - the 2030 with full HD 1080 P and it was and LCD not DLP like all the others and most people I spoke with seem to think LCD is superior. It even is 3D capable and even though I don't watch 3D movies yet I figured it couldn't hurt to have the latest technology. Plus after 15 successful years with Epson I wanted to stick with the brand. In fact I really wanted to buy the 2000 (not the 2030) which is the internet version and retails for only $899 instead of $999. But it wasn't available and I needed a replacement of my broken machine. But even at $999 this was significantly cheaper than other Epson machines and it is clearly seen as a superior brand in this category which they basically invented. If you can get the 2000 for $899 that is the way to go as the specs are nearly identical.
My expectations were high on what the image would be like but they were met in spades. The quality is truly crystal clear sharp like HD television. The one criticism is that the projector's zoom is too good. By that I mean it can project to an enormous image. But since I only have an 80 inch screen and I am using this in a 15 foot room it created a little problem for me. My old projector needed to be quite a distance away to fill the scrren, but the new projectors are much more powerful in terms of zoom.
To get it to fit my screen properly, the projector needed to be only about 6-8 feet from the screen. This is a little bit of a pain because I wanted to put it in the cabinet at the back of my room. But from 15 feet or so it can't make an image of "only" 80 inches. In fact at that distance its close to twice as big. I've sorted this out but you may want to study the dimensions of your room and where your wires are. There are projectors know as "short throw". This may be the way to go but you will have to study this further. If you do a google search or check out the manufacturer's site you can find out the distance need to create x sized image. Basically there is a manual zoom on the projector like on binoculars - this can only do so much up or down the rest is accomplished by distance. The further away you are the bigger the image - the closer the smaller.
Overall I am very pleased and I'm definitely keeping this machine. Its functionality and menus are far superior to my old machine and it is really easy to work with. Movies are awesome and so is football. I'm totally satisfied.
The PowerLite Home Cinema 2030 is a very affordable, compact, and stylish looking 2D/3D video projector from Epson that utilizes 3LCD technology as a foundation to provide 1080p native resolution, further supported by strong B/W and Color light output, and up to a long 5,000 hour lamp life in standard operating mode.
How to use Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 2030 3LCD Projector to watch 3D Movie
Projector Placement: The Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 2030 is pretty is easy to place and set up.
Step 1: Install a screen (size of your choosing) or use a white wall to project on.
Step 2: Place projector on a table/rack or on the ceiling, either in front or rear of the screen at the distance from the screen that works best. Epson's screen distance calculator is a great help. For review purposes, I placed the projector on a mobile rack in front of the screen for easier use for this review.
Step 3: Connect your source. The 2030 provides wired connectivity (HDMI, HDMI-MHL, component, composite, VGA, USB), but also allows an additional wireless LAN connectivity option via optional Wireless USB WiFi Adapter.
Step 4: Turn on the source device that you plan to use - The 2030 will then automatically search for the active input source. You can also access the source manually via the remote control or use the onboard controls located on the side of the projector.
Step 5: Once you turn everything on, you will see the screen light up, and the first image you will see is the Epson logo, followed by an message that the projector is searching an active input source.
Step 5: Adjust the projected image. To fit the image onto the screen, raise or lower the front of the projector using the adjustable foot located on the front center bottom of the projector. You can further adjust the horizontal and vertical image placement using the Horizontal Keystone Correction slider located on the top of the projector, behind the lens, and/or Vertical Keystone Correction function accessible via the projector's menu system.
Next, use the manual Zoom control located above and behind the lens to get the image to fill the screen properly. Once all the above procedures have been done, use the manual Focus control to fine tune the image appearance and also select the Aspect Ratio you desire.Video Performance
The Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 2030 performs well, especially with HD sources, such as Blu-ray Discs. In 2D, color was very good, flesh tones were consistent, and both black level and shadow detail were more than acceptable, although not as deep and inky as higher-end projector would be able to provide.
The 2030 can also project a viewable image in a room that may have some ambient light present, which is often encountered in a typical living room. Although there is a compromised in terms of contrast and black level in order to provide a sufficiently bright image in such a situation, the projected image do not look overly washed out until you turn on room lights.
On the other hand, when the lights are off, or the room has very little ambient light, that is more typical of a home theater viewing environment, running the 2030 in ECO mode (for 2D viewing) still projects plenty of light to produce an excellent cinema-like image on fairly large screen sizes (my main screen was 100-inches).Deinterlacing and Upscaling of Standard Definition Material
To further check the 2030's video processing performance, I conducted a series of tests using Silicon Optix (IDT) HQV Benchmark DVD (ver 1.4).
Here the 2030 passed most of the tests, but did have trouble with some. There were inconsistencies in detecting some of less common frame cadences, and although it passed most of the deinterlacing tests with flying colors, it was just fair on one of the basic tests. Also, although detail enhancement looked good from standard definition sources connected via the HDMI, the 2030 did not enhance detail as well with sources connected via the composite video input.
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So it was time to upgrade. I was all excited to find out I could replace it for as little as $400-$500 bucks. But then I found out there was a big divide between office powerpoint projectors and home cinema. When I originaly bought mine there was no difference. The guy at Office Depot told me that if I wanted it for movies that I'd be better off going to Best buy. I went to Best Buy and they only had like three choices in Home Cinema. I had rapidly figured out that in order to get true HD - i.e.. 1080 P the cost was like $1500 on up - ugh! I didn't want to spend that much. So I went on a crusade to find a 1080 P HD projector for under $1000 so I naturally went to Amazon. I read all kinds of reviews and went to sites like [...] which was very helpful. I finally narrowed it down to four all found on Amazon and studied at Projector Central:
- Optoma HD25 $949
- BenQ W1070 $884
- Mitsubishi HC 4000 $949
- Acer H6510BD $740
These were all very highly rated. I was really tempted to get the Acer for the price but the machine did not seem to be compatible with as many formats as the others. I was really torn and couldn't decide. Then I read about the brand new machine from Epson - the 2030 with full HD 1080 P and it was and LCD not DLP like all the others and most people I spoke with seem to think LCD is superior. It even is 3D capable and even though I don't watch 3D movies yet I figured it couldn't hurt to have the latest technology. Plus after 15 successful years with Epson I wanted to stick with the brand. In fact I really wanted to buy the 2000 (not the 2030) which is the internet version and retails for only $899 instead of $999. But it wasn't available and I needed a replacement of my broken machine. But even at $999 this was significantly cheaper than other Epson machines and it is clearly seen as a superior brand in this category which they basically invented. If you can get the 2000 for $899 that is the way to go as the specs are nearly identical.
My expectations were high on what the image would be like but they were met in spades. The quality is truly crystal clear sharp like HD television. The one criticism is that the projector's zoom is too good. By that I mean it can project to an enormous image. But since I only have an 80 inch screen and I am using this in a 15 foot room it created a little problem for me. My old projector needed to be quite a distance away to fill the scrren, but the new projectors are much more powerful in terms of zoom.
To get it to fit my screen properly, the projector needed to be only about 6-8 feet from the screen. This is a little bit of a pain because I wanted to put it in the cabinet at the back of my room. But from 15 feet or so it can't make an image of "only" 80 inches. In fact at that distance its close to twice as big. I've sorted this out but you may want to study the dimensions of your room and where your wires are. There are projectors know as "short throw". This may be the way to go but you will have to study this further. If you do a google search or check out the manufacturer's site you can find out the distance need to create x sized image. Basically there is a manual zoom on the projector like on binoculars - this can only do so much up or down the rest is accomplished by distance. The further away you are the bigger the image - the closer the smaller.
Overall I am very pleased and I'm definitely keeping this machine. Its functionality and menus are far superior to my old machine and it is really easy to work with. Movies are awesome and so is football. I'm totally satisfied.
The PowerLite Home Cinema 2030 is a very affordable, compact, and stylish looking 2D/3D video projector from Epson that utilizes 3LCD technology as a foundation to provide 1080p native resolution, further supported by strong B/W and Color light output, and up to a long 5,000 hour lamp life in standard operating mode.
How to use Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 2030 3LCD Projector to watch 3D Movie
Projector Placement: The Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 2030 is pretty is easy to place and set up.
Step 1: Install a screen (size of your choosing) or use a white wall to project on.
Step 2: Place projector on a table/rack or on the ceiling, either in front or rear of the screen at the distance from the screen that works best. Epson's screen distance calculator is a great help. For review purposes, I placed the projector on a mobile rack in front of the screen for easier use for this review.
Step 3: Connect your source. The 2030 provides wired connectivity (HDMI, HDMI-MHL, component, composite, VGA, USB), but also allows an additional wireless LAN connectivity option via optional Wireless USB WiFi Adapter.
Step 4: Turn on the source device that you plan to use - The 2030 will then automatically search for the active input source. You can also access the source manually via the remote control or use the onboard controls located on the side of the projector.
Step 5: Once you turn everything on, you will see the screen light up, and the first image you will see is the Epson logo, followed by an message that the projector is searching an active input source.
Step 5: Adjust the projected image. To fit the image onto the screen, raise or lower the front of the projector using the adjustable foot located on the front center bottom of the projector. You can further adjust the horizontal and vertical image placement using the Horizontal Keystone Correction slider located on the top of the projector, behind the lens, and/or Vertical Keystone Correction function accessible via the projector's menu system.
Next, use the manual Zoom control located above and behind the lens to get the image to fill the screen properly. Once all the above procedures have been done, use the manual Focus control to fine tune the image appearance and also select the Aspect Ratio you desire.Video Performance
The Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 2030 performs well, especially with HD sources, such as Blu-ray Discs. In 2D, color was very good, flesh tones were consistent, and both black level and shadow detail were more than acceptable, although not as deep and inky as higher-end projector would be able to provide.
The 2030 can also project a viewable image in a room that may have some ambient light present, which is often encountered in a typical living room. Although there is a compromised in terms of contrast and black level in order to provide a sufficiently bright image in such a situation, the projected image do not look overly washed out until you turn on room lights.
On the other hand, when the lights are off, or the room has very little ambient light, that is more typical of a home theater viewing environment, running the 2030 in ECO mode (for 2D viewing) still projects plenty of light to produce an excellent cinema-like image on fairly large screen sizes (my main screen was 100-inches).Deinterlacing and Upscaling of Standard Definition Material
To further check the 2030's video processing performance, I conducted a series of tests using Silicon Optix (IDT) HQV Benchmark DVD (ver 1.4).
Here the 2030 passed most of the tests, but did have trouble with some. There were inconsistencies in detecting some of less common frame cadences, and although it passed most of the deinterlacing tests with flying colors, it was just fair on one of the basic tests. Also, although detail enhancement looked good from standard definition sources connected via the HDMI, the 2030 did not enhance detail as well with sources connected via the composite video input.
More
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