# New projector Arrived! - Epson EMP-TW700 / Pro Cinema 810 review...



## basementjack

Well, it feels like it's been a long time coming, I ordered a new projector...

While I've been 'thinking' of replacing our old projector for a while now, 
things really picked up the pace this past december when we got a new plasma for a different room.

I think the day after I saw the plasma, I put the old projector on ebay.
I really hadn't researched what to replace it with, so I spent the next few weeks searching the net, reading reviews, etc..

Now I just have to wait for it....


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## Sonnie

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

What? :dontknow: You tell us you've ordered a new pj and don't even tell us what you ordered... what kind of tease are you... :rolleyesno:


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## Harold Dale

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

There are some really nice 720p projectors now that are VERY reasonably priced!


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## basementjack

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

After some consideration, I decided on the Epson EMP-TW700.
This is the same as the Pro Cinema 810, but in white.

I ruled out most DLP due to my room - I already have a projector window in the rear of the room - and I have a double layer drywall cieling with a z channel spacer between layers - I didn't want to mess with cieling mounting in the room given the above.

So that left LCD and expensive DLP with lens shift. I really didnt want to over spend with 1080 right around the corner.

So I considered the Sanyo Z5 - but brightness was a concern - my old projector was a 1700 Lumen XGA unit. and we like to have the lights on.

I also considered the Panasonic 100, but was very wearly of the smooth screen effect on sharpness.

While reading about the above 2 someone pointed out that the $3000 epson 810 was available everywhere else in the world for about $1600.

The epson had the brightness of the panasonic, and the contrast and sharpness of the Sanyo - so it seemed a good fit for my needs room and budget.


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## Sonnie

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

Well we'll be looking forward to a review... :yes:


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## Harold Dale

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

Yes very much looking forward to a review! I'll be picking up a new projector very soon! Looking at the Mitsu HD1000U.


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## basementjack

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

From what I've read, the HD1000U is a great projector.

I thought long and hard about a way to make it work in my room.
It would have required some major changes to my setup, so I elected to spend a little extra and get an LCD model with flexible zoom/lens shift.

you can see pictures of my basement home theater at basementjack.com 

Note that I have a window in the rear of the room for the projector.
Also note that the window is not up at the cieling, it's down a foot or so.

the HD1000U, and other DLP's in that price range, projects the image up at approx a 30 degree angle - so in my install, the image would have been on the floor. I've heard of others getting around this by tilting the projector up, then using the Keystone feature to reshape the image on the screen. - however I wanted to avoid the use of Keystone compression.

When I thought about the cost of a bracket, running an outlet, breaking through my cieling etc.. I decided that a few hundred more for a model with lens shift would be worth the trouble.

Now if only I could get this company to ship the new projector to me...

I'll be happy to share my opinions of the projector when I get it.
I'm no Videophile, but I have owned a projector for the past 5 years, and we just bought a new Plasma tv - so I've got a few references to compare to. Also a buddie of mine has a Sim2 projector so we'll probably compare just for fun.


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## Harold Dale

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

The sim2's are really nice....but SOO expensive but a 3 chip DLP is worth drooling over


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## basementjack

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

My Firend bought a Sim2 one chip DLP off someone on ebay - he paid more than I did for my LCD.


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## Harold Dale

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

How much did he pay?


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## basementjack

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

Ok after a few days of stress, I talked to the vendor to see where this thing is, they said there was a problem, which is never what you want to hear 10 days before the superbowl when these things are hot as pancakes... They called back and said it would ship today. With a little luck, I can still get this thing before the weekend... 

- Jack


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## RayJr

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

I just ordered a new projector also to replace my Sony HS20
And the replacement will be..........JVC RS1 1080P projector.
Saw this unit at the EXH Show in Long Beach CA...WOW amazing detail and contrast.
Looking forward to it getting here.

Later
RayJr


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## basementjack

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

Thats fantastic! I'd love an RS1 - too expensive for me :crying:

I just saw the Sony ???-100 another lcos 1080p projector at Frys, and it was pretty darned impressive - I assume the RS1 will be as good, maybe better and It's cheaper than the Sony (Sony was $9,000)

Well, it looks like you won't need to upgrade for a LONG time - by then, hopefully 120" Plasmas will be in that price range!


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## Harold Dale

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

Umm by then 120" SED's should be about that price


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## RayJr

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

basementjack,
I bet you saw the Sony vpl-100 (Ruby)...That was the projector I was going to get ..till I saw the JVC RS1. I think the JVC looks better in the dark seen detail because it does not use iris correction.
Just my .02

Later
RayJr


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## scott

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

basementjack...........superbowl weekend already? i didn't even know it was baseball season. just kidd'n, but seriously, who's play'n? i don't follow sports, but i will watch the bow if i happen to be in the house.:sarcastic:


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## Harold Dale

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

The Colts and the Bears are in the Superbowl.


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## basementjack

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

Well I have some good news.

After some back and forth with the vendor I selected for the projector, it appears that it was shipped yesterday - I have a tracking number that shows it scheduled for Delivery Tomorrow (Thursday)


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## basementjack

*PROJECTOR ARRIVED!*

The Projector is here!!!

I have not powered it on yet.

It's 22 deg F outside, and its 70 inside, so I'm going to give it some time to adjust with the hope that I'll avoid any condensation inside the unit...

ok with that said, here's the first impressions...

It came double boxed - the original Epson box was sealed, and placed inside a bigger box by the seller. Those puffy air things were in the box on the sides and top - no additional padding under the epson box.

The box doesn't look like it was ever opened. I looked for tapeover and signs of removed and replaced tape - none to be found..

Projector is made in China, not Japan.  

There are manuals inside for English CS and CT - I don't know what those stand for - perhaps Chineese traditional and something else?

There is an international warranty booklet inside, but no warranty card.
The booklet states "This projector is provided with a world wide warranty ...
1) ...warranty is valid when a warranty card or receipt issued by the country or region where the projector was purchased is presented..
2) ... validity period is 24 months from date of purchase.

The Projector came with a standard 3 prong USA style power cord. I think Japan uses these as well so this may have been sourced from Japan.

I've read elsewhere that the warranty for Projectors sold in Japan is 1 year, not 2 as stated in the booklet so I have some doubts, but it's at least promising...

ok now on to the projector.

The remote is big.
The top half is perfect, the bottom half needs to loose some weight.
Remote is backlit, in case you haven't seen it, it has separate buttons for on/off/each input - so it should be easy to program macros into a harmony or similar remote (I dislike input cycling buttons)
the remote also has direct buttons for Gamma, color Temp, skin tone, Contrast, Pattern, blank, aspect, and color mode.
Rounding that out is a memory, button, the usual 4 way control, with enter and esc, and a button to light the controller.
Pushing a button on the remote does not activate the light -you need to press the light button

The off button is recessed, which is a nice feature.
There's an LED on top of the remote so you can confirm visually that you pressed the button.

ok enough about the remote.

Lets talk about the projector..
The projector comes in a card board box - 3 of the bottom corners have those paper formed inserts to hold the projector off the bottom of the box. The corner closest to the lens has an insert made with 4 or 5 layers of cardboard.
There were I believe 3 layers of cardboard under the projector, and the top one or two had cutouts so that the weight was distributed along the entire bottom of the projector during shipping vs just the 3 feet...

My first impresion when I opened the box was that the projector was much bigger than I expected it to be.

The projector ships with the lens cap in place, as well as a protective foam insert around where the lens enters the case - I believe this is to keep the lense from moving during shipping.

Ok I guess I'll read the manual now while I wait for it to warm up.
one quick observation, there's IR sensors both front and rear.


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## basementjack

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

Ok I just spent a few minutes playing some sources through this thing. 

First up was Star Wars Episode 1 - 
from an older Pioneer DVD player that upscales to 480p

Positive impressions - Man this zoom lense ROCKS ROCKS ROCKS ROCKS and ROCKS SOME MORE!!!!

from 16 feet away, I was able to projecto a screen that was as small as 72 inch diagonal, and as large as 150 inch diagonal. 72 inch looked fantastic - most projectors do when they're that small... 
BUT, what was really Impressive was I was also able to throw the zoom the other way and display a picture that was 11.5 feet wide! (150 inch diagonal) I dont have a screen that big, and my walls are a medium brown and the image was plenty bright to see. At this size (150 inch) and on my brown wall, I felt the need to switch to a brighter picture mode, but the picture was still plenty viewable. Screen door is visible from my seating position of about 15 feet away, but only on white scenes. everything else looked great. It's pretty immersive to watch something that big from 15 feet back - it really felt like a movie theater...

and while on the topic of a movie theater - thats a good way to describe how this PJ Looks - It looks like you'd expect it to at a movie theater.

ok on to regular

I wasn't impressed with the picture quality off the DVD, but again this an old Pioneer, My $90 JVC beats it, and I'm sure an oppo would do wonders via hdmi - this was via component. There is a 'dot by dot mode for SD material, where each SD pixel is mapped to a pixel on the 1280x720 display, and that looked absolutely fantastic on SD material, so I feel like maybe the scaler in the Epson isn't the best. But I got a chance to watch a movie called spirit with my little one and it looked very good - some detail wasnt razor sharp, but all the colors were right. There are some detail settins on the epson that I haven't tried to mess with yet....

Ok so after getting my kicks, I adjusted the screen to 8 feet wide to fit my screen.

I have to say, I was hoping for better blacks.
This projectors 'black' is actually pretty gray - I guess they all are - I looked at a DLP that had the same problem, but I was hopefull for darker blacks...

oddly enough, it wasn't a problem as you'll soon see...

----

I put on Harry potter (the 4th one, in HD-DVD) via component.
the beginning of this movie is pretty dark
After a few small adjustments, I had the picture looking pretty decent.
the detail in the dark scenes was easily visible.

In "Theater Dark" mode, you really didn't notice the black bars at the top or bottom.

Colors seemed like they needed a bit of adjustment so I'll have to get a spyder or a calibration DVD and see what I can do.
But overall I was pleased.

-----

Enter the 360, and the story of gears of war...

When I got gears of war, I had an older projector - that thing was great - old faithful, but it was pretty weak at darker images.
I had to crank up the in game brightness in gears, plus I had to crank up the old projectors gamma to see this game.
It was playable, but it didn't look that good, and I didn't understand what all the fuss was about - people were talking about how good this game looked and I didn't see it...
enter the plasma...
We got a new plasma (a Vizio 50") for our family room, and I hooked up the Xbox 360 to it - I couldn't believe how good gears of war looked!
I knew then and there, that I would never ever play 360 on the old projector again, so I sold it. Well it didn't take long to tire of the small 50 inch plasma - it looked great, but just didn't have that big screen impact the projector did.

So this was kind of the ultimate test for the new Epson EMP-TW700 Projector - how does gears look????

NICE! VERY NICE! if you've played gears, you know your guy accasionally yells out NICE if you've done a head shot or finished an apponent - and thats just how I felt when I saw the opening screen- the red was alive and vivid, the background was MUCH deeper black than I was used to with my old projector. I started gameplay, and I think I was yelling NICE outloud for about 5 minutes...

You see, one of my requirements for a projector, is that I'd like to play video games with my kids and thier friends, without sitting in a dark room with all the lights off - there's just something creepy about that. So imagine to my surprise, that this picture looked this good, and I had HALF the lights in the room on! (my lights are in ceiling can type, 3 rows of 3, with dimmers for each row, screen, middle and seating - so seating was full on, middle was half way, and front was off)
Next I had to try it with ALL the lights on (except the one right in front of the screen, I keep that unscrewed - I never should have put a can there!)
With ALL the LIGHTS on FULL You could still see this picture well enough to play!

Ok so now I'm gettin happy!
I suppose you could download the TW700 or the powerlite pro cinema 810 manual (they are the same projector) if you wanted to read about all the features -honestly, I think there might be too many - you can adjust this thing every which way...

I'll comment on the sharpness, and clarity - this thing is sharp - so far it appears to have just a fantastic lense, my corners were nice and sharp and everything between...

If I had to compare it to the reviews I've seen on line, I'd compare it to the Sanyo Z5 for sharpness. - thats pretty much just what I was after - a brighter Z5.. if you've seen the reviews for the Panasonic, you know they have a smooth screen filter that blurrs the pixels - that would be awesome if I was watching a 480p movie - for 720p gaming and HD-DVD's, I want to see that sharpness!

ok time to go do other things for a while, if you have any questions about this projector, please don't hesitate to ask.


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## Sonnie

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

We need to change the title of your thread to the make and model of your projector now that you have it in hand. Congrats... :T


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## basementjack

*Re: New projector Ordered!*

Sonnie, I think I'll start a new thread called Epson EMP-TW700 / Pro cinema 810 review once I've had enough time to adjust this thing.

Can those calibration CD's be bought at best buy? I think I need one of those...


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## Harold Dale

*Re: New projector Arrived!*

I don't think best buy carries DVE or AVIA I know amazon has them.


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## basementjack

*Re: New projector Arrived!*

is there ANY place I can go get one of those calibration DVD's?

Amazon does not offer same day delivery :-(


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## Sonnie

*Re: New projector Arrived!*

Surely someone in Chicago has one, but who I wouldn't exactly know.


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## Guest

*Re: New projector Arrived!*

thanks for the review B'jack...([email protected])!


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## basementjack

*Cold Feet...*

Well I went to frys at lunch, they were out of avia, but had DVE, which I bought.

I got back to lunch and did a quick look up on Amazons customer reviews, and people were not to happy with the interface.

I decided to return it, and wait for the HD-DVD version to release. My friend has Avia, and another forum member here has offered to help me calibrate the PJ using some pretty sophisticated tools.

So I spent the money on some fans for my av cabinet...

BTW, I watched superman returns, and I noticed something interesting - the colors were perfect.
I've played Harry potter and felt the greens were a bit nulcear, now I'm wondering if thats the movie, or transfer, because superman returns looked absolutely stunning. There are so many close ups of faces in this movie, and seeing those faces in hi-def on an 8 foot screen was terrific - I remember about 5 times thinking how perfect the skin looked.

if the rest of my collection looks this good, I may not need to calibrate at all!!


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## basementjack

*Re: New projector Arrived!*

I just updated post # 20 with some additional info after another day of playing with this projector.


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## basementjack

jan 30th 2007-

Wouldn't you know it, but Art over at www.projectorreviews.com  just posted that he's got an epson pro cinema 810 in his posession for review.

I like Art's reviews, and I think he's one fo the most trusted projector reviewers out there.
I can't wait to see what he has to say about the epson I just bought...

on one hand, if my research was correct, and he confirms that this projector is the money, that would feel really good.
on the other hand, I reallly LOVE this Epson projector - so if Art says it's not as good as some of the others out there, then I see that as good news for everyone, becuase it means there are a lot of projectors out there that are this good or better.

We'll have to wait and see...


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## Guest

Art's taking his sweet time...

Jealous:hissyfit: ,I'm stuck without one.I'll record the SB in HD on my rec. and just watch it later when I do get the 700:wits-end:


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## basementjack

*Panel alignment...*

I've noticed with mine that the 3 color panels don't seem to be perfectly aligned.
I've read on forums that others have noticed this too..

This is usually not a big deal - especially for movie watching, but it does have the effect of making white text on a dark background look fuzzy - ie video games....

on mine, it's not severe - when I put up the test pattern, I notice it most on the left side - either the red panel is up by 1 pixel, or green is down, I can't really tell.

I've phoned epson, and here's what I learned - so far they seem to be ok with the fact that this is an import - but we'll have to see when the time comes...

Unfortunaltely, it doesn't sound like there's any way to adjust the location of these panels locations - I think they are set into a plastic block with slots, and it seem to me one slot is 1/1000 of an inch too high or low.

So I'll keep you all posted - still love the PJ, but the inability to see razor sharp text is a strike against it in my opinion - but perhaps I've just got a bad unit.

BTW - if you have or are getting an Epson TW700 - you can check for this easily by hitting the test pattern button on the remote - walk up to the screen and examine the white lines. They 'should' be white,with blue next to them -if you see red/purple or green, it means something not lined up right.


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## Guest

Basementjack, 

Who/where did you order your TW700 from? I'm only finding the U.S model which is quite a bit more.


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## basementjack

Pyro, I started a separate thread here called "Where to Import from Japan/Hong Kong" 

Which lists a variety of sources that carry the TW700 (and other models)

I bought mine from an ebay seller 'time2envy' if youend up buying one from them - be sure to tell them you heard about them from me! Maybe I'll get a discount on my next order!

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/home-theater-projectors/3312-where-import-japan-hong-kong.html


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## basementjack

*convergence update*

I took a bunch of pictures of the convergence on the projector:

Epson EMP-TW700 (Pro Cinema 810) Convergence issue.


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## basementjack

*Calibration Update*

A fellow shackster came over to help me calibrate my projector - I learned a lot and will post another thread on it...

for now however, I mentioned in an earlier post my journey buying, then returning the Digital Video Essentials disc.

I've learned of a new one called Get Gray - It's $25. and it's available at www.calibrate.tv


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## basementjack

*No US warranty...*

Well I had a few phone calls with Epson today and they do not appear to honor the 'international warranty' that is stated in the booklet that accompanied the product.

So at this point, while I love the projector, I have to caution others considering it that this might be something you have to deal with.

It sounds like it's still serviceable through the region it was intended for, but we'll have to see.
Mine is bad enought that it was worth a few phone calls, but not bad enought that I'd spend $250 to ship it round trip to Japan (though I do have some friends in the military over there so I could probably send it to them and ask them to forward it on to Epson Japan for service)


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## toecheese

Oh, that sucks- I was considering that projector for my next one- but not after they don't honor a warranty.


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## Prof.

Sorry to hear that Jack..
Warranties on goods purchased overseas are dodgy at best...
If the same product is distributed in your own Country, those distributors have no obligation to honour any overseas warranty, regardless of whats written in any manual... 
This is why I would never buy any product from an overseas supplier..regardless of the savings..

Did you ever get that Get Grey disc?


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