Epson Home Cinema 3200 Home Theater Projector Review - Picture Quality

Posted on November 27, 2019 by Phil Jones

Epson Home Cinema 3200 Projector Review – Picture Quality: Out-of-the-Box Picture Quality, Skin Tones, Black Level and Shadow Detail.

Out-of-the-Box Picture Quality

I would rate the EPSON Home Cinema 3200 picture quality out of the box as good. Most of the picture modes were fairly accurate. Of the four different preset SDR picture modes available, the Natural mode was the most accurate.

The Dynamic mode was to brightest mode, but it was also the least accurate. Out the box, Dynamic mode did measure closer to D65 than other preset modes but visually there was a green color shift. There may be times like watching a sporting event during the day where the extra brightness provided by the Dynamic mode is worth the sacrifice in color accuracy.

Cinema and Bright Cinema product a higher color temperature with Bright Cinema producing a lot more brightness with boosted contrast.

To achieve the best out-of-the-box SDR picture, I choose the Natural mode with the color temp set to 6500K and the lamp power will be set to ECO. Increasing the lamp to HIGH did affect color reproduction but could be easily corrected with calibration.

From the remote control, you also have access ten user configurable picture setting memories. These memories can be used to store picture settings after calibration such SDR brightest mode or SDR best mode.

Above are images of a variety of videos and photos in 4K and HD resolution. Like all our photos, they remain unadjusted for color, so they do not look as good as what the projector produced. All the HD and 4K images were taken with the Home Cinema 3200 set to Natural which I calibrated for SDR viewing. Any HDR photos were taken in Cinema Mode which I calibrated for HDR.

Skin Tones

The above screen shots give a rough idea of the color accuracy for each picture mode. However, when viewed in person the skin tone will look better than shown in these photos.

The first are shots of a skin tone test image showing the different preset modes. Also included is a variety of screenshots showing skin tones under different scene lighting.

The Natural mode produced the most accurate skin tones out of the box. Switching to the Bright Cinema mode resulted in little oversaturation, but in many situations, it is worth it to cut through a lot of ambient light.

BLACK LEVEL AND SHADOW DETAIL

Even with the Auto Iris engaged, the HC3200 blacks were closer to dark gray. This was obvious when watching darker scenes at night in my demo room. Many higher-end home theater projectors like Home Cinema 5050UB have better black levels and higher contrast, but these are only beneficial in a darkened theater or room with lots of light control.

In a room with some ambient light, the Epson Home Cinema 3200's blacks were dark enough to produce a pleasing image. The Home Cinema 3200s rated brightness of 2900 lumens ensures that images pop even in rooms with limited light control. I did notice a large amount of light leakage coming from the projector’s front exhaust vent but in a room with some ambient light it isn’t too distracting.