Epson Home Cinema 5020 Projector - Performance 2

Posted on July 17, 2013 by Art Feierman

Home Cinema 5020 Eco-Mode vs. Full Power

True, dropping to eco-mode will make the lamp last longer - 5000 hours instead of 4000, but that's not a huge percentage. Most likely anyone's real motivation is fan noise (discussed below.)

HC5020 Lumen Output (Eco Lamp, Dynamic): 1357

That's about a 29% drop, and should be consistent, regardless of which modes you use. Last year we measured about a 32% drop. The difference is within the famous "margin of error" Epson's have typically dropped about 30% when switching to eco mode.

Epson Home Cinema 5020 Pre-Calibration Color temp: THX


30 IRE	7164
50 IRE	7170
80 IRE	7172
100 IRE	7012

Home Cinema 5020, Post Calibration, Best Mode User 1 (based on THX)


20 IRE	6719
30 IRE	6515
40 IRE	6474
50 IRE	6539
60 IRE	6503
70 IRE	6509
80 IRE	6564
90 IRE	6528
100 IRE	6517
Average gamma = 2.18

That's a pretty tight range of color temp, post calibration. We've seen projectors that calibrate even tighter, but not often, or significantly (last year, the 5010 was a even tighter). Of course, Mike could invest more time, and narrow the range further, but the picture works for me!

Below, photos showing the differences between modes. These are taken at the same exposure, to give you an idea of relative brightness. It also gives you a good idea about color, though it's a touch tougher to fully appreciate since the less bright modes are a bit underexposed, and the brighter modes overexposed due to the exposure. Let's look at how the different modes handle some skin tones:

THX (Calibrated):

Dynamic

Living room

Cinema

Natural

Dynamic is suffering from being way overexposed. Still, if you try to forget that, you can note that our Victoria Secret model picks up a yellowish caste due to increased greens, etc.