Epson Home Cinema 8700UB Projector - Image Quality-7

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Art Feierman

Epson Home Cinema 8700UB Projector: Bottom Line on HDTV Sports

You can never have too many lumens for watching sports with some lights on, and from that standpoint, sure, this Epson would be a better sports projector and family room projector, if it had twice the brightness. Well, folks, it doesn't, but then, neither does any projector I've ever reviewed under $10,000. Only a couple of InFocuses could come close (to double this Epson), and only when they were positioned for maximimum lumens. When I look at all the home theater projectors, it still seems that 1000 lumens is about average in "brightest mode", with most LCoS projectors limited to 600 - 900 lumens maximum, with DLP's often having over 500 best mode lumens, but very few as bright or brighter than this Epson in brightest mode (except for some of the entry level DLP projectors which are more "crossover" projectors, than true performance home theater projectors).

Yes, you can find a few more lumens, near the price. The BenQ W6000 comes to mind. It has a lot more lumens, but, the color is dominated by greens in its brightest mode. Knock down the mode so that the BenQ has pretty good color, and it's no brighter than the 8700UB.

With the improved color handling of the brightest modes, the Epson is now a much better projector for high quality HDTV content (and other digital content as well). I'll be moving this week to the new house/facility. If I get my rooms set up in time, and hook up the Home Cinema 8700UB for this weekend's football, then, I'll make one prediction: As I watch my fantasy football players, Randy Moss'es uniform will almost certainly look great, and that's without knowing which team will pick him up between now (Vikings just released him), and Sunday!