Epson Home Cinema 8700UB Projector - Performance-2

Posted on November 1, 2010 by Art Feierman

OK, some things don't really change. 3 chip projectors, be they 3LCD, LCoS, or DLP, have potential convergence issues. As a result, its common for even moderately priced single chip DLP projectors like the under $1300 Mitsubishi HC4000, or the over $2000 BenQ W6000, to be slightly sharper than most projectors using 3 chips, even up to $10,000.

Epson Home Cinema 8700UB Sharpness

That said, the slight softness compared to a DLP, is minor on this Epson. On typical movie viewing most of us simply won't notice any softness, since the film introduces its own softness and grain artifacts. Switch to digital HD source material - be it Monday Night Football, or ScyFi HD, Discovery HD, History HD, HD HD, or etc HD, and you will notice that a sharp single chip DLP will appear a bit sharper in a side by side comparison.

That's the bad news. I actually really do like Epson's Super-Resolution - an apparent dynamic sharpening solution. At the lowest setting, it does add a sense of further sharpness, but any related hardness of the image, is so minor as to not be an issue under normal viewing. Pushing the Super-Resolution to higher settings however, and it will start taking a small toll elsewhere.

Overall, the sharpness is good, like many other 1080p projectors. There are only a handful of projectors - almost all single chip DLP projectors that will appear a touch sharper.

For your consideration, our usual close up images:

Top left: Home Cinema 8700UB, Top Left Center - LG CF181D, Top Right Center - JVC RS25, Top right - Mitsubishi HC7000

2nd row left: Panasonic PT-AE4000, left center: Epson Home Cinema 8350, right center: Mitsubishi HC4000, right: BenQ W6000.

Please note, we are still switching over to using the Playstation video logo as our sharpness example, instead of the old dts-hd logo. The original sample test disc from dts died, and they can't find me another.

Home Cinema 8700UB