Epson Home Cinema LS100 Laser Projector Review – Calibration Settings

Posted on December 14, 2017 by Art Feierman

Epson Home Cinema LS100 Laser Projector Review – Calibration Settings: Calibration Presets Notes, Best Mode Calibration, Brightest Mode Calibration

Epson Home Cinema LS100 Calibration Presets Notes

The LS100 has 4 presets (Dynamic, Bright Cinema, Cinema, & Game. For my dark room calibration, I used Game mode (Quiet mode). I used Game mode rather than Cinema because its color gamut was slightly better (more on that later).

Quick note about the 3 lamp modes (Normal, Quiet & ECO). The fan on Normal seems to be a little louder than my Epson 5030 on Normal. Also, having the LS100 in front of me may add to the perceived loudness. Quite mode is the second brightest mode and is also the quietest. ECO is the dimmest, but oddly louder than quite mode.

Best Mode Calibration for 1080p and REC709 – Game Mode

Cutting to the chase, this LS100 had one of the worst looking gamuts I‘ve seen in a projector. Now, the model I was given for evaluation was a pre-production unit, so it is possible things will improve with retail versions. As I mentioned at the top of my notes, I used Game mode because the gamut measured slightly better than Cinema, but it’s still quite poor.

Some of the issues are common to other projectors like red, blue and magenta being under-saturated at 100%, but over saturated at 20, 40, 60 and 80%. Yellow on the LS100 is in the best shape. It’s green and cyan that are the most troubling. Cyan showed 60, 80 and 100% saturation levels all sitting on the 80% target. As green saturation increases, it moves towards yellow with the 100% green far from its REC.709 target. You could clearly see that green in the SMPTE color bars looked more lime-green in tone, almost dayglow. Calibration did little to improve these issues. I had to be careful because just the smallest adjustment could make things worse.

Epson LS100 Game Mode Pre-Calibration CIE 1976 Saturation Sweeps (target-Rec.709) — Game Mode Pre-Calibration CIE 1976 Saturation Sweeps (target Rec.709)

IRE	Pre-Calibration	Post-Calibration
10 IRE	7021K	6771K
20 IRE	6422K	6529K
30 IRE	6602K	6411K
40 IRE	6662K	6495K
50 IRE	6730K	6470K
60 IRE	6780K	6531K
70 IRE	6738K	6538K
80 IRE	6742K	6493K
90 IRE	6809K	6552K
100 IRE	6808K	6557K

Measurements taken at Mid-Zoom in Quiet Mode.

Average Gamma Pre-Calibration: 2.03

Average Gamma Post-Calibration: 2.20 @ 3192 Lumens

My target for a Dark Room gamma is 2.4, and with past Epsons, setting the gamma to -1 or -2 did the trick, but with the LS100, -2 only got me to 2.2, so that is what I used for my target. After calibration, it yielded a fairly linear gamma with a slight bump in brightness at 90 IRE and increasing brightness from 10 down to 0. Had I turned on Dynamic Black for these measurements, the low end would show slightly improved black level performance.

Type	Pre-Calibration	Post-Calibration
Contrast	50	50
Brightness	50	50
Color	50	50
Tint	50	50
Color Temp	4	4
G-M Correction	4	4

Type	Pre-Calibration	Post-Calibration
Gamma	0	-2
Dynamic Contrast	High	High
Sharpness	5	5
Noise Reduction	6	0
Detail Enhancement	0	20

RGB	Gain	Offset
Red	46	51
Green	50	51
Blue	40	53

Greyscale calibration settings for Game mode.

Epson LS100 Game Mode Post-Calibration CIE 1976 Saturation Sweeps (target-Rec.709) — Game Mode Post-Calibration CIE 1976 Saturation Sweeps (target Rec.709)

Brightest Mode Calibration for 1080P and REC709 – Dynamic Mode

For my Bright Room calibration, I used Dynamic Mode (Normal mode). Default color temp was in 7500K range with a plus blue, minus red getting more pronounced the brighter the image got. Sadly, the color gamut was similar, yet worse, than what I saw in Game mode. Blue was extremely over-saturated, magenta at 100% was not only oversaturated, but skewed towards red. Green and cyan showed similar errors to Game mode. Cyan had 60, 80 and 100% saturation levels, all sitting on the 80% target, with green running towards yellow. After using the LS100’s CMS controls, I could improve some aspects, while others, I could not.

Dynamic-Mode-Pre-Calibration-CIE-1976-Saturation-Sweeps-(target-Rec.709)- — Dynamic Mode Pre-Calibration CIE 1976 Saturation Sweeps (target-Rec.709)

IRE	Pre-Calibration	Post-Calibration
10 IRE	7558K	7340K
20 IRE	7263K	6566K
30 IRE	7374K	6469K
40 IRE	7558K	6445K
50 IRE	7558K	6336K
60 IRE	7621K	6369K
70 IRE	7652K	6406K
80 IRE	7831K	6518K
90 IRE	7935K	6584K
100 IRE	8122K	6808K

Measurements taken at mid-zoom, Normal power.

Average Gamma Pre-Calibration: 1.88

Average Gamma Post-Calibration: 2.02 (target 2.20) @ 5168 Lumens

Type	Pre-Calibration	Post-Calibration
Color Temp	6	4
G-M Correction	7	6
Gamma	0	0
Dynamic Contrast	High	High
Sharpness	5	5
Noise Reduction	6	0
Detail Enhancement	20	20

RGB	Gain	Offset
Red	50	50
Green	49	52
Blue	50	53

Greyscale calibration settings for Dynamic mode.

Dynamic-Mode-Post-Calibration-CIE-1976-Saturation-Sweeps-(target-Rec.709) — Dynamic Mode Post-Calibration CIE 1976 Saturation Sweeps (target-Rec.709)

Epson Home Cinema LS100 Laser Projector Review – Calibration Settings: Calibration Presets Notes, Best Mode Calibration, Brightest Mode Calibration

Epson Home Cinema LS100 Calibration Presets Notes

The LS100 has 4 presets (Dynamic, Bright Cinema, Cinema, & Game. For my dark room calibration, I used Game mode (Quiet mode). I used Game mode rather than Cinema because its color gamut was slightly better (more on that later).

Quick note about the 3 lamp modes (Normal, Quiet & ECO). The fan on Normal seems to be a little louder than my Epson 5030 on Normal. Also, having the LS100 in front of me may add to the perceived loudness. Quite mode is the second brightest mode and is also the quietest. ECO is the dimmest, but oddly louder than quite mode.

Best Mode Calibration for 1080p and REC709 – Game Mode

Cutting to the chase, this LS100 had one of the worst looking gamuts I‘ve seen in a projector. Now, the model I was given for evaluation was a pre-production unit, so it is possible things will improve with retail versions. As I mentioned at the top of my notes, I used Game mode because the gamut measured slightly better than Cinema, but it’s still quite poor.

Some of the issues are common to other projectors like red, blue and magenta being under-saturated at 100%, but over saturated at 20, 40, 60 and 80%. Yellow on the LS100 is in the best shape. It’s green and cyan that are the most troubling. Cyan showed 60, 80 and 100% saturation levels all sitting on the 80% target. As green saturation increases, it moves towards yellow with the 100% green far from its REC.709 target. You could clearly see that green in the SMPTE color bars looked more lime-green in tone, almost dayglow. Calibration did little to improve these issues. I had to be careful because just the smallest adjustment could make things worse.

IRE	Pre-Calibration	Post-Calibration
10 IRE	7021K	6771K
20 IRE	6422K	6529K
30 IRE	6602K	6411K
40 IRE	6662K	6495K
50 IRE	6730K	6470K
60 IRE	6780K	6531K
70 IRE	6738K	6538K
80 IRE	6742K	6493K
90 IRE	6809K	6552K
100 IRE	6808K	6557K

Measurements taken at Mid-Zoom in Quiet Mode.

Average Gamma Pre-Calibration: 2.03

Average Gamma Post-Calibration: 2.20 @ 3192 Lumens

My target for a Dark Room gamma is 2.4, and with past Epsons, setting the gamma to -1 or -2 did the trick, but with the LS100, -2 only got me to 2.2, so that is what I used for my target. After calibration, it yielded a fairly linear gamma with a slight bump in brightness at 90 IRE and increasing brightness from 10 down to 0. Had I turned on Dynamic Black for these measurements, the low end would show slightly improved black level performance.

Type	Pre-Calibration	Post-Calibration
Contrast	50	50
Brightness	50	50
Color	50	50
Tint	50	50
Color Temp	4	4
G-M Correction	4	4

Type	Pre-Calibration	Post-Calibration
Gamma	0	-2
Dynamic Contrast	High	High
Sharpness	5	5
Noise Reduction	6	0
Detail Enhancement	0	20

RGB	Gain	Offset
Red	46	51
Green	50	51
Blue	40	53

Greyscale calibration settings for Game mode.

Brightest Mode Calibration for 1080P and REC709 – Dynamic Mode

For my Bright Room calibration, I used Dynamic Mode (Normal mode). Default color temp was in 7500K range with a plus blue, minus red getting more pronounced the brighter the image got. Sadly, the color gamut was similar, yet worse, than what I saw in Game mode. Blue was extremely over-saturated, magenta at 100% was not only oversaturated, but skewed towards red. Green and cyan showed similar errors to Game mode. Cyan had 60, 80 and 100% saturation levels, all sitting on the 80% target, with green running towards yellow. After using the LS100’s CMS controls, I could improve some aspects, while others, I could not.

IRE	Pre-Calibration	Post-Calibration
10 IRE	7558K	7340K
20 IRE	7263K	6566K
30 IRE	7374K	6469K
40 IRE	7558K	6445K
50 IRE	7558K	6336K
60 IRE	7621K	6369K
70 IRE	7652K	6406K
80 IRE	7831K	6518K
90 IRE	7935K	6584K
100 IRE	8122K	6808K