Epson Powerlite 97H Projector Review - Performance

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Art Feierman

Epson Powerlite 97H Projector - Performance The PowerLite 97H has a zoom lens with a 1.2:1 zoom ratio. I positioned the projector at approx. 118 inches from the screen and set the projector’s zoom lens to its mid position. This produced an image approx. 74 inches wide.

Brightness

Brightness
Color Mode	Lumens
Dynamic	2659
Presentation	2253
Theater	1739
sRGB	1684
Blackboard	1711

The PowerLite 97H is a bright projector. It has rated light output of 2700 lumens and my measurements show that with its factory default settings its peak light output (measured at the center of the projected image) of the unit reviewed came very close to the Epson specification. The table shows the measured peak lumens values for the various color modes. I did find that by setting the constrast adjustment to produce the standard reference white level in dynamic mode (a contrast setting of +6) resulted in a increase in brightness to a measured 2957 lumens. The bottom line is Epson's rated 2700 lumens in brightest mode is realistic for this projector.

The above lumens values were measured with the projector operating in normal lamp mode. Changing the projector to “Eco” mode reduced the light output to approximate 70% the brightness of normal mode.

I measured the brightness uniformity with the projector sitting on a table and projecting a 74 inch wide image. The vertical and horizontal keystone adjustments were set to zero, meaning no electronic keystone correction was being used. The brightest point was near the center of the image and the brightness remained within about 10% of that value over almost the entire image. This is excellent performance.

Noise

The Epson PowerLite 97H is specified to produce a noise level of 37 dB in normal lamp mode and 29 dB in Eco mode. These values, especially in normal operating mode, are toward the upper end of what is typical for this class of projector. While the noise level, especially with the lamp operating in normal mode, is certainly audible, it should not be distracting when this projector is being used in a class room environment. Changing to the “Eco” mode resulted in a noticeable decrease in noise level and to a level similar to that from a typical home theater projector when such a projector is operating in its normal mode.

Audio Performance

The PowerLite 97H has a single 16 watt built-in speaker that produces adequate volume to not only overcome the projector’s fan noise but also is sufficient to provide the audio in a classroom or moderate size conference room. As is expected from such a modest size built-in speaker, there is no real bass but the PowerLite 97H produces above average sound quality for this class of compact projector. It certainly will work well for voice narrations and background music.

Networking

The PowerLite 97H has a RJ-45 network port on it rear panel for connection to a wired network and Epson also offers an optional wireless adapter (not provided with the unit used for this review). Epson provides both PC and Mac networked projector management software with the projector. This software provides the tools to managed one or multiple Epson projectors from a single PC/Mac location. The administrator can both monitor the status of each Epson projector and also control the power and certain settings for each of these networked projectors. See the Section 2 of this review for more information.

Epson also offers a free iProjection App for iOS or Android mobile devices that enables content from the mobile device to be displayed by the PowerLite 97H, if the projector has been equipped with the optional wireless network adapter.

As discussed in section 2 of this review, Epson also provides “Moderator” software that enables content from up to four devices (mobile, PCs or Macs) to displayed by the PowerLite 99W in a split-screen mode.

The networking capabilities nor the Moderator software were tested for this review.