Epson Home Cinema 6500UB Projector - Image Quality-7

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Art Feierman

Overall Color & Picture Quality

On brighter scenes the Epson 6500UB is rich and dynamic looking. It's that "wow and pop" I like to talk about. If the Epson looks really good on typical scenes like that, it really shines on darker scenes. With better black level performance than the other 3LCD projectors, and even slightly better than the entry level Sony (HW10), and approaching the JVC RS1, it's night time, and other very dark scenes are truly impressive, if not spectacular.

The post calibration color accuracy may not be the very best, but is very close. It is more than close enough to make the overall result, in my opinion, the best of the under $3000 projectors. For that matter every bit the equal or better than of many more expensive models, including the more expensive Optoma's and BenQ W20000, as well as the Sony VPL-HW10.

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Ihave never considered the Epson 1080p projectors to be the most flim-like, the extra pop and wow factor is the trade-off. The Epson makes for great viewing, even if a touch more muted look, might be a touch more film-like.

In brightest modes, the Epson has little competition in sheer lumen output. It's Dynamic mode has the horsepower that the other 3LCD projectors lack, with only the Sanyo PLV-Z3000's dynamic mode even coming moderately close in brightness. The overall picture fidelity for the Dynamic mode, has less accurate color - too much yellow green push, than is natural, but it slices through ambient light. This mode could be further tuned, at the expense of more lumens, and if you do that, it may beat the Sanyo PLV-Z3000's dynamic mode, which I find to have the best color accuracy of any of the 3LCD projectors' brightest modes. Since Dynamic mode is for dealing with ambient light, which is going to destroy a good portion of the best of an image, the inaccuracies are a minor concern. Better a slightly off skin tone that comes through, than one a touch better on paper, but washed out by ambient light.

Epson's LivingRoom mode, which does not use the color filter that the darker modes share, still does a great job, and if calibrated makes an excellent choice for normal TV, HDTV and sports viewing, when light issues are minor. Football looked great, with good color fidelity in LivingRoom mode. Dynamic has the colors a little over the top, but that's what you want when fighting a lot of ambient light. Since I have mentioned the Sanyo, consider that the Epson's LivingRoom mode is as bright as Sanyo's Dynamic mode.

Epson Home Cinema 6500UBU Projector: Performance, HDTV and Sports

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The images above and below are from a Moody Blues Concert that has been broadcast in HD, and is also available on Blu-ray disc. Both of these images were shot in TheaterBlack 1 mode.

Sports in particular look really good. I've logged probably 20 hours watching the Epson Home Cinema 6500UB home theater projector perform on football games (it's bowl season) and other sports. I viewed sports in both Dynamic mode, and in Living (room) mode, depending on how much ambient light I was allowing.

All the sports images shown here were taken in Livingroom mode, unless otherwise noted. The Epson has enough horsepower (lumens) in LivingRoom mode to watch football in my large theater with one of the shades open partially. By comparison, my JVC doesn't look as good, with the shades all fully down, due to half the lumens.

I tend to use either Brilliant Cinema or Living(room) modes, for most HDTV, such as watching The Tonight show, or a music video. That assumes those modes have been calibrated as well