Epson Home Cinema 1080 Home Theater Projector Review

Epson’s Home Cinema 1080 projector is near identical to the more expensive PowerLite Pro Cinema 1080 (model sold by projector installation specialists) with only some extra functionalities missing. It’s an excellent value for money Full HD, 1080p projector confirmed by its time in the Amazon Top Selling Home Theatre Projectors list.

Epson Home Cinema 1080 Home Theater Projector

A good contrast ratio is an important factor contributing to a good image and the 12,000:1 contrast ratio of the Home Cinema 1080 delivered by Epson’s Absolute Black technology is excellent. Lamp power is 1200 ANSI lumens which is reasonably bright for a home theatre projector but, does require a light controlled environment.

Set-up Flexibility of Epson Home Cinema 1080

The Home Cinema 1080 provides excellent set up flexibility with the wide ranging horizontal and vertical lens shifts of +/- 47 and +/-96 percent respectively. This means you can adjust for significant offset from the screen in both the horizontal and vertical planes without being concerned about digital keystone adjustment causing video artefacts. The OptiCinema lens provides a wide ranging 1 – 2.1 manual zoom for adjusting for distance to the screen. Epson rate the projector for 100 inch images (diagonal) at 9.8 feet from the screen.

3LCD Technology

The projection engine of the Epson Home Cinema 1080 is 3LCD projection technology. 3LCD technology was initiated in 1995 and adopted by numerous front projector manufacturers (Fujitsu, Hitachi, Panasonic, Sanyo and Sony) for its compactness and image quality. The three-panel design produces a brighter, more life-like picture in comparison to single panel systems.

The LCD microdisplay (3 off) panels used for the Home Cinema 1080 projector are Seiko Epson Corporation’s (Epson) D6 series of high-temperature polysilicon TFT liquid crystal panels (HTPS). The D6 panels have a hybrid driving technology which further enhances the performance of 3LCD-type front-projectors. This hybrid technology uses internal and external drivers for driving the LCD. Externally mounted horizontal driver ICs, as used in the D6 series technology, have superior driving capabilities. Combined with the LCD driving controller IC on the panels connection tape, this results in smoother images, lower power requirements and space savings on the circuit board (delivers smaller projectors).

Crystal Clear Fine

Epson D6 series panels incorporate Epson’s Crystal Clear Fine (C2 Fine) inorganic alignment technology which combines an inorganic liquid crystal alignment layer and vertical alignment technology (liquid crystal aligned vertically). The inorganic alignment layer reduces orientation unevenness producing smoother images while vertical alignment reduces light leakage improving contrast and deepening blacks.

Auto Iris Optical System

The Auto Iris Optical System boosts projected image quality through control of lamp light intensity. Blacks are deeper and grey scaling is improved.

Connections

The Epson Home Cinema 1080 has a good range of connection options as detailed below.

HDMI (1.3)
3 RCA (component)
1 RCA (composite)
1 Mini Din (S-video)
1 D-Sub 9 pin (RS-232c)
1 D-Sub 15 pin (analog RGB)
D4/SCART

Epson Twin Optimized Reflection Lamp (E-TORL)

Epson’s E-TORL lamp’s is smaller, cooler running, more efficient and brighter than an ordinary lamp thanks to its innovative design. Light emitted from the burner’s electrodes hits the reflector and is reflected into the optic lenses to pass on to the LCD panels (3x) for projection. An ordinary lamps parabola-shaped reflector actually leaks (wastes) a sizeable portion of the lamps light rather than reflecting it into the optical train.

With the E-TORL Epson have replaced the parabolic reflector with an elliptical reflector combined with a twin sub-reflector unit which collects light which would be otherwise lost and redirects it back to the rear elliptical reflector and into the optics. Overall efficiency improvement is 20% corresponding to a brighter light output.

Rated projection lamp life is a comparatively good at 3000 hours.