Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080 UB Projector Review

Epson’s PowerLite Home Cinema 1080 UB is the replacement for the excellent Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080. The Home Cinema 1080 UB is however, a jump up rather than a step up in performance. The price hasn’t jumped though, making this projector a market leading value for money proposition for home theatre shoppers.

Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080 UB Projector

The Home Cinema 1080 UB has a native 1080p (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) resolution and is powered by a 3LCD technology projection engine. Conveniently it will support the 24 fps of movies. The UB in the model number stands for Ultra Black and this is evidenced by the staggeringly high contrast ratio of 50,000:1 (dynamic) and 4,000:1 (static). Projector brightness at 1600 ANSI lumens is at the top end of what could be expected for a home theatre projector.

The performance leap of the PowerLite Cinema 1080 UB projector is thanks to Epson’s new D7 (previous D6 used in Home Cinema 1080) LCD microdisplay panel and UltraBlack Technology.

Set Up Flexibility

Something that impressed with the Home Cinema 1080 and continues with the UB model is the excellent flexibility provided for projector placement with the wide ranging horizontal (+/- 47) and vertical (+/-96) lens shifts. It makes it possible to adjust for significant offset from the screen centreline in both the horizontal and vertical planes without being concerned about digital keystone adjustment causing video artifacts. The 1 – 2.1 manual zoom of the OptiCinema lens provides plenty of capacity for adjusting for distance to the screen.

Auto Iris Optical System

The Auto Iris Optical System boosts projected image quality through control of lamp light intensity. Deeper blacks are achieved by closing the iris and grey scaling is improved by the wider range of intensities possible with the twin methods of light control – the iris opening and closing and the liquid crystals varying their filtering. Darker scene detail is improved as closing of the iris allows the full range of grayscale steps to be applied at lower light levels.

Connections

It’s good to see a second HDMI interface but, with many HDTVs having 3 or even 4 HDMI there is plenty of pressure for more.

2 HDMI (v 1.3)
1 RCA (Component)
1 RCA (Composite)
1 Mini Din (S-video)
1 Mini D-Sub 9 pin (RS-232c)
1 Mini D-Sub 15 pin (Analog RGB)

Lamp life for the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080 UB is comparatively good at 3,000 hours in economy mode and 2,000 hours in bright mode. The projector comes with Epson’s innovative E-TORL lamp.

Epson offer a generous two (2) year parts and labor warranty with an overnight replacement program for the full duration.