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AUDIO-VISUAL
S
ince its previous series of home theatre
projectors some three years ago, Epson
has re-branded its UHD technology to
Epson ‘4K PRO-UHD’. This uses 1080p
panels with pixel shifting to increase resolution
above 1080p. (Epson does, in fact, make full 4K
projectors for professional use. But they have
massive light sources and cost around $90,000.)
So the emphasis here is much more on a wide
colour gamut and improved support for the High
Dynamic Range that comes with most Ultra-HD
content. There is much to be said for this approach,
and as we’ll see, it proves itself in the image
quality. Epson notes that terms like HDR weren’t
developed with projectors in mind. Nonetheless,
Epson’s aim has been to push towards the bright
end of the range envisaged by HDR standards.
That’s up to 10,000 nits. The projector can’t get
there, but Epson has tried to make the projector as
bright as possible. It rates the output of the Epson
EH-TW9400W at 2600 lumens, both in white
and in colour, the latter being something which
projection methods which share their brightness
among the three primary colours can’t achieve.
As for colour, this one is rated to cover 100% of
the DCI-P3 colour space, the standard for digital
cinema. Of note, an ‘Ultra-HD Premium’ certifica-
tion requires covering only 90% of DCI-P3.NO LONG HDMI CABLES
The ‘W’ at the end of the model number means
that it is fitted with WirelessHD connectivity. A
separate box with four HDMI inputs is provided.This accepts connections from your source devices
(it has an optical and HDMI output for passing
audio on to a receiver as well) and it passes the
video wirelessly to the projector. It’s easy to see
what an enormous boon this can be in many
likely layouts, especially given the issues in running
long HDMI cables. This ‘W’ wirelessness adds
only $200 over the price of the otherwise-identical
non-wireless TW9400. You could save that
just from the price of those cables, let alone the
benefits of neatness.
The projector uses three Epson LCD panels.
The glass allows a very generous zoom range of
2.1-to-1 and it has a large range of lens shift, both
horizontally and vertically. Those features make
it easy to install, as does the fact that all these
adjustments are powered, so you can stand right
next to the screen as you’re making them, rather
than teetering on a chair, stretching to reach the
control rings on a projector lens. The powered
adjustments also allow it to have lens position
memories, useful if your circumstances mean using
two different screens, or an anamorphic set-up.
For a 100-inch (2.54-metre) 16:9 screen, the
projector needs to be at a distance of between 3 and
6.3 metres from the screen.
The remote features backlit keys, and plenty
of them, so that it’s easy to change settings on the
projector. It had plenty of power to bounce its IR
signal off our screen and back to the sensor on the
front of the projector.
The projector supports 3D, though you’ll need
to buy additional bits and pieces for that.PERFORMANCE
If you feed the Epson an Ultra-HD test pattern
which has single-pixels lines vertically and hori-
zontally, it’s clear from the on-screen result that it
doesn’t define things as well as a device with true
Ultra-HD resolution, though it did seem to yield a
little more detail than full HD.
But this is not real-world material; you’re
unlikely to find a single pixel line in a 4K movie
via UHD Blu-ray or Foxtel or Netflix, while the
vast majority of content for most viewers will be
upscaled from Blu-ray or broadcast.
So let’s put aside test patterns. With real content
the colour was gorgeous, and the projector was
wonderfully bright. Particularly impressive was
the bold, almost hyper-real colours of Billy Lynn’s
Long Halftime Walk. We were watching wirelessly,
and this is a rare 60 frames-per-second movie
(see below) so we switched to the wired HDMI
connection to get the full 12 bits and 4:2:2 colour,
and it looked even bolder and brighter. Home
theatre projection has never looked this good at
anywhere near this price. The wonderful reds of
the Deadpool movies were conveyed beautifully.
The grain of some older movies transferred to
Ultra-HD, such as the 1984 Ghostbusters, was
softened to the point of near-removal. That was
about the only clear evidence from real material
that the Ultra-HD resolution isn’t fully realised.
We went back to test patterns to see how
brightness levels were handled. Using the test
patterns on a Sony Ultra-HD Blu-ray disc (hit the
number keys 7669 on your remote while on the
main menu), chapters 19 to 22 show grey-scale
patterns from 0 to 10,000 nits. There is no way
any existing projector can deliver this range, even
1000 nits. So the projector make has to make
judgements. What lower boundary of input willEPSON EH-TW9400W 4K Pro-UHD wireless AV projector
EPSON EH-TW9400W
Epson’s new generation of projectors uses a powerful combo of
brightness and colour to deliver images that rivals true UHD.
Best Buys Audio & AV 2019-#2