Epson TW9300
No, it’s really not 4K
PRICE $ 4,800 epson.com.au
My
good friends know how obsessed I am with projectors – my first model was around the time of the original Xbox release, where it’s 720p resolution looked absolutely incredible blown up to the size of a theatre screen on my wall. It’s also why I do most of my gaming on an Epson TW9200, a 1080p projector that delivers a truly big-screen gaming experience.
So when I heard that Epson was releasing a 4K projector for less than five grand, I was amazed. Until now, only Sony had offered remotely affordable home 4K projectors, and they were in the twenty grand range, just a tad too expensive even for a dedicated enthusiast like me. For Epson to deliver a 4K projector at less than five grand – $15,000 less than its competitors – was simply revolutionary.
Unfortunately it turns out that it’s too good to be true. This projector still only supports a 1080p input, which it then upscales to 4K. JVC pulled this same trick a few years back, so it’s nothing new. You don’t get a native 4K image – it’s simply 1080p with extra pixels added. There is a barely noticeable increase in clarity, but trust me: it’s a long, long way from looking at a native 4K screen.
However, there is another key feature that makes the successor to the TW9200 worthy of your attention – support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) lighting. 4K is so 2014 darling, with HDR being the selling point for most displays in 2016/2017.
What’s HDR? Well, basically, it uses a much wider colour range to deliver much more accurate colours compared to non-HDR displays. It also offers vastly improved contrast ratios – Epson is claiming this projector has a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.
We’ve heard claims like this before, and it’s thanks to a dynamic iris that changes the overall brightness during scenes – the actual native contrast ratio with the dynamic iris disabled is 10,000:1, which is still impressive. We tested with both dynamic on and off, and found there was a barely perceptible lag as the iris adjusted to the overall scene brightness. It’s the sort of thing you’ll only notice if you’re really looking out for it (which you might well do now that I’ve mentioned it).
One thing we weren’t so fond of with the TW9200 was input latency, but this could be improved by disabling fine image quality. Yet this in turn introduced grain to the image, making
You don’t get a native 4K image – it’s simply 1080p with extra pixels added, making for a slight increase in clarity
text harder to read. We’re happy to report the TW9300 seems to have improved its input latency, and we didn’t need to disable any image processing to do so. No more blurry text for us!
It’s a shame Epson is marketing this as a 4K projector when it’s really not, but at least the inclusion of HDR gives it the edge over its predecessor. Now if only they’d hurry up and deliver truly native 4K projectors at the same affordable price, I’d be really impressed. BENNETT RING