Improving on Epson TW6100W

xcentric

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I have a TW6100W that has done good service, but I found I could have decent colours and greys not blacks, or darker greys and a bit of a dimmer look. And I did play with the different mode setting, but anything brighter than 'normal' made the dark areas too light. The slightly washed out look made me go for an LG65 OLED recently, which is excellent.

However, I sometimes miss the drama of a big screen experience, and as we still have the projector screen up at the top of the wall, I'm wondering whether the newer breed of projectors are, in real world terms, better. The newer contrast ratios appear excellent and a step on, but I'm aware this is a somewhat misleading figure.

I'm looking at the Optima UHD40, or something similar (in budget at least). I do tend to see colour fringing (at least, a couple of years ago on the DLP projectors I did, not seen one recently) but am open to newer ones being better too.

Would this represent a decent upgrade, with better blacks and so on?

I can get the room pretty dark.
 
^Unfortunately the DLP you are considering or in fact any recent 4K DLP will have no better blacks than your Epson had. More info is needed to see what might suit your requirements best.

Screen size
Distance the front of the project to the screen
Sitting distance from screen
Room colour including ceiling
Absolute limit you can spend
 
screen size - near width of room so 4m wide
projector to screen 5.5m
sitting distance - 4.25m
room colour - one brick wall, one large French windows covered by blackout curtains, rear wall light grey, vaulted ceiling light grey.
Spend - hmmmm. ideally, £1k ish. Might be able to go higher, if it;'s worth it. £2.4k or so possible I guess, £5k out.
 
What about trying a projector with a Black screen, because when you think about it our TV screens are Dark not White

 
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As you are looking at OLED tech as a comparison, why not look at Laser tech as they tend to deliver slightly better blacks in comparison to the equivalent Lamp version

Models to look at.

JVC LX-NZ3
Optoma UHZ65
Epson EH-LS10500

The screen width at 4m is quite large and will be contributing to the effects you're experiencing. Can I ask are you using a projector screen or firing directly on to a wall as it sounds like you might be?
 
What about trying a projector with a Black screen, because when you think about it our TV screens are Dark not White



Awesome tech but sadly also an awesomely expensive screen too. I don’t actually know the price of a black diamond screen but it’s probably approaching the upper limits of his £2.5K budget.
 
I have a TW6100W that has done good service, but I found I could have decent colours and greys not blacks, or darker greys and a bit of a dimmer look. And I did play with the different mode setting, but anything brighter than 'normal' made the dark areas too light. The slightly washed out look made me go for an LG65 OLED recently, which is excellent.

There’s a lot of similarities between us, my first projector was the 6100w and I also currently own an LG C9 65” OLED in our family room.

Things have moved on quite a bit since the 6100 but to be honest with you to achieve anything remotely close to OLED levels of contrast and blacks will require considerably more money than you are wanting to spend.

However, I sometimes miss the drama of a big screen experience, and as we still have the projector screen up at the top of the wall, I'm wondering whether the newer breed of projectors are, in real world terms, better. The newer contrast ratios appear excellent and a step on, but I'm aware this is a somewhat misleading figure.

I enjoy watching stuff on my OLED but I absolutely love watching stuff on my projector and it’s size that makes all the difference. No doubt about it a secondhand Epson 9300 or new 9400 would make a world of difference but ultimately your room will be the limiting factor on how good the blacks it will be capable of, so without treating the room you will need to change your screen to a grey one to drop your black levels but that’s an extra expense.

I'm looking at the Optima UHD40, or something similar (in budget at least). I do tend to see colour fringing (at least, a couple of years ago on the DLP projectors I did, not seen one recently) but am open to newer ones being better too.

Would this represent a decent upgrade, with better blacks and so on?

I can get the room pretty dark.

The Epson 9300 will be your best price option is you want to watch 4K Blurays in HDR and offer similar black levels to the newer 9400 but can’t give you the full fat 60Hz 4K HDR you get watching something in Netflix etc for that you need the 9400.

If you don’t care about 4K then your choices open up quite a bit, you could get a Sony HW45es new and on a deal for little more than half the price of the 9400. It was my next projector after the 6100w and a major step up in quality and blacks, of course if you don’t mind buying secondhand you could look at a JVC and £1200-1500 will buy you better blacks than either the Epson or Sony but demand more tweaking to produce their best.
 
This channel on YouTube is interesting, man sells a mix of paint that he calls Frankenstein mix and he paints screens with it and gets good results with projectors

 
so what would the recommended JVC models s/h be? JVC X500? X55?
 
This channel on YouTube is interesting, man sells a mix of paint that he calls Frankenstein mix and he paints screens with it and gets good results with projectors



This guy really needs to go mainstream with some pre-applied projection screens for sale.
His income would go up darastically.

If you can, I'd definitely delve into projector paint. There seems to be some PHENOMENAL results. I was initially going to down this route but got a draper react screen for a very good price new.

However given you want a 4metre sized viewing screen, your only choice which will not destroy your budget is paint. Can you paint onto a wall and project onto it?


Projector wise at your price point, its clearly the Epson 9400 which you'll need but more importantly you probably need some element of room treatment +/- paint if you wan to chase black levels (don't we all).
 
Also if you manage to become the one of the first UK projector-paint enthusiasts, you'll likely pave the way forward for us all to do it.

the youtube evidence is clearly there of its sucess and its popular in the US. Sadly we don't seem to have such strong enthusiast market for it here.

I think painting on a wall will be ideal as opposed to a screen which requires application of the paint via sprayinh it.
 
If you’re handy with your hands then knocking up a fixed frame is relatively cheap. Even with high quality material you can knock up a 120” 16:9 screen for under £190 and I do mean high quality screen material.

I’ve just got a price from Harkness Screens to make a 115” 2.35:1 with their 0.7 gain grey material and it will work out just under £200 for everything. The equivalent with a micro border would be more than double this price.
 
The thing is, I kind of like the window being there so wouldn't wan to cover it up.

I think i might edge towards electronic blackout blinds. I saw someones home theatre which had them and they looked fantastic online. The issue is just whether they will totally block out the light or not.
 

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