I’ve used an Optoma H31 projector for the past four years to watch DVDs on a 100-inch diagonal screen. It was fed a 720P signal from an Oppo DVD player. The results were always very good, but I kept thinking a true HD projector would give better results. So I saved my money and after doing a lot of research purchased the Epson. I have a very low ceiling (5’10″) which ruled out the lower-end DLP HD projectors, including the Mitsubishi HC 3800, which was my first choice.

My first impression of the Epson was This thing is huge! It is easily 2.5 to 3X the size and weight of the Optoma. I bought a cheap ($55) mount from Amazon because I needed the 14-inch extension so I could tie into the subfloor in the ceiling of our basement. I hope it holds!

I was extremely disappointed the first time I fired up this projector and fed it a SD signal from a Panasonic Blu Ray player. The image is very grainy, almost pixelated. I guess this is the result of it being an LCD projector. The DLPs are evidently much smoother. My wife immediately remarked that the new projector was not nearly as good as the little Optoma we had (alas, I had already sold it by this point).

I tinkered with the Epson for two nights, trying a variety of settings on the players and color modes on the projector. One of the bothersome issues is that when fed an HDMI signal, the projector does not have the option of changing the aspect. It’s always 16:9. If you watch old movies in the 4:3 format, this projector will stretch them and there is no setting to change it to the proper setting if you are using HDMI.

That setting must be changed on the player, but you have to make sure your player can do that. The Panasonic player has that option (make sure you select 16:9, not 16:9 Full). My Oppo, an older model, appears to not be able to adjust the image so the 4:3 will be centered with black bars on each side.

If you watch standard def DVDs, which 99.9 percent of my collection falls into this category, you will need an up-converting player. I hooked a standard def feed to this projector and the image is horrible. Very grainy, unsharp and dark. Type looks horrible. I was unable to read the credits. It also jittered a lot.

Moving up to 1080i improves the image significantly, but I can’t say it looks much better than the lowly H31 looked, certainly not $1,000 better. The images don’t pop, they tend to be soft and very grainy. I am using a sharp setting of 3.

I have one Blue Ray disc. It looks a lot better than the standard DVDs. There is still that graininess that I did not get with the DLP projector. If I had not sold my H31 already, I would send this projector back and stick with the Optoma. There’s really not that much on Blu Ray that interest me, and we don’t have cable, so I just wanted a good DVD projector. If that’s your main use for a projector, stick with one of the lower priced units 720p; the Optoma H31 is a bargain and found for around $250 on eBay. To my eyes, the Epson is not worth the big difference in price.

I’m sure this projector will grow on me as I tweak the image and acquire more Blu Ray material. Additionally, I have a Panasonic HMC150 camera, and I wanted to have a Blu Ray output device other than my computer monitor so I can watch my own productions. But I can’t really recommend it at this point.