Projector Reviews

Epson Announces New Home Cinema 4010 4K PRO-UHD Projector with HDR

Epson Announces New Epson Home Cinema 4010 4K PRO-UHD with HDR

Epson has just announced their new Home Cinema 4010 today, a projector which promises to be a stellar addition to their lineup of 4K capable projectors. At CEDIA 2018, Epson unveiled their Pro Cinema 4050, which has the same PRO-UHD 3LCD chip as the HC4010, for improved pixel shifting – that one costs $300 more. Let’s dive into what makes this model such an exciting revelation for those looking for a new home theater projector.

The New PRO-UHD 3LCD Chip

Like all Epson projectors, the Epson Home Cinema 4010 has 3LCD technology. Three LCD panels are used to produce the full spectrum of color (one each for red, green and blue), and has some great advantages over DLP projectors. DLPs use a color wheel and can sometimes produce The Rainbow Effect – a phenomena which, admittedly, only affects about 5% of the population – depending on the speed of that wheel. 3LCDs do not produce The Rainbow Effect.

Another advantage of 3LCD projectors is that they produce as many color lumens as they do white ones. What does that mean for you? When you use a 3LCD projector such as the HC4010, colors will be just as bright as whites, resulting in a more vibrant image than most DLP projectors are capable of, especially in the face of ambient light. This is one of the reasons I favor 3LCD projectors over those with other technologies.

So, onto the exciting stuff. That new Epson 4K PRO-UHD technology has an advanced optical engine with high performance, which generates that high color and white brightness we just talked about. The 4K PRO-UHD chip is claimed to have extraordinary color accuracy, dramatic contrast with HDR10, and gives the Epson Home Cinema 4010 state of the art pixel shifting, translating to a sharper image than their previous 4K-capable models.

The Epson Home Cinema 4010

Epson Home Cinema 4010 4K PRO-UHD with HDR

The Epson Home Cinema 4010 is a 2,400 lumen, 4K capable projector with support for HDR. That 2,400 lumens is bright enough for living rooms and media rooms with moderate control over ambient light, and will, of course, be at home in dedicated home theaters. Epson claims that the Home Cinema 4010 can reproduce 100% of the P3/BT.2020 color space – a claim we have seen from many a manufacturer this year at CEDIA.

Thus far, no projector has reached 100%, and that number has been virtually unattainable. At Projector Reviews, the jury is still out on whether any of these projectors will be able to hit that claim. We’ll wait until we get one of these, or the PC4050, in for review and sent out to our calibration expert to pass judgement. As far as specs go, however, the HC4010 is looking good.

Speaking of those specs, the Epson Home Cinema 4010, of course, supports 4K content and HDR10. The contrast ratio is 200,000:1, and, like the PC4050, boasts a low Delta E for accurate color reproduction. Delta E is a metric for understanding how the human eye perceives color difference. The term delta comes from mathematics, meaning “change in a variable or function.” The suffix E references the German word Empfindung, which broadly means “sensation.” Simply put, look at Delta E as a measure of grayscale/color accuracy.

The Home Cinema 4010 has an Advanced Projection Lens – a 15-element glass projection lens that displays a bright, even image across the screen. Sports fans rejoice – the HC4010 has CFI! Just remember to turn that feature off when watching your TV shows and movies, as it’ll produce “the soap opera effect,” making the content look just plain weird.

The projector is going for just $1,999, and is available from authorized dealers and retailers, websites, and, of course, the Epson online store. As usual, Epson delivers an excellent warranty – two years limited warranty with direct access to their Private Line tech support and free, next-day exchange with their Extra Care Home Service. For more information, hop over to the Epson website!

[prsku sku=”V11H932020″]