Epson Home Cinema 2100 and 2150 Projector Review – Calibration

Epson Home Cinema 2100 and 2150 Projector Review – Calibration Settings: Calibration Presets Notes, Best Mode Calibration, Brightest Mode Calibration

Note: the lamp had over 100 hours before I made any measurements and performed my calibrations.

The 2150 has 4 picture presets: Dynamic, Bright Cinema, Cinema, & Natural. I performed 2 calibrations on the 2150, one for a dark room using Natural mode (eco lamp) and a brighter day mode using Cinema (normal lamp). In the past I have used Bright Cinema for my day mode calibration but this mode has a nonlinear gamma curve that is a pain to try and flatten out. Cinema and Natural both have relatively flat gammas. Natural mode seems to have replaced Epson’s THX mode from a few years ago. It even still has the color temp setting displayed in kelvin (i.e. 6500k). All the other modes use a numeric value (0 to 10).

Like so many other projectors I have calibrated, the 2150 clips the whites ever so slightly (228 or so) in all modes and lowering contrast does nothing to help this matter. Thankfully there is super white to the rescue. Turning super white on raises the peak white performance way above the legal (video) level of 235 and almost to 255 the max for PC. This allowed me to turn up the contrast to 64 in Natural mode and still leave a little headroom with whites clipping at 238 or so. (note: do not increase contrast above 50 without turning on super white)

I started my white balance calibration with color temp set to 6500K. This resulted in a nonlinear performing red, green and blue. Both red & blue stared out around 100 at 20IRE and rose to 104 at 40IRE then lowered back to 100 on their way to 100IRE. Green had the opposite curve with it starting around 98 at 20IRE and dipping down to 93IRE around 40IRE then heading back up to 98 at 100IRE. The DeltaE measured an average of 6 across the grayscale. After white balance calibration DeltaE measured at or below 2. Considering the nonlinear issue above I’d say the end results are quite good.

For my bright room calibration, I started in Cinema mode on normal (brightest) lamp. With the color temp set to 5 the 2150 averaged 7000k. The nonlinear red, green and blue errors I talked about in Natural mode were similar and slightly worse here in Cinema mode. DeltaE was in the 6-7 range. After white balance calibration DeltaE measured at or below 2 except for 10IRE which was 2.5.