Epson Home Cinema 3200 4K PRO-UHD 3-Chip Projector with HDR

Weve had this projector for about 4 months. I can definitely say that I am so happy I decided on the Epson 3200. I mounted it on the ceiling about 11 ft from the wall. The picture is about 12 ft diagonal, and it looks amazing. The colors are beautiful, the image is bright even with lights/windows. We use this projector many hours per week for 4k gaming at 60fps. Wow, I cant imagine a better gaming experience. Watching movies is awesome too. Its like having a movie theater in our house. I have the audio connected to a bluetooth speaker, which works fine. My only small complaint is that the focus isnt perfect. For games that have small text on the top and bottom of the screen, I cant seem to get both in exact focus. I have to focus either the top or bottom, and the other one will be just a little blurry. Its such a small nitpick though, its really fine and its barely noticeable from viewing distance. While shopping, I remember debating buying this versus the Optima. I guess Ill never know what that one would have been like, but I have no regrets. I cant imagine it would have nailed everything as perfectly as this one did. I would buy another Epson next time definitely. If youre thinking about buying one, do it.

Good Quality projector

I almost didn’t pick up this projector due to repeated concerns about focus uniformity. I’ve had no issue whatsoever with this. I think it may be because I didn’t require a ton of vertical or horizontal lens shift though I did use it. This picture is bright enough to be serviceable in a room with three windows during the day and when the lights go out it’s truly special. The contrast is truly phenomenal. Does it have OLED blacks? No. But I’ve got a 100” image and it’s a more beautiful picture than any modern tv I have in my home. I’d be shocked if you could find anything better for a similar use case for $1500 refurbished (what I paid.) If you don’t want to pay $3000 this is a great projector for you.

PROS: + At 2,900 Lumens, this projector is bright + Pixel Shifting 4K Projector looks great; in particular with HDR content + Accepts full 10-bit HDR source input signal + Supports 4k @ 60fps resolution via HDMI 2.0 (18 Gbps) + Excellent vertical & horizontal optical lens adjustments (manual) + Latest Bluetooth tech for external audio source + Little to no fan noise in Eco modes + 3LCD tech avoids rainbows, for those sensitive to it + 3D glasses support, for those who aren’t happy with a mere 2 dimensions + Low input lag and latency for gaming + Relatively compact design for a 4k projector + Lots of advanced picture controls and adjustments + Full-featured remote control + 2.0A USB Power Port CONS: - Poor black levels - No built-in speakers - Fan can get noisy at higher brightness levels - Some may find on the pricey side BACKGROUND First I should note that I have an existing home theater/office that I’m using to test out this projector. I currently have an Optoma UHD65 DLP 4k projector. This would be at a different price point but I’ll make a few notable comparisons. I’m also using a Silver Ticket 120” 16:9 Gray Material screen and about 12’ away. The room has blackout curtains but I did tests in complete darkness and with various levels of ambient light. UNBOXING & SETUP Out of the box you’ve got the projector, a remote, batteries, documentation, and a power cable. No HDMI cable is included. The project itself is compact for a 4k projector. It’s smaller than the Optoma UHD65. The lens is off-set, which is normal for smaller projectors. That’s just something to note for installation. Although it’s easy to adjust for that. Speaking of setup, it’s fairly straight forward as just about any modern-day projector. There are adjustable feet for table use as well as ceiling mount points on the bottom. Thanks to the manual lens adjustments for horizontal and vertical positions, installation is very easy. Some projectors don’t have this, such as the current Optoma projectors, meaning you have to mount dead center and at just the right height. Otherwise, you’ll have to deal with digital keystone correction which limits resolution since it’s basically cropping the image. Avoid digital this if at all possible. The physical optical lens shift is the way to go. REMOTE CONTROL The non-universal remote is surprisingly useful for the projector. It’s a standard candy-bar design with quick-access buttons for just about every feature you could want. There are still menus that you’ll need to dig through for some advanced functions. But the basic stuff is all there with a single button. The remote is also backlit and very intuitive to use. The IR signal and receiver are strong enough so that I can just point at the screen and the project at the back of the room picks up on the signal. I’ve used some projector remotes that fail at this. CONTROLS & SETTINGS I won’t go through every setting as the manual would do a better job. But Epson projectors are well known for having just about every advanced feature and setting you could possibly want. In addition to several common features in the form of physical buttons on the projector. But the on-screen menu itself is laid out in an intuitive manner. In other words, if you just want to make some basic adjustments to brightness or pick a preset picture mode, you can do that. Or if you want to adjust the gamma or hue and color saturation, it’s all there for you. For example, the primary color mode presets of Dynamic, Bright Cinema, Natural, and Cinema will be all that your average user needs to touch in order to get the picture they are comfortable with. PICTURE QUALITY I did most testing in Natural, ECO power mode, and High-Speed Auto Iris. I haven’t spent much time doing extensive calibration yet as it’s surprisingly good with a few minor changes. After the bulb has some more hours on it I’ll go through that process and update here as needed. Basically, the picture looks great. The bright 2,900-lumen output with HDR enabled really makes colors pop. And with 4k pixel shifting, you do notice those fine details. At least with 4k content, which is most of what I watch these days. It’s worth noting this isn’t a “true 4K” projector, but with said pixel-shifting, it technically meets the industry definition for use of 4k branding due to the number of pixels hitting the screen. Compared to the Optoma, I do find it’s DLP chipset to produce a smoother picture which lends itself to a more crisp image. There’s more vibrant color saturation with Optoma’s RGBRGB color wheel versus the RGBCYW of the Epson. The latter is meant to allow more light output. But that’s something you really do have to compare back-to-back to appreciate. On its own, the 3200 is really impressive with 4k content; more so with HDR as it has the added benefit of being quite bright. The biggest negative is absolutely the 40:000:1 contrast ratio. Whereas the pricier models can easily push 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, it’s very noticeable with any content where there is a decent amount of black content and when viewing in a dark room. The best you get is a medium gray color. This is most apparent in the dark home theater environment. With curtains opens or a little ambient light, it’s essentially a non-issue for virtually any projector. GAMING I threw a few 4k games at the projector via my Xbox One X and it absolutely met all expectations. After some more back-to-back comparisons with the DLP projector, there is a noticeable improvement with lower input lag. I had pretty much gotten used to it and had simply adjusted to the lag by dying more frequently. But if you are playing a game that benefits from fast responses you’ll appreciate the quick responsiveness via low input lag. AUDIO There are no speakers on this model, which is unfortunate as I know some would like that for outdoor use. The remote is used for other projectors, so there are volume controls, but they won’t do anything with the 3200. There is an aux jack for audio output as well as Bluetooth audio streaming. Bluetooth is using a relatively new “aptX” Bluetooth standard that compresses and decompresses audio streams for fast low latency audio transmission to your wireless receiver (i.e. headphones, speakers, etc). Older Bluetooth receivers may not support this new standard. Regardless, you’ll get much better audio quality if you provide your own HDMI AV receiver and speaker system. Just make sure it supports HDCP 2.2 and HDMI 2.0 standards for 4k passthrough. CONCLUSION There are projectors for just about every use case you can think of. Which is what I’m going to focus my review and rating. This projector is ideal for a living room home theater. In other words, a dual-purpose room. Where you may have some ambient light coming into the room because you have a near-by kitchen, game room, window, etc. In which case the bright output of the projector can still produce a nice crisp and detailed 4k image. Just note that as with any projector, black levels and overall image visibility will suffer due to external light sources other than the projector itself. This is why in those situations, a lower contrast ratio isn’t as big of a deal. And you still need to have some control of light as there are physical limitations here. Also, a gray material screen will help with black levels and reflections from said lighting. If you’re going to primarily use this in a dedicated home theater where you can control all light sources, the 3200 is still perfectly acceptable. But if you’re particular about those black levels, I’d suggest moving to an alternate and possibly more expensive model with a better contrast ratio. As long as you make the right choice for your needs, you won’t regret the decision. The Epson 3200’s bright lumen output, 4k HDR picture quality, and flexible installation make this an easy recommendation from me.

The projector has converted one of our room upstairs into a movie theater. I am going to keep the review to basics for everyone to easily satisfy their most common use case - watching variety of movies at home with readily available stuff at home. It connects with our bluetooth sound far, the picture rate is fast moving and bright - even with the sun coming in from the windows in the room, there are ample adjustments to adjust the horizontal and vertical pictures, the zoom and the sharpness, we have plugged in a chromecast in the back, and can simply stream using any device with the chromecast - meaning netflix/prime from iphone/ipad works, the supplied remote works great. We have seen all sorts of movies and shows including action, sports, cartoons, music videos, documentaries. The inbuilt speakers are handy - of course, much better to connect with other home theater speakers or sound bars. (If I were to pick one thing to improve - the protective cap for the projector lens - have it attached with a cord or have a slide on cover mechanism so that we dont have to keep track of it when you remove and kludge put it back on. ) This projector is not even comparable to our earlier old projector - difference of day and night. The family actually wants to use the media room now to see movies.

I got his PJ because it has high light output and a smaller form factor than its big brothers. I figured the lack of a full DC3 color pallet was an acceptable tradeoff. The colors are still incredible, I dont feel I traded off a thing and the brightness thrown up on an ALR Gray Elite Screen is fantastic even during the day it looks like a TV not a PJ. Way to go Epson! PS- The remote is great too.

I purchased an Epson 3700 in 2016 and I have been very happy with it. I have a 150 wall screen in my great room with plenty of ambient light have had no issues. I use it for sports, news, movies, and 3d (the surprise impressive feature, I now own 100+ 3d movies). Ive been reluctant to make the jump to 4K because lets face it... 1. Its a lot of work to update all of your components to 4K. 2. True 4K projectors are really expensive. 3. Most true 4K projectors are not yet bright enough for my ambient light filled great room. 4. Most material is 720P or 1080i, and that would need to be upscaled to 4K, so depending on how good a job the upscaler does I may or may not get good results for the majority of my material. 5. I have a lot of 3d now and that is all 1080P, so same issue as #4 (and I need to make sure I have 3d support in any new projector). When I saw Epsons new entry in the market I was intrigued. It is basically identical to my 3700 (same size, lens, bulb, etc.) and supports all the previous features (3d, etc.) and they added the 4K/HDR support using pixel shifting (i.e. converting each 4K pixel into two 2K frames played rapidly and shifted) rather than using a native 4K panel. In my mind this is an excellent compromise that solves a lot of the above issues for me. The price is about the same as the previous model, it is still a native 1080p projector (so no upscaling issues for most material or for 3d), and it is just as bright as before. The real question is how good is 4K using pixel shifting? Most side by side reviews conclude human beings really cant tell the difference. During these covid times Ive been working from home so I decided that this and other home upgrades were in order. Last month I upgraded the AV Receiver and Blu-Ray Player. This week I ran a new 8K HDMI cable through the ceiling, installed a new mount, and replaced the 3700 with the 3800. So if you own a 3700 can 4K alone justify the upgrade? Well in my case I have a 150 screen and I only sit 10-15 away so 4K should make a noticeable difference in my viewing experience. To test I used both Amazon Prime 4K material and UHD Blu-Ray material. On Amazon Prime search for 4K demo for a list of excellent material. I used the IMAX movie The Living Sea, which Amazon has in 4K UHD/HDR. I used the Blu-Ray players 4K Amazon Prime app to freeze test frames and then switched sources to my 1080P FireTV stick freezing the same frames. The best test frame was one of a sunrise just coming over the horizon lighting the ocean below, clouds above, and silhouetting a mountain range. The comparison of the 2 was night and day. the 4K had fine detail in the mountain range, ocean and clouds not present in the 1080p version, and the HDR bought out highlights in the clouds and water that were completely washed out in the non HDR 1080p version. I got similar excellent results with The Last Reef using both Blu-Ray an UHD HDR material. So the answer for me is YES! It looks like 4K to me and on a large screen you really can tell the difference. The pictures I included show how much light I have in the room during the day, and then 2 pictures of a really zoomed in section of a freeze frame the movie I referenced above The Living Sea. It is the sun rising above the ocean. One of the pictures is 1080P and the other is 4K. Its pretty easy to tell which is which. If you look closely you can see the pixel structure in the 1080P picture, but it is barely noticeable in the 4K picture. Update: As some have commented on inability to focus across the entire screen. I had to work on the projector position a bit as I had a similar experience, but after I pointed the projector slightly up (still no keystoning), and used lens shift to bring the image down I was able to get a completely uniform focus at all sections of the screen. I added a picture of the Panel Alignment pattern to show it is sharp on all locations of the screen (the missing lines are due to my black velvet screen masking). Maybe I got lucky with mine but Ive had no issues with focus or blurring after adjusting. Very happy with my purchase of the 3800!

Only 3.5mm port for audio out. Need to get a 4k hdmi earc splitter to connect sonos

Bright and clear picture, with very adjustable!

This projector is excellent for what I needed for a basement home theater. It’s a quality piece of equipment.