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

Before I had this, I had a BenQ w1070. My biggest complaint with that scream was that the room had to be pitch black to not look washed out. The picture quality was fine. The Epson 3800 has a wonderful picture quality. The blacks look black and the colors seem realistic. Most important, I have used this projector with a lot of ambient light, both from lamps and overhead lights as well as daylight. It looks great. It doesn’t look washed out at all. The frame rate is tremendous and seems steady.

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!

Wow, this with a 100 inch screen and ceiling mount is fab. Really great for movie night at home. Buy it, you will love it. Really awesome picture. I use a home theater Dolby receiver with nice speakers and a large sub so don’t use the project sound at all.

Ive had 4 or 5 projectors over the years and this one is by a wide margin the king. Even other epsons this is brighter and clearer and just projects better. The bluetooth sound works flawlessly and it even includes an onboard speaker, though its not enough for large or loud locations. The lens has all manner of adjustments for being able to get the correct flat picture on screen even when its throwing said picture from a weird or close angle. I hope that the bulb lasts longer than my last one which got about half the rated life span.

Unit was well packaged and no damage to the shipping box. When I set it up the focus ring would not turn to adjust the focus. The zoom ring turned fine and zoomed in and out. Shifting the image up and down and side to side with the turn knobs worked. I called Epson tech support and got someone right away. They talked with me a few munities and said it was a hardware issue and return it.

I think how you feel about this projector will depend largely on what you use it for. As a 4K video projector, and for the price, it is a reasonably good deal. I picked my 3200 up on sale at BestBuy. You will find the contrast unsatisfactory for dark scenes unless you have a blacked-out, light controlled room. Of course, good contrast always requires a blacked out room, but even so, the blacks on this are dark gray. For example, when playing Assassins Creed Origins, I cannot see my way around a crypt without having all other lights in the room off. HDR is not very noticeable, but is adjustable. You will notice the auto-iris kick in a moment after scene changes some times (this is Epsons attempt to make up for the lower contrast levels of this projector). I can live with this, happily, if the projector is only used for video. The projector is incredibly bright. No issues there. The crappy contrast may go unnoticed in a room without light control. In my basement, with no windows, I find it very bright in ECO mode, even nearly 1000 hours in. The lens shift feature blew my mind, and hugely simplifies installation without having to mess with keystone correction, which leaves the trapezoidal gray/black light around your picture. The worst part of this projector is focus. With video you may not notice, but since Ive been working from home for the last few months of COVID, I use this as a 142 monitor for programming, several hours a day every day. It is _impossible_ to get even focus across the screen with text. You can have one area sharp and another area dreadfully blurry, or you can have the entire thing slightly out of focus and rub your eyes all day long. Lest you think it may be caused by imperfections in my screen, or not having the projector perfectly centered...I can put a piece of paper in the out-of-focus area and walk back towards the projector 4-5 feet before that text is in focus. So, it isnt due to flatness of the screen. Tech support: Epson tech support has been good. When I finally bought and mounted a screen to verify it wasnt due to my uneven wall, they happily replaced my projector with a refurbished one via 2-day fedex, prepaid both ways. Unfortunately, the refurb was even worse for focus issues and had light scratches on the lens, so they overnighting a brand new one. The focus issue persists, so it seems to be common for this line -- or my setup is inexplicably wrong somehow. Epson does not have a way to trade-in/upgrade to something better, so Ill probably have to try to sell it on my own and take a loss. So, overall - acceptable for the price for movie night. Not acceptable for computer work. If you can afford to spend a little more for something closer to true 4K, with better focus and contrast, Id recommend doing so. **Update** I have been ceiling mounting this projector to keep it out of the way of people and reduce shadows from the same. The lens shift that was so delightful, seems to be a contributor to the focus issue. Switching to keystone correction instead of lens shift helps the focus, but it is still an issue. Also, keystone correction throws off the aspect ratio so the image no longer fits the screen - its either too wide, or I have to leave small dark strips at the top and bottom of the image. Finally, I unmounted the projector, put it in tabletop mode, and stacked boxes under it so the image is perfectly centered with no keystone and no lens shift. The center is stunning, but the side is STILL out of focus. Ive included a couple pictures from the panel alignment mode to show the focus difference from center to top-right (tabletop mode) when the projector is perfectly centered on a flat, professional screen.

This projector is Epsons mid level Pro UHD projector. Its a wonderful value for what you get. With 3000 lumens of brightness, 100,000:1 contrast ratio and horizontal and vertical lens shift. Its a great value for its price range.

Picture was decent. It was pretty bright but I spent a week’s worth of time trying to get audio connected. I tried Bluetooth to my Visio sound bar/surround sound system and when that didn’t work I tried HDMI, I tried 3.5mm audio cables, I tried optical I tried adapters to all three of those audio options and still.....NO AUDIO! Through the process of elimination I determined that it was the projector itself that had to be the issue. I bought the same exact model directly from Best Buy and connected the audio through the Bluetooth in 2 seconds. The cheaper price from this 3rd party seller I believe is the problem... Best Buy explained that’s why they don’t price match with certain companies or sellers because it may look like the same model but it may not include one or two features and that how they sell it for less...makes sense after all the hassle I went through!

I did not know about this feature when I purchased this projector, but my favorite feature is the Anamorphic wide setting in the Aspect setting. My screen is 16:9 and I like filling the whole screen. Most movies now are 235-1 which have black bars on the top and bottom of my 16:9 screens. The Epson 3800 does a great job filling the entire screen using the Anamorphic Wide setting even in 4K. For me, the stretch is not that noticeable and it doesnt cut out the width like the zoom. I also think it works for 3D movies, but I havent tested it yet. The manual says this mode Displays images recorded at Cinema Scope size when you attach a commercially available anamorphic lens to the projector, however, you do not need to buy a anamorphic lens - it works as shipped. I will make the rest simple - If you want a great picture and are using your projector in your living room with moderate daylight, want to view 3D movies and dont care about perfect blacks, and want to fill 16:9 screen this is the projector for you. Finally, 3000 lumens make most viewing great using the Eco mode.

Very pleased with the quality of this projector. The picture is very sharp. Just what we needed to complete our movie room!