Welcome back to the Blog section. Today we will discuss a quick overview of my experiences with the Epson Pro Cinema 6050UB. Epson projectors are special to me because that was the first one I ever owned. Like most people new to home theater, price and performance are at the top of the list. I started with the Epson HC5040UB. This model was current when I bought it and paired it with a nice ambient rejecting screen. I loved this combination until I upgraded to the new and improved PC6050UB.
The 6050UB was sharper, had more features for HDR and had amazing color pop when compared to the 5040UB. The 5050UB would be a more apt comparison but I chose to go with the 6050 for its included mount, spare lamp and extra year of warranty. The Epson 6050 is a 1080P resolution that does pixel shifting to recreate 4K resolution. I thought it did an incredible job and was always very crisp and sharp no matter the content. I used the projector in our living room as a TV replacement. If you have the space and an understanding wife, I highly recommend the same setup. We used the space for movies, TV watching and the occasional video game night whenever friends came to visit. I really enjoyed how the 6050 did a great job with any content we threw at it. It was excellent for fast paced sports because it had a one button toggle in between prioritizing fine or fast material.
Another key feature that ultimately led me to choose the 5040 and then the 6050 is that I love the ultra-wide formats like 2.35:1 cinemascope and 2.40:1 anamorphic. The Epson can store up to 10 format or shape specific settings. Most people order a 16×9 format screen because that is what our TVs are shaped like these days. In this instance the whole picture would be filled up when watching Most streaming or TV content. On the other hand, when you watch 2.35/ 2.40 format content on a TV or 16×9 formatted screen, the image will show black bars at the top and bottom. If seeing black bars when watching movies is not your cup of tea, you can order a 2.35 or 2.40 screen and zoom out so that when a movie is playing, the picture will fill up the entire screen and be just like you saw in the theater. The only trade off is when the format changes back to 16×9 you would have to press a lens memory setting to have the image shrink down at a fixed height to be on the ultra-wide screen. This results in a smaller image when playing 16X9 content and having black bars on the sides. Toggling between the two formats is quick and easy but if you have a 16X9 screen this feature is not needed.
I can talk about the specs of this unit all day long but that can be found anywhere. I will instead talk about my everyday use with this projector. The unit runs cool and creates low noise when on normal and low lamp mode. You can run it on high like I did and not significantly heat up your room. The projector is plenty bright as compared to other projectors in the price range. This unit is not native 4K but delivers a very crispy sharp image. You would never miss the difference in sharpness unless you saw a comparably priced Native 4K projector next to it (which there aren’t any). All in all, the Epson 6050UB is a great projector that has a long list of pros without many to tick in the cons column. I have owned two in the lineup and would gladly own another one down the road. I highly recommend this projector for the person getting into home theater or the person that has already loved 2-piece projection but wants an upgrade from the standard 1080p variety but doesn’t have the budget for a full on native 4K projector. That’s all I have for now. Thanks for checking out these blogs!
-Chris Mata