Epson Unveils First Home Theater Projector
By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 6/24/2002
LAS VEGAS— Epson America used the professional video display show Infocomm here to announce its "first-ever home theater" video projector — the PowerLite TW-100.
The projector uses three LCD panels and incorporates Faroudja's DCDi video processing circuitry to produce resolution up to the 720p HDTV format on the 16:9 widescreen format.
"Now that we've gained such a prominent position in the projector market and have become the brand of choice among so many demanding presenters and AV specialists, it's become a logical step for our display technology to expand into the home theater environment," said Mark Pickard, Epson product manager.
The PowerLite TW-100 will ship in July at a $4,995 street price. It is said to reproduce a broad color palette, and is capable of a 600:1 contrast ratio.
The projector weighs 30 pounds, and was designed to be the quietest projector in the Epson line. Installation will support ceiling, or tabletop mounting for either front or rear-screen applications.
A fixed optical 10-degree projection angle and a 30-degree digital keystone corrector enable flexible screen shape adjustments.
Beyond the Faroudja DCDi processor, the TW-100 also features a 3D/YC-separation function that reduces color noise at the color boundaries of a composite video signal to reproduce sharper and smoother images.
A "motion detect function" can also be selected to optimize the quality for images that have fast motion, and offers 3:2 pull-down conversion of film-based source material.
A specially designed remote will allow users to easily adjust black level, color temperature and RGB settings. Five different color modes are also offered for dynamic, theater, natural, PC and SRGB applications.
