Epson Home Cinema 5050UB: Big, Bold and Beautiful - CNET
X Why You Can Trust CNET Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks. If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. How we test projectors Tech Home Entertainment Projectors Epson Home Cinema 5050UB: Big, Bold and Beautiful Editor's Choice: A higher-end projector worthy of the "home cinema" moniker. Geoffrey Morrison Contributor Geoffrey Morrison is a writer/photographer about tech and travel for CNET, The New York Times, and other web and print publications. He's also the Editor-at-Large for Wirecutter. He is the author of Budget Travel for Dummies as well as the bestselling sci-fi novels Undersea, and Undersea Atrophia. He's NIST and ISF trained, and has a degree in Audio Production from Ithaca College. He spends most of the year as a digital nomad, living and working while traveling around the world. You can follow his travels at BaldNomad.com and on his Instagram and YouTube channel. See full bio Geoffrey Morrison Nov. 30, 2022 10:21 a.m. PT 9 min read 2023 The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB is a serious home theater projector for serious home theater enthusiasts. It features a motorized lens with horizontal and vertical lens shift, plus ample zoom. Its 4K enhancement technology offers lots of detail. Its biggest benefit over less expensive 4K projectors, however, is an excellent contrast ratio for deep, dark shadows and bright, popping highlights. 8.5 Epson Home Cinema 5050UB $3,000 at Walmart Like Superb overall picture quality
Excellent contrast ratio
Motorized lens
Ample lens shift and motorized zoom Don't like Could be quieter
Chonkers There are only a few disappointments, and they're minor. It doesn't quite have the color or razor-sharp detail of its direct competitor, the LG HU810P. That's not to say the 5050 isn't sharp and colorful. It is, just a bit less so -- although I liked the Epson's overall picture quality a lot more than that of the LG. The 5050UB is also an absolute unit, several times larger than most of the projectors I've reviewed in the last year (including the LG). In sum, the Home Cinema 5050UB is an excellent all-around projector that looks fantastic with all content. It offers a significant step up in picture quality over less expensive projectors, like the Optoma UHD35, and costs a lot less than something like the Sony VPL-VW325ES. It even gives its more expensive, laser-powered sibling, the LS11000, a run for its money. More on that below. Overall, the Epson 5050 is my go-to choice for anyone with a dedicated home theater who wants a projector worthy of the space. Editor's note, November 2022: For its excellent picture and value, we're once again giving the 5050 our Editor's Choice award. While the laser-powered LS11000 offers some additional benefits and performance over the 5050, it's also a lot more money. Geoffrey Morrison/CNET Specs 4(K) days Native resolution: 4K enhancement (1,920x1,080 x2)HDR-compatible: Yes4K-compatible: Yes3D-compatible: YesLumens spec: 2,600Zoom: Motorized (2.1x)Lens shift: Motorized H/VLamp life (Medium mode): 4,000 hoursThe 5050UB is a 4K- and HDR-compatible projector. As such, it can accept 4K and HDR signals, though keep in mind that no projector can do HDR very well. Like all Epson projectors the 5050UB uses an LCD light engine, not the DLP that's found in most other projectors. The ones used on the 5050UB are not technically 4K native resolution. Instead, they're a technology called "4K enhancement" that "shifts each pixel diagonally to double Full HD resolution," according to Epson. This is done very quickly, so it's just a higher-resolution image to the eye. Here's a deeper dive into the technology. The short version: It looked plenty sharp to me, if not quite as razor-like as the DLP-powered LG; see below for details. One of the 5050's most notable features that sets it apart from less expensive projectors is a motorized lens. This offers ±96.3% vertical and ±47.1% horizontal movement, which should be enough to let the 5050 fit in just about any home. There's also a significant motorized zoom of 2.1x. Watch this: Six things to know about home theater projectors 02:32 Epson claims the 5050UB can produce 2,600 lumens. I actually measured slightly more than that… in the less accurate Dynamic color mode. In the more accurate Bright Cinema mode I measured roughly 192 nits, or about 1,732 lumens. This puts it among the brightest projectors we've ever measured. Lamp life is on the low side. Even in the Eco mode, Epson rates it at up to 5,000 hours. Some projectors of similar brightness we've reviewed in the last year were capable of upward of 15,000 hours in their most lamp-conserving modes. That said, 5,000 hours is still over three years of use at four hours a night. Geoffrey Morrison/CNET Connectivity HDMI inputs: two HDMI 2.0PC input: Analog RGBUSB ports: 2Audio input and output: NoDigital audio output: NoInternet: LAN12v trigger: YesRS-232 remote port: YesRemote: BacklitBoth HDMI inputs are HDMI 2.0 and can accept up to 4K60. As you might expect from its intended use as a projector for a dedicated theater, it lacks an audio out. Epson assumes, rightly in my opinion, that anyone getting a 5050 would have a traditional projector arrangement with either a receiver or at least a soundbar for audio.Along the same lines, there are lots of control options for home automation systems, including a 12-volt trigger, RS-232 and a LAN port. The remote is a big boy (just like the projector it controls) and has a pleasant amber backlight. If you have a 2.35:1 screen, as I do, you might reach for this remote for more than just on and off, since you can zoom the projector and fill the screen with 2.35:1 content without getting off the couch. That's always a bonus. Geoffrey Morrison/CNET Picture quality comparisons LG HU810PThe LG HU810P is the most notable competition for the 5050. They're the same price but the HU810P uses newer technology, namely two lasers and a phosphor instead of the 5050's more traditional lamp. I connected both using a Monoprice 1x4 distribution amplifier, and viewed them side-by-side on a 12-foot-wide 1.0-gain screen. Right off the bat, both are great projectors, but their strengths and weaknesses are almost polar opposites. As far as light output goes, they're very similar. In their respective most accurate modes, the LG can do 166.3 nits to the Epson's 192. Objectively, that's a fair bit of difference, but subjectively, side-by-side, they both just look bright. So we'll call that more or less a tie. Color, though, goes to the LG. The lasers, with help from a phosphor, are absolutely deeper and richer. Throw on some HDR content and the deep crimson reds and vibrant purples are far beyond what the 5050UB can produce. This is sort of like saying a Porsche is slower than a Ferrari, however, since the 5050UB is no slouch in the color department. On its own it looks great, the LG in this regard looks better. Geoffrey Morrison/CNETIt's a similar story with detail. The LG uses a 4K DLP chip to create an image, and detail is that technology's main strength compared to LCD with pixel shifting, which is what Epson uses. The image just looks a little sharper, especially with motion. However, if you're not watching them side by side, I'm not sure you'd notice. The 5050UB certainly doesn't look soft, it's definitely 4K to my eye. The next aspect of picture quality is where the tide turns toward the Epson by a lot. In a word, or technically two: contrast ratio. Even without using its iris, the native contrast of the 5050UB's three LCD chips is significantly higher than the LG -- 10 times higher. So the image has significantly more punch and is less washed out. Even if you dial the LG's lasers and iris back as much as possible, it only just matches the Epson's black level while that projector is in its brightest and most color temperature-accurate mode. Which is to say, the Epson's black levels are roughly the same while at the same time (in the same mode) it is capable of having highlights or bright parts of the same image that are seven times brighter than when the LG's lasers are dialed all the way down and the iris is closed. Flipping that around, if you match their light outputs, the Epson's black levels in the same mode are nine times darker. Geoffrey Morrison/CNETWhat does this look like? An easy example is watching any movie with letterbox bars. If I set the projectors to be roughly the same brightness overall, the letterbox bars on the LG are gray. If I match their letterbox bars by reducing the LG's laser power and closing its iris, it ends up looking dim compared to the Epson. So when watching any content, the deep blacks of the 5050UB, while maintaining bright highlights, make for an extremely pleasing image. Comparison to the Epson Home Cinema LS11000While reviewing Epson's own LS11000, I compared it to the 5050. The LS11000 is $1,000 more expensive, and uses a laser instead of the 5050's UHP lamp. Since there will be no lamp replacements for the life of the projector, the total ownership cost difference between these two projectors is less than it initially appears. The Epson LS11000. Geoff Morrison/CNETSharpness is one of the most noticeable dif