Supersized TV

Remember the rear-projection TV (RPTV)? RPTVs were big, boxy contraptions housing a projector that beamed an image at the rear of a screen mounted on the set’s front surface.

- By Al Griffin

While necessarily inelegant compared with the sleek flat-panel TVs that eventually replaced them, the RPTV in its heyday solved the problem of getting a big image— screen sizes topped out around 80 inches diagonal—without having to resort to a room-dominating two-piece system with a ceiling-mounted projector and separate projection screen.

The reason I bring up RPTVs is that ultra-short-throw (UST) projectors like Epson’s new EpiqVision Ultra LS500 remind me of the category, mainly because they deliver maximum image size while taking up a minimum of space. Epson even calls the LS500 a projection TV, most likely because it’s sold as a complete solution with 100-inch ($4,999) or 120-inch ($5,999) ambient light-rejecting (ALR) screen included.

While most of the other USTs Sound & Vision has reviewed have used DLP technology, the LS500, in keeping with other projectors from Epson, is a 3LCD design. Also similar to the company’s other models, it features 4K PRO-UHD tech that diagonally shifts pixels on the projector’s 1080p display chips to double resolution to just over four million pixels. The LS500 supports the HDR10 and Hybrid Log-Gamma HDR formats and uses 12-bit video processing to eliminate banding noise and other compression-related artifacts in images. Epson’s UST model is also spec’d for an impressive 4,000 lumens light output—a big help toward beaming sufficiently bright images in the well-lit spaces it’s likely to be installed in.