Epson Dreamio EH-TW6000W

Epson decided to go with the ‘flattened Storm trooper helmet’ look for its new range of 3D projectors, which may be related to the company’s current promotion featuring Star Wars.

The Dreamio EH-TW6000W is mostly white, which is good if the room in which it’ll live is too. If however you’ve gone the whole hog with dark walls for the projection room, the white case could be less than ideal.

That said, the colour and slightly-too-loud noise levels at 32dB are minor flaws that are easy to live with, as the EH-TW6000W projects very good images at an affordable price.

With a 12-bit LCD panel, the TW6000W does well with Blu-Ray and other 2D HD content. A promised contrast ratio of 40,000:1 and up to 1.6x zoom give you sharp and detailed 2D images up to 300” diagonally. Black and dark areas aren’t quite as good as more expensive projectors though, but they’re not dramatically worse either.

For 3D, the TH6000W supports the latest cross-talk reducing 480Hz technology and does well with Avatar and Pirates of the Caribbean. Projectors are arguably the way to watch 3D movies, since the images look like they appear from thin air with no bulky TV behind them.

However, as the 2D quality is so good, you feel like you’re stepping down a notch or two when switching to 3D and donning the nerdy active shutter glasses that cut out some light and contrast. This is a drawback of the technology that the TH6000W shares with competing devices.

This is a projector rated as being capable of 2,200 Lumens output and it’s certainly bright enough to be used in rooms lit by daylight. In dark rooms, the TW6000W is too bright at default settings but that’s easily adjusted through the sensible menu system.

You miss out on lens shift with the EH-TW6000W but instead you get a very cool WirelessHD transmitter. This new wireless technology promises to cut down on cable clutter – in Epson’s case, it’s a round, mains powered black unit with an HDMI input. It saves you from running a long HDMI cable to e.g. a ceiling mounted TH6000W which is a great idea.

WirelessHD has some limitations brought on by the use of 60GHz frequency, such as a ten-metre range and a requirement for line of sight; it works though, streaming HD and Blu-Ray content from any HDMI-equipped player to the projector. Possibly due to the unit being the first generation 1.0a standard that tops out at 4Gbps, I wasn’t able to wirelessly stream bandwidth-hungry 3D.

For wired installations, the TH6000W comes with two HDMI ports and component, composite and S-video inputs. An RS-232 serial port is also there, plus a VGA connector.

An added plus is the pair of ten-watt speakers built into the TH6000W. Most people will no doubt use an AV amplifier and separate speakers, but it’s nice to have sound from the TH6000W and what’s more, it’s surprisingly clear and loud.

We’d consider the TH6000W for its 2D quality alone at the price that’s well below what the competition is asking; getting 3D thrown in is a bonus. It would be good if the fan was quieter and the projector available in black as well as white though.