Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8350

Pros: Big, bright, high-quality picture.
Pretty quiet operation.
Great for low-to-medium lighted rooms.
Relatively easy install for DIYers like me.

Cons: A little bulky for low-ish ceiling.
Lens shifting is now quite what I thought it would be.

Summary: I have recently renovated my basement and waffled between wall-mounted 3D TV (Samsung was probably leading candidate) and front-projector. Light levels were low enough and 3D content not as main-stream as I like, so I went projector.

In the end, the funny thing is that a 55" 3D Plasma / LCD set is a little more expensive than a non-3D 90" (or more) front-projector setup, including medium screen. Take your extra dough and invest in your sound system, thank you very much.

Current setup is the Epson 8350 with an Elite 90" fixed-frame screen, Denon AVR-791 receiver and Samsung C6500-BD player (that I just reviewed on CNET).

If I understand things correctly, the comparable "dealer" projector is the Epson 9350, which they will install for you. I guess the rule of thumb is if you add 1000 to the model number, you can expect to pay the dealer $1000 or more for the convenience of having them sell it to you.

Anyway, I installed myself with a Atdec ceiling mount. The mount was actually too tall for my purposes (I bought the extra long one since I had never done this before), so I had to cut it down to size with a hacksaw. There are probably better mounts out there, but it did the trick for me after some elbow grease.

I actually bought this projector over a couple others since it could be set someplace other than dead-center in the room. It advertises that its lens can be shifted a certain percentage up/down/left/right so you can put the unit in a variety of locations. I guess so, but it isn't "magic" or anything. Front projection should be straight-shooting to keep the light levels constant. The minor physical tweaks to direction are convenient so you don't have to get your projector mounted EXACTLY on center. I cannot imagine the headaches if I didn't get this feature in terms of trying to adjust from the ceiling mount, so, while it wasn't quite what I expected, it was a handy feature to have. Still, just so you know, there are no digital settings for image location other than upside down / rightside up. Everything else is done from the mount (don't even try it once it is tight and stable) or the X and Y axis rollers on the projector to move the lens slightly.

Once installed, this projector is nearly quiet (especially with my sound system at low-to-eleven volume settings). Economy mode will diminish the picture a bit, but the fan goes from quiet to nearly non-existent (and your power bill goes down to boot). Still, I want bright, bold, etc., to I'll just keep things at their normal settings.

The only other noise thing that I have noticed is the dynamic iris makes some small grunting noises when it is shifting around its contrasts. By the book, it should prevent your bright spots from bleeding into your dark spots, but my untrained eye cannot really tell the difference between "normal" and "dynamic" although having it on "normal" seems to help the image quality a bit.

I have not calibrated anything so I am really getting an out-of-the-box picture, which is really stunning. Sure, you could probably compare this unit to its other Epson cousins, Optomo competitors, Sony / Toshiba higher-end models, but how many people ever have a chance to put them side-by-side? The image is great and probably better than anybody else on the block (or anybody you know maybe) and you will be the envy of anybody setting foot in your home-theater room.