Epson EH-TW490 Home Cinema Projector

The EH-TW490 is Epson's HD-Ready 720p home cinema projector, and offers you the chance to experience video games, movies or sport events on a big scale. You'll immediately see that pictures are crisp and clear with vivid, accurate colours, thanks to Epson's 3LCD technology and WXGA 1,280 x 800 resolution. With the slim, lightweight design you'll be able to set up and enjoy anywhere around the home.

Bright Big Screen Experience

You can watch bright content with accurate colours in a wide variety of light levels, without having to sit in the dark. This is thanks to an equally high White and Colour Light Output of 3,000lm and Epson's 3LCD technology. The contrast ratio of 12,000:1 also means that very dark, shadowy movie scenes or live action sport events appear clearer and don't look washed out.

Easy to Use

The projector is quick and simple to set up, thanks to its manual horizontal slider and automatic vertical keystone correction. Whatever the angle of the actual projector, you can align the projection to ensure a straight and correct image; great for settling down to a film, arranging online games quickly or making sure you don’t miss the start of important sporting events. With a projection ratio of 1.30-1.56:1 there is a projection size of 33-318 inches.

Portable Projector

With its slim, lightweight design, and included carry case, you can easily transport the projector and take the big screen experience wherever you want -- whether it’s in a different room or at a friend’s house.

Digital Projector Colour Light Output (CLO)

Epson had a bright idea -- measure the colour light output (CLO) instead of just the white. High CLO means colours are up to 3 times brighter than 1-chip DLP projectors, meaning you don’t need to worry about your presentation displaying dark, dull images -- with an Epson projector you’ll get maximum impact.

Colour is an important part of image quality, which is why a projector’s colour brightness, given in lumens, is important to know. If it’s not as high as the white brightness, images are duller and colours may appear washed out. Measure the brightness of the red, green and blue light and the resulting value is your Colour Brightness or Colour Light Output (CLO).

Digital projectors produce colour in different ways, resulting in big differences in colour brightness. Many manufacturers only quote the brightness in lumens of their projectors’ white light. This just shows how bright a projector is when showing a plain white image; it doesn’t give the full picture.

Why Choose a 3LCD Projector?

Epson projectors use a 3LCD projection engine to deliver bright, clear images that are rich in detail and colour. Many other projectors use 1-chip DLP projector systems, which create thousands of pulses of coloured light per second. They do this by shining lamp light through red, green, blue and white parts of a rotating colour wheel. These light pulses are then reflected by a DMD device, which is on a hinge and has a tiny mirror for each pixel of the image.

The series of rapid colour bursts is then projected onto the screen. The viewer's brain can't pick out the individual flickers -- it mixes the basic colours that appear in succession in each pixel to come up with the final colour the viewer sees.

Epson’s 3LCD system works differently, using a combination of dichroic mirrors to separate the white light from the projector lamp into red, green and blue light. Each of the three light colours is then passed through its own LCD panel and recombined using a prism before being projected onto the screen.

With 1-chip DLP technology, colour break-up or the ‘rainbow effect’ can sometimes be seen. This occurs when the eye perceives the individual colours, and is a result of the colours being projected sequentially by the colour wheel. Epson’s 3LCD technology avoids this by including all three basic colours in each pixel of the projection, delivering superior Colour Light Output that’s easier on the eyes.

Epson -- Exceed Your Vision

Epson is an innovation leader, aiming to exceed your vision when it comes to printing, scanning, fax and copying. For 40 years, Epson has understood the changing needs of customers and is committed to creating ground-breaking technology which offers you -- the customer -- long-lasting, high-quality prints.

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Epson Projector Comparison Chart

	EH-TW490	EH-TW550	EH-TW5200
Resolution	WXGA 720p, 1280 x 800, 16:10 (2D)	WXGA 720p, 1280 x 800, 16:10 (2D and 3D)	Full HD 1080p, 1920 x 1080, 16:9 (2D and 3D)
Technology	3LCD	3LCD	3LCD
Brightness	3,000 lumens Colour Light Output	3,000 lumens Colour Light Output	2,000 lumens Colour Light Output
Contrast Ratio	12,000:1	5,000:1	15,000:1
Projection Ratio	1.3 - 1.56:1	1.3 - 1.56:1	1.22 - 1.47:1
Image Size	33 inches - 318 inches	33 inches - 318 inches	34 inches - 328 inches
Lamp	200W UHE	200W UHE E-TORL	200W UHE
Lamp life	5,000 hours (normal), 6,000 hours (eco mode)	4,000 hours (normal), 5,000 hours (eco mode)	5,000 hours (normal), 6,000 hours (eco mode)
Zoom	Optical x1.2	Optical x1.2	Optical x1.2
Focus	Manual	Manual	Manual
Keystone Correction	Auto vertical ±30°, Manual horizontal ±30°	Auto vertical ±30°, Manual horizontal ±30°	Auto vertical ±30°, Manual horizontal ±30°
Energy Use	270W (normal) / 201W (eco) / 0.28W (standby)	277W (normal) / 230W (eco) / 0.4W (standby)	287W (normal) / 217W (eco) / 0.31W (standby)
Speaker	2W	2W	2W
Inputs	VGA, Composite Video, S-Video, HDMI, USB A, USB B, RCA audio pair	VGA, Composite Video, S-Video, HDMI, USB A, USB B, RCA audio pair	VGA, Composite Video, HDMI x2, USB A, RS-232C, RCA audio pair, Stereo mini audio out
Carry Case Included	Yes	Yes	No