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Epson’s new 4K laser projector does HDR10+, 120Hz gaming

Simon Cohen
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Epson has just dropped its newest flagship 4K laser projector and it boasts some impressive specs that will make it a serious contender for fans of big-screen movies and gaming alike. The Epson Pro Cinema LS12000 4K PRO-UHD Laser Projector (model V11HA47020MB) has been priced at $4,999 and can be purchased at the Epson online store and Magnolia and CEDIA dealers.

Five grand is a lot of money, but when you dig into the LS12000’s capabilities, it starts to seem a lot more reasonable, especially as you compare to OLED and QLED TVs with the same features. Using a newly designed laser array light source and a three-chip LCD display engine, the LS12000 boasts 2,700 lumens of brightness and can reproduce 100% of the color in an HDR10 video signal, according to Epson. There’s also compatibility with HLG and HDR10+ (though not Dolby Vision), and native support for 120Hz refresh rates, along with a claimed input lag time below 20 milliseconds, all of which will make it a very good gaming companion for both consoles and PCs.

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Epson Pro Cinema LS12000, front view.
Epson

The laser array has a claimed life span of 20,000 hours, which seems to be the industry standard right now for laser projectors, and Epson says its brightness, combined with its 2,500,000:1 contrast ratio makes it suitable for use even in rooms with ambient light. You’ll be able to project image sizes from 50 to 300 inches but to get the maximum possible image size, you’re going to need a lot of room: A whopping 62 feet of distance is needed from the screen to the projector to get a 300-inch image.

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Epson Pro Cinema LS12000.
Epson

“Home theater enthusiasts have been asking what’s next, and we are proud to deliver our best Pro Cinema projector to date, producing a full 8.3 million pixels on screen with zero compromise in color and brightness,” said Rodrigo Catalan, group product manager, projectors, Epson, in a press release. “It’s truly a ‘must see it to believe it’ home theater experience.”

The LS12000 is also loaded with connectivity support. It has two HDMI 2.1 ports, which support HDCP 2.3, and one of them supports HDMI eARC/ARC. There are also two USB-A ports, one of which can be used to power an optical HDMI cable with 300 mA of current. An Ethernet, RS-232c, and a trigger out port round out the connections. The projector doesn’t have a smart TV operating system like Android TV or Roku, so it’s unlikely you’ll use it as a source for streaming audio or video, but if you need to run audio back to a soundbar or home theater receiver, the LS12000 can passthrough a huge array of surround sound audio formats over HDMI eARC, like Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, DTS-HD, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio, and Master Audio.

Finally, when the projector isn’t in use, a motorized cover can louver closed to protect the lens. For a tidier look, there’s also a snap-on cable cover for the rear of the projector.

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