We got a close-up look at the Epson Powerlite Home Cinema 1080 UB projector we scooped for you the other day, the cheapest 1080p projector in the world at an unofficial $2699 (but that might not be the exact number, according to Epson). Epson added a new chipset that raised its native (not dynamic) contrast ratio to 5000:1. We got an eyes-on demo, and liked what we saw. And check out that wild-ass attachment hanging on its front.
The blacks were even blacker than the Epson Powerlite that we already really liked, and the sharpness of this projector at its full 1080p was remarkable.
Making matters even more interesting was the $5000 anamorphic lens attached to this baby (see gallery), stretching the video out to a positively cinematic 2.35:1 aspect ratio. To get it there, you must have special squished anamorphic content, and to really do it right, you need the Silicon Optics external video processor (for another $3K), stretching everything out cleanly with no distortion.
Yikes, that's a total price of over $10K, but who said getting a picture that's better than your local cineplex was going to be cheap? Still, it's the lowest price for a setup like this we've seen, and worth it.