Epson 5040ube Calibration Readings

[mechman]

About a year ago Epson had loaned me a 5040UBe projector for a review. Unfortunately, my hockey coaching and the fact that this was old technology got in the way of me writing up a review on it. However during my short time with the 5040 I did come to appreciate it's qualities and decided in the end to purchase one and replace my older 3010 Epson. While I don't intend to write up a review on this projector. I do intend to journal my calibration process with it here. To start off I figured I would go over the dangers of copying other people's settings.

There are various settings posted on other forums and elsewhere that you can use to "adjust" your image. There is an actual pdf file at AVS with settings from several users. And there are various ones posted that went with reviews. I figured I'd do a quick check with these various settings on my Epson 5040UBe that currently has ~400 hours on the bulb.

HarperVision SDR

Average DeltaE of 17.3

HV SDR

• mechman
• Mar 17, 2019

HarperVision HDR

Average DeltaE of 19.6

HV HDR

• mechman
• Mar 17, 2019

Random Review HDR Settings

Average DeltaE of 17

Review Settings 4k HDR

• mechman
• Mar 22, 2019

Random Review 2 HDR Settings

Average DeltaE of 18.5

Review2 HDR

• mechman
• Mar 22, 2019

Out Of The Box Settings (OOTB)

Average DeltaE of 15.1

OOTB HDR

• mechman
• Mar 22, 2019

Oledurt v1

Average DeltaE of 14.29

Oledurt V1

• mechman
• May 3, 2019

Oledurt v2

Average DeltaE of 10.89

Oledurt V2

• mechman
• May 3, 2019

Oledurt Digital Cinema

Average DeltaE of 12.36

Oledurt Digital Cinema

• mechman
• May 3, 2019

My Calibrated HDR Settings

Average DeltaE of 1.86

Calibrated

• mechman
• May 3, 2019

One thing that I never verified was whether each of these individual settings were operating under the most current firmware for the 5040. My projector was operating under the most current firmware as that was how it was shipped. The firmware update back in January of 2018 contained significant improvements to the HDR capabilities of the Epson 5040

To summarize what has been said on many occasions and on my different forums, copying other people's settings is rarely a good idea.

Color Volume

Color Volume is a measure used to determine how much color from a specific standard a display is capable of demonstrating. The Epson 5040UBE is capable of displaying:

Color Volume HDR Calibrated

• mechman
• Mar 18, 2019

 

[welldun]

Hello, thanks for posting this info. I too own an Epson 5040UB, and I've been using the Harpervision settings shared on AVS. I'm a total novice when it comes to the info that you presented above, so would it be too much to ask, if I requested an explanation of what you mean by average Delta and whether those numbers reflect a good or bad result per your testing? Also, Since you also did your own calibration, would you care to share the settings so that I (and anyone else interested) could try them on my setup?

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I have a 4040 and really like it, although I don't have the eye for knowing what is correct.

I probably need to search out some good settings for mine... I have just been using the defaults.

 

[mechman]

I’m at the cabin for these last few days and I’m replying on my cell phone - of which I’m getting one bar of 4G service right now. I’ll get a reply for you tomorrow after I get home and get unpacked.

 

[mechman]

Hello, thanks for posting this info. I too own an Epson 5040UB, and I've been using the Harpervision settings shared on AVS. I'm a total novice when it comes to the info that you presented above, so would it be too much to ask, if I requested an explanation of what you mean by average Delta and whether those numbers reflect a good or bad result per your testing? Also, Since you also did your own calibration, would you care to share the settings so that I (and anyone else interested) could try them on my setup?

Ok, I'm back in town with a good internet connection!

DeltaE is the error deviation from the standard. The higher the number the further it is from the target. Over the years I have heard several acceptable levels of DeltaE and I think the majority now accept that a DeltaE value of 3 or less is imperceptible to the human eye. So anything with a DeltaE of 3 or less is good.

The point of my little experiment wasn't that those settings were bad for everyone, they were just bad for my particular 5040. And they looked the part as I could see an over-saturation by eye right when I plugged them in and fired it up. So does that mean that they are bad for you or anyone else? Nope. They could very well be much closer to the goal on your particular 5040 than they were on mine.

The point is this, copying settings from others may improve your picture. But the also may very well be worse than the OOTB settings. So my opinion is to not copy settings of others and to visually use what best suits you and your eyes. If that is Harpervision's settings from AVS then I applaud that.
For that reason, I don't share my settings. And to be honest, I rarely get asked for them. If I still had the 5040 I would post them up here but I have since upgraded to the 5050 so I can't as I never wrote them down or took a pic of them. Next time I fire up CalMAN I can look and see if I plugged them into the saved session.

Interestingly, the settings posted online for the 5050 don't do all that well on my particular unit either. I plugged in the ones from projectorreviews.com and they weren't as good as the ones I dialed in for HDR. But that's just off the top of my head as I have yet to compare the values.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Great post Steve... really interesting. Thanks for sharing!

@welldon, I'd have to agree with Steve. You can't really share settings, since so many individual factors come into play. For you, I'd throw your in cinema mode and do a basic calibration with the Spears and Munsil HD disc. That will get to a fairly decent picture with relatively little effort.

 

[welldun]

Great post Steve... really interesting. Thanks for sharing!

@welldon, I'd have to agree with Steve. You can't really share settings, since so many individual factors come into play. For you, I'd throw your in cinema mode and do a basic calibration with the Spears and Munsil HD disc. That will get to a fairly decent picture with relatively little effort.

I've used their disc for the SDR calibration, I just don't have a disc or tools for the HDR calibration, and since the consensus was that the initial default HDR settings from Epson were too dark (Epson has since added another brightness level via a firmware update), I decided to check out what others were able to achieve for HDR via calibration. Since I'm using a Cinewhite screen from Elite Screens in a dedicated room, I figured that the screen and room conditions wouldn't be too dissimilar from those where the calibrations that were shared had been done.

 

[mechman]

I've used their disc for the SDR calibration, I just don't have a disc or tools for the HDR calibration, and since the consensus was that the initial default HDR settings from Epson were too dark (Epson has since added another brightness level via a firmware update), I decided to check out what others were able to achieve for HDR via calibration. Since I'm using a Cinewhite screen from Elite Screens in a dedicated room, I figured that the screen and room conditions wouldn't be too dissimilar from those where the calibrations that were shared had been done.

I remember those dark days, the firmware update worked wonders IIRC.

 

[welldun]

I remember those dark days, the firmware update worked wonders IIRC.

It definitely did improve things. But as you might recall, the Harpervision settings were a hack using SRD mode which bypassed the Dark HDR settings. They seemed to look good enough for me, but I also didn't have a reference to compare against.
One correction, I don't have the Spears and Munsil disc, what I have is the DVE HD Basics disc. I don't believe there is a way to use the SRD disc for HDR calibration, but if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. For now, I'll keep an eye out for an HDR calibration disc.

 

[mechman]

Unfortunately there are no HDR calibration discs available at this time. You can look into something like this over at AVS. I haven't checked them out yet but I'm downloading them now.

 

[JStewart]

Unfortunately there are no HDR calibration discs available at this time. You can look into something like this over at AVS. I haven't checked them out yet but I'm downloading them now.

This may be somewhere in that avs thread you posted, I know this guy has a thread there RMasciola. You can download the patterns or get them on disc here https://www.diversifiedvideosolutions.com/products.html if that helps.

 

[mechman]

This may be somewhere in that avs thread you posted, I know this guy has a thread there RMasciola. You can download the patterns or get them on disc here https://www.diversifiedvideosolutions.com/products.html if that helps.

Yeah I have that one I think. That's what I was looking for originally but I found that other one. I've never used RMasciola's patterns either. But I do have them on a thumb drive someplace.