To call the Pro Cinema LS12000 4K Pro-UHD Laser Projector the top dog in Epson’s home theater stable is putting it mildly. In addition to offering the many features that Epson Pro Cinema projectors are known for (including a large lens shift to adjust image position, and lens memory to store and retrieve multiple zoom and shift settings easily), the LS12000 is the first Epson projector to put 3,840-by-2,160-pixel resolution on screen. It’s also the first to support HDR10+, along with HDR10 and HLG HDR, employing a laser light source with a 20,000-hour rated lifetime. That laser source delivers a dark black level more often associated with lamp-based projectors. Even at a steep $4,999, it’s an impressive value, and a shoo-in as our Editors’ Choice award winner for a 4K home theater projector.
The Difference-Maker: Real 4K Resolution
If you’re familiar with the version of 4K Pro-UHD in other Epson models like the EpiqVision Ultra LS500 4K and the Pro Cinema 4050, you know that it uses three 1080p LCD chips and a pixel-shifting technology that puts only half as many pixels on screen as a full 4K image. You probably also know that, at typical viewing distances, there’s little to no perceptible difference in resolution between their images and true 4K ones, partly because of limits in human visual acuity and partly because other factors such as contrast and lens quality contribute to your ability to resolve detail.
The Pro Cinema LS12000’s 4K Pro-UHD also depends on pixel shifting, but instead of projecting two sets of slightly shifted 1,920-by-1,080-pixel images for each frame, it projects four sets to show a full 4K matrix. In addition, like Epson’s earlier pixel-shifting models, it offers a top-quality glass lens (with 15 elements in this case) and video processing that further improves the level of detail actually rendered. So where the LS500 and 4050 are indistinguishable from true 4K at normal viewing distances, I found that when standing one to two feet from the screen with the LS12000 I could see details I’ve never seen with any 4K DLP-based projector that uses TI’s pixel shifting. Unless your eyesight is better than 20/20, you won’t notice the difference from couch or armchair distance, but it’s there.
The LS12000 has another advantage over single-chip DLP models: Because of its three-chip design, it can’t produce rainbow artifacts, the flashes of red, green, and blue that not all viewers see but many who do find annoying.
First-Class Setup Features
Key attractions the Pro Cinema LS12000 shares with other Epson projectors are a sizable zoom range (2.1x); large vertical and horizontal lens shifts that let you move the image without moving the projector; and a memory to store up to 10 combinations of zoom, shift, and focus settings for easy retrieval.
Starting at the centered position, the horizontal shift can move the image nearly half a screen width (47.1%) left or right, while the vertical shift can move it nearly the full screen height (96.3%) up or down. The combination lets you place the projector anywhere from a low shelf in the back of the room to inverted in a ceiling mount, and either centered or offset to one side. All of the settings are motorized, and the remote gives you precise control for easy adjustments.
As discussed in more detail in our Epson Pro Cinema 4050 review, these powered lens settings do more than just simplify setup. Because you can save and retrieve combinations with a single command, you can easily maintain the same image height for content with different aspect ratios, in what’s called a constant image height (CIH) setup. For home theater, this is most often used in combination with a Cinemascope (2.35:1 or 2.4:1) screen for switching between 16:9, 2.35:1, and 2.4:1 content. Note, too, that (unlike the 4050) the LS12000 also supports using an external (and expensive) anamorphic lens as an alternative for creating a CIH setup, if you prefer.
As you might expect from a 4K projector with a laser-phosphor light source and a lens mechanism that’s heavy-duty enough to maintain precise positioning over the unit’s lifetime, this Epson is necessarily big and heavy, weighing 28 pounds and measuring 7.6 by 20.5 by 17.6 inches (HWD).
Its rating of 2,700 lumens makes the LS12000 unusually bright for a home theater projector, especially one boasting Epson’s UltraBlack technology, which produces notably dark black levels. Dark blacks are important for delivering good image quality in a dark room, though largely irrelevant in ambient light, which tends to wash out black levels and hide the difference between projectors that do and don’t deliver them.
Using Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendations, 2,700 lumens is bright enough for a 240-inch, 1.0-gain screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio in a dark room, although recommendations for HDR viewing would bring the size down to 150 to 200 inches. For my tests using the projector’s Bright Cinema mode, the default 75% brightness setting was enough to light up a 130-inch screen in a dark room nicely for both SDR and HDR viewing. (See our guide to choosing the best screen for your projector.)
As with most projectors designed for home theater use, the LS12000 doesn’t include an audio system or internal speakers. However, it offers eARC on one HDMI port so you can connect to external audio.
A Great-Looking Image, After Tweaking for HDR
The Pro Cinema flagship offers five predefined picture modes for both SDR and HDR input. For SDR images, Dynamic mode was a touch green-shifted, but much less so than most projectors’ brightest modes. Most viewers would consider it acceptable. The other four modes offered good enough color accuracy that few if any would be able to tell which performed best without resorting to measurement or comparison to a reference image. All the modes also scored well for black level, contrast, and sense of three-dimensionality, but I preferred Bright Cinema because it rated just a bit higher than the others overall, particularly for contrast.
For HDR input, I used several movies on 4K HDR10 discs. Here again, Bright Cinema was my preferred mode, but all five left the image far too dark for comfortable viewing at the default settings. This is a common problem with HDR projectors, primarily because of the limitations of HDR10. After a little tweaking, bright scenes looked appropriate with nicely saturated color, while dark scenes delivered suitably dark blacks as well as good contrast, shadow detail, and three-dimensionality, plus all the visual impact I expect from the scenes I’m familiar with in our test suite.
Unlike earlier 4K Pro-UHD models, the LS12000 supports frame interpolation (FI) for smoothing motion using either 1080p or 4K input. Many people don’t like using FI for movies, because it adds a digital video effect (sometimes called “soap opera effect”) that makes filmed material look like live-action video. However, it can enhance the look of live and recorded video ranging from sports to concerts. You may also want to experiment with the auto-iris setting, which adjusts the iris based on the content of individual scenes, to help keep the black level dramatically dark.
For gamers, the Pro Cinema LS12000 offers a shorter lag measure for 4K input than most projectors. I measured it with a Leo Bodnar lag-test meter at 19.3ms for 4K input at 60Hz, which is suitable for all but the most hardcore players. I also measured it at 38.5ms for 1080p/60Hz and 29.1ms for 1080p/120Hz, but Epson says the actual lag is the same at 1080p as at 4K—the higher measurement is due to the interaction between Pro-UHD’s approach to writing the image on the screen and the way the meter reads the lag. Note that the projector has no 3D support.
The Top Tier for Traditional Home Theater
The Epson Pro Cinema LS12000’s natural home is in a traditional home theater with fully controlled lighting, dark walls to minimize reflections back to the screen, and a suitably large screen to take advantage of its high brightness. Its brightness and brief 4K lag time also make it a tempting choice, if you can afford it, for family-room home entertainment or a TV replacement, but using it in ambient light would largely waste the advantages of its UltraBlack technology and high contrast. If you’re looking for a projector for your family room, be sure to consider the Epson Pro Cinema 4050, as well as ultra short throw (UST) models like the Epson EpiqVision Ultra LS500, the BenQ V7050i, and the Optoma CinemaX P2, which are often marketed as TV replacements.
For traditional and deluxe home theater, the LS12000 checks all the right boxes for image quality and features. While its HDR settings needed tweaking, I had no complaints after doing so, and any time you’re paying this much for a projector you should consider adding a few hundred dollars for professional calibration, in any case. Even without calibration, however, the Pro Cinema LS12000 excels in both image quality and features, easily earning an Editors’ Choice award for home theater at anything close to its price.
