Most people are likely to associate the Epson brand with printers and scanners, rather than home cinema gear.

Yet, and this may come as a surprise, the company is actually the bone fide world number one in projectors: supply and manufacture. And it's a leading shareholder in the 3LCD consortium - a tech utilised to the full with its first, impressively specced, 1080p home cinema PJ.

The EMP-TW1000 is a Full HD unit, with a native 16:9 resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. A good match, then, for Full HD sources such as Sky HD and high-def disc formats. The three LCD panels employ Epson's exclusive Crystal Clear Fine (C2Fine) technology - the TW1000 is the first PJ to make use of it.

Here, the liquid crystals are aligned vertically when no voltage is applied. The result of this, once the effects of the polarising filters on either side of the liquid-crystal layer are factored in, is the (theoretical) elimination of light leakage - Epson reckons this creates a 'pure jet black'. Quite a claim, then.

In addition to C2Fine is an auto-iris system. This changes the light intensity according to the source, thereby improving black performance. Hopefully, Epson's incarnation will improve on those of the competition - with Mitsubishi's similarly Full HD HC5000, for example, the jumps in light level can be rather off-putting. The 170W lamp is claimed to offer 1,700 hours of life - or 3,000 if you select the low-power economy mode.

Then there's Epson's 'Cinema Filter', which effectively optimises the picture for differing lighting conditions. In an ideal world, there would be only one lighting condition - completely dark - but in the real world, things are not that simple. The six settings include 'dynamic' for lighter rooms, 'natural' and 'theatre black' for darker environments.

Black is back

Talking of all things dark, the glossy black casework of the EMP-TW1000 is something to behold. The organic curves bestow a high-end appearance that deny its printer-manufacturer origins. In other words, you could swap the badge for that of a more established home-cinema marque and most would be none the wiser.

Also worthy of note is the 2.1x zoom lens, which is equipped with a lever-operated wide-angle lens-shift function that operates horizontally and vertically. Not everyone can place the projector in its optimal position, and a lens shift can compensate for such eventualities with minimal image distortion (unlike keystone correction, which this projector doesn't have).

This lens is a short-throw type; designed with small rooms in mind (well, it does hail from Japan!), it will yield 100in pictures at a distance of only 3m. To help you register the projected picture on the screen correctly, there's an on-board pattern generator. This is also useful for initial setting of focus.

Connectivity meets all expectations. Both component and HDMI are present, and will go all the way to 1080p. 480i and 576i (standard-def interlaced) can be fed into the HDMI port, as can 48Hz progressive video. A strong contender, then, for the new EICTA HD Ready 1080p logo that few are currently aware of.

The HDMI input supports the latest 1.3 standard; the EMP-TW1000 uses 10-bit video processing (although not the 12-bit or 16-bit specifically allowed by HDMI 1.3) for improved colour depth. This will really come into its own with PC users and latest-generation games consoles like the PlayStation 3.

On the subject of PCs, a standard VGA port is included. But if your computer permits it use the HDMI input (bringing in DVI adaptors and switchboxes where necessary!). Also somewhat 'old-tech' is the RS-232 serial port, which Epson has provided for system integration.