A Few Words About A few words about...™ Projector setup (1 Viewer)

[Michael Osadciw]

I'm not much a fan of altering image settings within the video player. Most projection display devices now have enough control to manipulate HDR in a manner that will look acceptable on most ecosystems. With any adjustment (player or projector), you'll need to see what the control is doing such as where it starts clipping the image and how it (negatively) affects the ST.2084 gamma curve. If you set the player's control to clip your images and destroy the gamma curve prior to the image arriving to the display, there's not hope for the projector to restore what's lost. Changes to player AND projector is a very, very careful and dangerous dance, especially without the tools to see what's actually happening. It's 100% blind choices without tools, and on forums, it's always the blind leading the blind. Measurement of projector picture modes is the best way to decide what will work best in your system. The calibrator should be using a reference spectroradiometer in conjunction with HDR test patterns and software to show how each preset image mode behaves. For reasons mentioned in my earlier post, what may be the best choice in one video ecosystem may not be the best in another. That's why you should take all online reviews with a grain of salt when thinking about how it will perform in your room. It may work great on their system, but for someone with a Black Diamond screen, the reviewer's choices may be the worst option. That's why I set a benchmark of an 8-foot screen, 16 foot throw, 1.0 unity gain non-perf white screen. That benchmark is based on the average home system set ups I see, so I can communicate some level of performance expectation to clients. Anything outside of this will be the wild west of adjustments and results given the changes outside of these benchmark parameters. And yes, please do keep that auto iris off.

The ISF webpage has a list of people who have taken the course. Unfortunately, very few represent active calibrators with reference measurement tools and who know how to use them on a wide variety of display devices. THX had a video calibrator program that represented people who were more active, but time hasn't been kind to THX as they have generally struggled to remain relevant in a rapidly evolving home entertainment industry.

You could go to Rtings.com for a list of active calibrators.

Professional TV Calibration Services

Over time we have received a large number of requests to refer professional calibrator services. In order to assist you in finding a professional calibrator, we have compiled this list with business/persons that provide calibration services.

www.rtings.com

Many of these calibrators have many years of experience, are generally involved with manufacturers and feedback, some do review work, and some do professional calibrations for film/post-production studios and will have a well-rounded sense of end-to-end video reproduction. See who services your area. Make a phone call, speak with them, and get a feel for their professionalism, and ensure they have HDR test patterns and reference measuring instruments. The people on this list are beyond hobbyists. Hire who you feel is the ultimate fit for your video system. That's the fun part for you

 

[Dave H]

Unless you have one of the very latest 4K JVCs with true dynamic tone mapping, you'll probably want to look at a a third party source for HDR tone mapping. The Panasonic 820 would be a great choice for cost and benefit (if you don't want to deal with a HTPC for Madvr) and it's paired with my JVC. Chad Billheimer (goes by Chad B) has been my calibrator for years and knows these inside and out. I'm using a 9-foot wide Stewart ST100 scope screen and am very happy with the image I get on UHD BD. I'm sure dynamic tone mapping is better, but I have no issues with darkness, obvious clipping, or any "weirdness". Everything looks great. I will also say having been in home theater for 21 years, going front projection several years ago has taken my enjoyment in this hobby to the stratosphere; I only wish I did it sooner. It is a completely different experience in a dedicated, truly black room, and scope screen.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

I'm not much a fan of altering image settings within the video player. Most projection display devices now have enough control to manipulate HDR in a manner that will look acceptable on most ecosystems.

I hate doing this to, and prefer it at the projector level. However in my case the player is the limiting factor and it's a case of garbage in / garbage out. No matter what you do at the projector level, it cant help with information that's not given to it by the player.

For example in the Goblet of Fire case, where the minister's face was just a white blob, if I adjusted the brightness down at the projector level, all that does is make it a very dim white blob. Only by turning the brightness down at the player source level, was the facial detail able to be seen. Extend this to the other settings, and that's what I mean. For example on a very dark scene where you can't really see what's going on, I can crank up the brightness on the projector to 10000, and all that does is make a nearly black screen, a very grey screen with no extra detail. Only by cranking the player brightness does the extra detail start to become visible.

Also, thank you very much for the list of calibrators. Nearly 20 years ago, I had Gregg Lowen over to calibrate my Toshiba 40" rear projection TV. Looks like Doug Weil might be my guy as I'm in Texas. I see Greggs name on that lionav site that Doug belongs to

 

[Robert Harris]

Possibly the members who are professional calibrators might give suggestion for others around the country, and in other territories.

I presume they know one another, have an annual conference in the Caribbean or South Pacific. And a secret handshake.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I hate doing this to, and prefer it at the projector level. However in my case the player is the limiting factor and it's a case of garbage in / garbage out. No matter what you do at the projector level, it cant help with information that's not given to it by the player.

For example in the Goblet of Fire case, where the minister's face was just a white blob, if I adjusted the brightness down at the projector level, all that does is make it a very dim white blob. Only by turning the brightness down at the player source level, was the facial detail able to be seen. Extend this to the other settings, and that's what I mean. For example on a very dark scene where you can't really see what's going on, I can crank up the brightness on the projector to 10000, and all that does is make a nearly black screen, a very grey screen with no extra detail. Only by cranking the player brightness does the extra detail start to become visible.

Also, thank you very much for the list of calibrators. Nearly 20 years ago, I had Gregg Lowen over to calibrate my Toshiba 40" rear projection TV. Looks like Doug Weil might be my guy as I'm in Texas. I see Greggs name on that lionav site that Doug belongs to

I wonder if something else is not amiss w/ your X700.

Is it still set for output to "projector" instead of "tv"? What about the settings re: HDMI Deep Color Output and color format? And is the HDMI cable perfectly fine and meeting spec (and not possibly causing some kind of auto-fallback mode on the player that might yield those results)?

IF nothing's actually wrong w/ the player (and cable) and settings, I gotta wonder if that projector can really handle HDR at all (and whether you shouldn't simply use the player's HDR->SDR conversion instead... despite @Michael Osadciw's recommendation). Maybe something's (unexpectedly) wrong/malfunctioning w/ the projector itself...

_Man_

 

[Michael Osadciw]

I presume they know one another, have an annual conference in the Caribbean or South Pacific. And a secret handshake.

Yes, many of us loosely know one another. Come to the next conference. To ensure successful delivery, I'll send your conference invitation in the mail on Wednesday, November 4th. When you arrive in the South Pacific, the handshake will be sanitized per international COVID health recommendations. Tribute will be paid to JVC in beachside song and dance. The farewell dinner is a pot of stew.

 

[john a hunter]

Jeff,there is an UHD set up disc from Spears and Munsil.
As we have by now realised, UHD setup is no where as"easy" as HD.
On their website S&M have notes to partner the disc which make interesting reading.
Their advice is to try to keep the settings, especially contrast, in accordance with the PJ's preset.
They have 10 mins of wonderful images to road test your settings which make for very interesting viewing.

 

[RJ992]

I've been complaining, since HDR appeared as a technology linked to 4k UHD, that projectors don't play particularly nicely with that tech.

My former projector, a 4k Sony, does a magnificent job with HD and also with 4k, except when imagery gets very dark. It's a wonderfully reliable piece of gear, which gives wonderful, highly resolved images, with gorgeous color.

That has now moved on to a proper home, and I thought I'd put my initial thoughts in a column (in the software section) for those who may be considering an upgrade during their stay at home months.

For the past year, my two stalwart guides to the best in home theater gear, Robert Zohn of Value Electronics (www.valueelectronics.com), and Kevin Miller (www.isftv.com), one of the top ISF professionals in the field, have been advising me to either go without food, or sell a kidney, and pick up a JVC NX9.

I finally pulled the trigger - the two Jules Dassin films from Criterion are the first to be reviewed - and the result, after Mr. Miller completed his wonders, is nothing less than staggering.

Initially, there were some awkward problems, which JVC was not able to work through. I'm a believer that home theater gear, especially high-end, should just work. While I was able to run the HDR format with 4k releases, every time I switched a disc or shut down, the unit automatically retuned to User 1, actually not recognizing the HDR signal coming from the player to the projector, which it is supposed to do automatically.

Kris Deering did a consult, and he and Kevin were able to work through settings, which it seems were somehow mis-set by JVC. That was half a day of frustration. So, a huge thank you to Kris!

For those seeking quality calibration, Kris (www.deepdiveav.com) handles the northwest, working out of Seattle, while Kevin is available in the New York to D.C. megalopolis. If you ask really nicely, I believe they'll both travel.

For those unaware, proper set-up is essential if you're seeking to see what's really on the discs.

There was another oddity with the NX9, in that it was a bit unsaturated, but once again, Kevin found a workaround. From what I'm led to believe, the factory setup for Rec 709 Color Profile is not correct.

As to brightness, one of the reasons I stretched from the cost of the 7 to the 9, was the optic, which is about as highly resolved and fast as anything one might wish. I'm able to see grain structure in large format presentations with ease. Focus is virtually flat from center to corners. Illumination actually had to be suppressed, as the glass allows more light to hit the screen than from the 5 or 7, with the same lamp.

Optics aside, the other major attribute here is JVC's handling of HDR and tone mapping, made ever better with their frame to frame control (Frame Adapt HDR Mode), which is apparently going to be bettered by another software update in the fall.

Make no mistake, there's nothing wrong with Sony gear, especially when you get into the laser range, which in JVC does not have the frame by frame as the 9.

From initial tests, colors pop off the screen, blacks are blacker than previously, and HDR is better handled - there is still no Dolby Vision, which apparently needs the brightness of a star to function properly - but does not beautifully on panels, especially OLED.

Mr. Zohn was kind enough to special order a unit for me. Apparently, they've been in short supply. Mr. Miller tweaked it to within an inch of its life.

Bottom line, if you truly have home theater as a hobby and part of your daily life, the JVCs are a great way of entering the high end. Not affordable, by any means - I do not received accommodations from JVC - but quality gear does hold value, and amortized over several years, can be less painful than one might expect.

As an aside, I ran a sequence from A24's 4k of Midsommar for Mr. Miller, and viewed it on the JVC for the first time with him - literally pixel peeping at the screen. One can easily see extremely highly resolved details - people individually in costume in backgrounds - that were far less visible previously even in 4k.

Is it a miracle machine? No. But it takes what has been pressed to those shiny little discs, and displays them brilliantly. HDR still has a ways to come in the projection world, but at least with the 9, there's a real step in the right direction.

Let's see where we are after a few dozen newer films in HDR, and the forthcoming update.

As far as current reviews, this projector further exposes whatever wonders (or defects) that may exist, for better or for worse.

RAH

And the 3D was....

 

[Jeff Cooper]

I wonder if something else is not amiss w/ your X700.

Is it still set for output to "projector" instead of "tv"? What about the settings re: HDMI Deep Color Output and color format? And is the HDMI cable perfectly fine and meeting spec (and not possibly causing some kind of auto-fallback mode on the player that might yield those results)?

IF nothing's actually wrong w/ the player (and cable) and settings, I gotta wonder if that projector can really handle HDR at all (and whether you shouldn't simply use the player's HDR->SDR conversion instead... despite @Michael Osadciw's recommendation). Maybe something's (unexpectedly) wrong/malfunctioning w/ the projector itself...

_Man_

I don't think there's really anything amiss here. PS3 looks great. PS4 looks great. SDR Blu-Ray looks great. SDR UHD looks great. It's just HDR UHD is much darker than ideal. It also looks great in brightly lit scenes. I can confirm via projector info that HDR signal is getting received and processed, so the HDMI cable is working fine. Player settings are all set to 'On' or 'Auto' where applicable where appropriate with what you asked. I have used both 'TV' and 'Projector' settings. The bad dithering effect I spoke of only happens on SDR content when set to 'Projector' If I have it set to enable HDR, that doesn't happen.

If anything is at all broken, I would suspect the player. I actually have a separate player for the living room which is the exact same model, so I could try swapping that out and see if there is a difference. I'm not expecting anything to be different though. The bottom line is this is the low end of the player spectrum range, so I think it just may not be that great of a player. Beyond that it seems like it's just in dire need of a professional calibration. This is something I absolutely will invest in in the near future. I need to paint the room darker and maybe upgrade my player first, so I don't calibrate for a room/source that is vastly different than what I settle on.

 

[Michael Osadciw]

PS3 looks great. PS4 looks great. SDR Blu-Ray looks great. SDR UHD looks great. It's just HDR UHD is much darker than ideal. It also looks great in brightly lit scenes.

What you are experiencing is normal. Projectors aren't bright devices like TVs. Only over the last few years, common home cinema projectors achieved 100 nits for SDR material. Just prior to HDR-compatible projectors, most SDR-only projectors were displaying a low 45-70 nits on an average-sized screen. That was considered acceptable because people related that to DCI projection at 48nits/14fL, even thought their content was created on 100 nit displays and not at 48 nits. No one complained. Big screens are fun.

Today, the additional brightness of HDR projectors has now allowed SDR material to be shown unaltered as it was created on a 100 nit monitor. Your SDR content is created at 100 nits. A 65" TV will show it at 100 nits. An 85" will show it at 100 nits. The new 98" TVs will show it at 100 nits. So why shouldn't 100" or 110" projected images also be shown at 100 nits? It's only a difference of 10". Some may disagree with this statement. I do not put projectors in the 48 nit SDR limit box. We are not watching DCI content at home. We are watching BT.709 at 100 nits with 2.4 gamma.

Increased brightness in current projectors is good. In fact, under the right conditions, some projectors can project images much brighter than 100 nits even when calibrated. While that's not great for SDR, it's great for HDR. So why is it that HDR content appears darker except for the bright scenes? It's understanding the difference between how SDR is displayed and HDR gamma is handled in the projector all the while considering the overall video ecosystem I've described before.

I'll simplify this as best as I can. You've likely been watching your SDR material at a comfortable level of brightness that matches closer to the 100 nit level reference white level. It's impossible to know where you're at without measurement, but let's pretend that under the right conditions you're projector is maximized for SDR at 100 nits. The projector, by design, may be able to deliver a little more light output than that (such as when using high lamp mode). Maybe you'll get 120 nits max. Let's go with that.

Consider this analogy for the above: 120 nits represents the tip of the roof of your two story home, and your 100 nit SDR reference the ceiling of the second floor bedroom. Between the 2nd floor ceiling and the roof tip you have attic space which you don't use - but it's there - and from the 2nd floor ceiling to main level floor all of the usable SDR space in video from white to black. Oh, and let's put the old 48 nit reference at the ceiling of your first floor, just to help with this analogy. You're now enjoying living in your two story home watching movies.

Enter HDR through your front door which now demands more bright white (let's use 1000 nits as an average reference since it's the minimum and most common HDR reference mastering display). To show this correctly, HDR demands your home to become a 10-story building. But all you have is the tip of your roof and you suddenly don't see how this is possible. You need this light to be scaled down to fit in what your home has to offer. The projector, using the appropriate adjustments and by measuring with a spectroradiometer and using appropriate test patterns, will apply a level of tone mapping to ensure that 1000 nits is shown at the 120 nit tip of your roof. So 0.01-1000 nits is now being shown on a projected display from 0.01-120 nits.

So what happens to the 100 nits that was once the 2nd floor ceiling? Truly it can't stay there, or else only the little attic space would cram the image from 100-1000 nits (not an HDR experience and too much loss in fidelity). So the 100 nit ceiling too, also gets lowered, as does all of the average level picture content below 100 nits, which represents most of the scene and all of the important imagery. This is why HDR seems darker on a projector; average picture levels need to be dropped to accommodate the extended dynamic range of HDR, even if those extended limits happen periodically throughout the film. If the video ecosystem is good, your old 100 nit reference could be lowered to the old acceptable reference of 48nits, the ceiling of the first floor in our home analogy. Now this gives HDR much more room to breathe. From the 48 nit ceiling to the 120 nit limit, the projector can tone map the data from 101 nits to 1000 nits over some 80 nits or so. This would be level 8 on your Epson HDR slider. Want to give more breathing room and wider HDR? Put the control at 9 or 10 but knowing you're dropping your 100 nit reference below the first floor ceiling making things darker. Want to reduce HDR and have more aggressive tone mapping? Move the slider to 7 or 6 and you'll push your average scene material up into the second floor rooms making your average scenes brighter and more like SDR. The choice is yours.

What if everything looks too dark even after that? Then a) switch to Bright Cinema and forget the WCG b) your screen is far too big for the little projector that couldn't c) the projector is mounted too far back from the screen for the little projector that couldn't d) the screen is a dark/black screen that was sold to create better blacks but also cut down white light reflected back e) a combination of b) & c) are common and lastly f) a combination of b), c), d) killed all of the fun of HDR home theater. Add perf/weave and I'd question how that system came together. How to fix? Redesigning the video ecosystem is the only way.

HDR is a unique system so that very specific luminance is directly tied to the input code values 64-940 in HDR10(bit). Code 720 is about 975nits, and code 504 is about 94nits. On a correctly working display, code in = light out without any alteration (simplified). This works with well designed HDR TVs (a select few!!), but not projectors because they don't play bright. But... we can have some fun experimenting and scaling the light levels up or down, depending on the video ecosystem. The final calibration settings for HDR in a projector is all determined by measuring the maximum light output off the screen when using a calibrated picture setting.

Remember that (currently) most of the important stuff in HDR video are from 0.01-100 nits (HDR10 devotes far more bits to this range 64-508), and the remaining amount are devoted to HDR levels 101 nits - 10 000 nits (509-940), the lower of which can occasionally play a crucial role in the storytelling and the highest levels briefly occurring for dramatic effect. We can ignore the highest code values since there's no content to save there anyways.

As I've said before, it's a careful dance balancing these levels on a projector and determining how much HDR "to save" especially when the video ecosystem was poorly thought out. We want to experience HDR on a big screen but we don't want to sacrifice the integrity of the average scene brightness by making it too dark to preserve highlights that may not even be present in the film. The more controls the projector has (like JVC), the greater control I have to stay true to the HDR gamma curve while crafting an enjoyable, and WATCHABLE image.

 

[Monitorman]

It's fascinating to read all of this. I have an Epson Pro CInema 4050 which is 'faux'K. It's 1080p native but projects 4k via pixel shifting. While the image from UHD's is quite stunning on a 110" screen. I've had to accept that HDR is a lost cause with this projector. It's just way too dark and any time I have HDR turned on, daytime scenes look like evening scenes, and night scenes are just near pitch black.

I also discovered that my UHD player was a big factor in the image quality, as it has two video settings, 'TV' and 'Projector'. Naturally I had it set to projector since that's what I have, but eventually determined that for some reason, when set to this it was causing huge dithering issues where the gradients were like steps instead of smooth transitions on very light and very dark colors. Switching it to 'TV' mode solved all those issues and color changes were smooth again.

I've always wondered though what could be eeked out of this projector with a professional calibration.

It's fascinating to read all of this. I have an Epson Pro CInema 4050 which is 'faux'K. It's 1080p native but projects 4k via pixel shifting. While the image from UHD's is quite stunning on a 110" screen. I've had to accept that HDR is a lost cause with this projector. It's just way too dark and any time I have HDR turned on, daytime scenes look like evening scenes, and night scenes are just near pitch black.

I also discovered that my UHD player was a big factor in the image quality, as it has two video settings, 'TV' and 'Projector'. Naturally I had it set to projector since that's what I have, but eventually determined that for some reason, when set to this it was causing huge dithering issues where the gradients were like steps instead of smooth transitions on very light and very dark colors. Switching it to 'TV' mode solved all those issues and color changes were smooth again.

I've always wondered though what could be eeked out of this projector with a professional calibration.

Hi Jeff,
Actually, the 4050 can do HDR fairly well. You need the latest firmware installed in order to select the right HDR mode. There are 15 HDR presets in the latest firmware that vary the tone mapping scheme. This is undoubtedly the reason you are complaining about crushed blacks and shadow detail and an overall dim picture. The HDR performance of your projector is actually quite good if you have the right settings selected.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

Hi Jeff,
Actually, the 4050 can do HDR fairly well. You need the latest firmware installed in order to select the right HDR mode. There are 15 HDR presets in the latest firmware that vary the tone mapping scheme. This is undoubtedly the reason you are complaining about crushed blacks and shadow detail and an overall dim picture. The HDR performance of your projector is actually quite good if you have the right settings selected.

How do I find and try these presets? I checked the firmware and apparently I have always had the latest version. When I check my version info on the projector I get Main: 92009564FQWWV101, Video2: 86L2FQMV100. According to https://epson.com/Support/wa00805 the current firmware version is 1.01. After updating the firmware the version information did not change.

I do not see anywhere in any of the menu settings where there are 15 different presets for HDR mapping.

 

[PCineArchitect]

Robert, I’m a devoted follower of your column and as a pseudo journalist I admire you for getting so much insight into a disciplined ‘few words’. I wish I knew how to do that!

I say pseudo because I get pressed into duty when I have a topic that may interest some of my industry media types out there. I was doing exotic car audio in the 70’s & 80’s, AudioMobile div Advent, so Motor Trend and Car Craft had me writing for them. Then came Audio, Stereo Review and High Fidelity when I was EVP a/d/s/ producing home music and theater sound systems.

The widescreen HT revolution came in the early 2000’s when I was a Runco International sales agent and consultant. I did a series on widescreen home cinema that ran in Widescreen Review, & CEPro back then.

Today, I believe we are in a 3rd Home Cinema technology revolution driven by HDR imaging and Immersive sound. Movie art as impacted by this latest in cinema science is manifest primarily in Dolby Vision and IMAX 6P laser theaters. Yours and all HT would do well to hit the DV/IMAX mark these days.

I seek out every opportunity to see what movie creators are doing with modern cinema tech by seeing them in DV, IMAX, DFX, and any other laser cinemas I find. I’ve seen about 30 HDR laser cinema presentations now in many of the best commercial venues including the DV & IMAX cinemas of Times Square, the one and only PLF Sony Cinema theater in Las Vegas, and the Galaxy DFX laser theaters in the West. Add conventional boutique cinemas like Cinepolis, the Palmes d’ Or, and the curated film presentations from David Kornfeld at the Somerville Boston, and QT at his New Beverly Cinema, Hollywood, and I get my eyes and ears in pretty good shape to appreciate it when I see a system that hits cinema performance targets at home.

Visually speaking, HDR is as impactful in HT today, as Widescreen was 15 years ago. It’s generated the buzz in SMPTE/AES circles today like nothing else perhaps since their WS revolution 67 years ago. Surely, we’ve seen more change in cinema science in the last 10 years than was seen in the prior century!

Your frustration with HDR projection is shared by many, and your delight at seeing it done well is shared by very few, because we don’t know what we’re missing, and setting up projection for proper HDR rendering is still a high school science project for most, and it rarely if ever hits the mark. Until now.

The JVC is handling TM like all TV’s do, in their own proprietary way, with unique algorithms to make HDR look good. But, as Dr. Abhay Sharma states in his technical essay, ‘Exploring the Basic Concepts of HDR’; 'a given movie will look different on every brand of TV'. Color calibration might be perfect, but HDR is a color and dynamic range remapping, with no standard process to guide it. When you hear sophisticated calibrators talk about HDR via a specific scene, or use the words ‘trial & error’, you get a clue as to the chaos HDR has presented to date.

Nevertheless, projected HDR is the most exciting revelation within the movie arts there is today, and it transcends TVs when done cinema style.

The most locked down cinematic rendering of HDR I’ve seen to date comes from Barco DLP laser and RGB projectors. Pricey they are, but not dramatically higher than an NX-9/Lumagen combo, and you’re getting DLP laser, the Academy Award winning target display tech for the movie creation process. You’re also getting a 40% larger imager than CE projectors and a 5K CinemaScope on-screen pixel format, plus far more luminance. If you used cinema grade anamorphic optics to yield a scope format from the NX-9, you’d be in the same price range as the Barco Bragi CS, which again is DLP with far better flat field uniformity, and superiority for the contrast that matters in cinema; adjacent pixel, small area, and ANSI. Laser and RGB LED are the ways to get WCG to cinema's level, and they're stable over time, so you're always looking at the day 1 benchmark of your calibrated cinema image.

The next best rendering I’ve seen in HT projection has been from Sony’s 5000 & 995, both of which have quality optics and laser light sources. SXRD was a cinema DCI technology, but it never gained more than 10% of the screen share. And now they’ve left cinema entirely to DLP (Sony announced no more DCI projector production and shuttered their DCI Div in April). But I’ve seen good extraction of WCG HDR from Sony’s using the Lumagen as a front end, and I’ve seen even better when driven by a MadVR Envy which does Dynamic Tone Mapping as closely to a cinema look as anything I’ve seen other than Barco native. And it’s automatic, so all mastering levels are handled as are SDR/HDR color space conversions.

Frankly, the MVR auto aspect ratio detection and blanking is at another level. Throw in Hateful 8 and they blank it for 2.76:1 and report it as UltraPanaVision. HTWWW comes in at 2.90:1 (Cinerama) and all the new Netflix and Amazon content in ‘Univisium’ 2.0:1 is sized and blanked accordingly. And my favorite is it senses and switches AR’s so fast you can watch Interstellar on a widescreen and see scope to IMAX flips as quickly as the jump cut from Lawrence of Arabia. It looks like it was edited that way, pretty fun. I’m working with MadVR now that I’ve tested it on Barco Pulse platform and DCI models, it’s a great no-touch problem solver with an ultra-simple setup process.

Pandemically speaking, I’ve had some lab time to work on the TM profiles for the Barco devices with the luxury of doing some of that work in the Realm showroom reference DCI theater in Norwalk, Ct. This theater uses the same Barco DLP Laser model as Galaxy Cinema’s DFX premium theaters. I can run UHD content through that projector using the integrated DCI algorithm for HDR PQ curve mapping, and I can compare that imaging to DCP content created in HDR for cinema. By doing that, I’ve found the profiles that match laser DLP cinema for each of the 4 main mastering levels of UHD HDR content. This is the new frontier, the fun frontier of projection home theater. I’m good friends with Kevin, and a group of the best calibrators in the country and one of their standout members has a lab near me in Boston. I took the Bragi there when I was early in on my HDR profiling work and he said ‘it’s by far the best HDR imaging I’ve ever seen’.

This new HDR world, in sound and image, has been an epiphany. I have done some in-depth writing on the topic in the latest issue of WSR, with a new article going to print in the next issue, in time for the CEDIA Virtual Expo in a few weeks. Anyone in our trade can access a free digital subscription by the way, and you’ll find great content there from cinema centric tech authors like Joe Kane, Alan Koebel, and Norm Varney, to name a few.

Link to free subscription; https://www.widescreenreview.com/tradesubscribe/

My WSR articles both in the current and next issue focus on HDR Cinema Sound and Image, and how to design an HDR CSI theater to achieve a genuine cinema experience. Of course that means for both classic B&W to modern HDR Wide Color Gamut cinema, and everything in between. Be prepared for a time bandit though; my few words tend to be around a 10,000 count!

Thanks so much for sharing your HT theater experience and passion for cinema, and taking such care to do everything right. You’re in good hands with a pro like Kevin Miller; we could both tell you stories going back to the paleolithic age of HT, when we were all living in cinematic caves.

Best Regards,

John Bishop

President; b/a/s/ bishop architectural-entertainment services

EVP; Mavericks Architectural Cinema div James Loudspeaker

Director Cinema Experience; RAYVA Engineered Theaters

Founder; The American Society of Personal Cinema Architect

 

[Monitorman]

Hi Jeff,

I believe if you go into the menu and scroll down one section vertically below the Picture Settings menu that the HDR Mode settings are on that page. They are in the Signal menu under Advanced. Once you click into Advanced look for Dynamic Range. Once in that menu you will see a slider for the HDR modes from 1-16. I believe the default is 8 and if you go down from the there the image will get brighter particularly in the mid luminance range. I would try 5 or 6 and see but it is also content dependent. So if you have "The Revenant" on 4K Blu-ray put on the opening scene where Decaprio is in the river about to shoot the stag. Play with the HDR modes and you will see the difference in Luminance between them. Also make sure you haven't changed the Brightness setting from its default of 50 or the gamma which I believe is set to 0. It shouldn't be adjustable for HDR but it is unfortunately. Try this and let us know how you make out.

 

[Michael Osadciw]

How do I find and try these presets?....
I do not see anywhere in any of the menu settings where there are 15 different presets for HDR mapping.

Hit menu, look at left side of screen, down arrow to signal. Go into the HDR setting. The slider will be in there.

 

[Monitorman]

How do I find and try these presets? I checked the firmware and apparently I have always had the latest version. When I check my version info on the projector I get Main: 92009564FQWWV101, Video2: 86L2FQMV100. According to https://epson.com/Support/wa00805 the current firmware version is 1.01. After updating the firmware the version information did not change.

I do not see anywhere in any of the menu settings where there are 15 different presets for HDR mapping.

Hi Jeff,

See my reply below John Bishop's. Sorry about that!

 

[Robert Harris]

This thread could turn out to be one of the most interesting and useful for membership.

My thanks to those who serve as our knowledge base!

 

[sbjork]

This thread could turn out to be one of the most interesting and useful for membership.

My thanks to those who serve as our knowledge base!

As long as you keep sharing updates on your experiences with the JVC! I admit that I am biased but having lived with my RS2000 for more than a year now, I enjoy reading about what your much more practiced eye sees with the 3000.

 

[Robert Harris]

As long as you keep sharing updates on your experiences with the JVC! I admit that I am biased but having lived with my RS2000 for more than a year now, I enjoy reading about what your much more practiced eye sees with the 3000.

Afaik, the major difference between the 2 and 3000 is the lens. 8k pixel shift is fluff and bragging rights.

 

[sbjork]

Afaik, the major difference between the 2 and 3000 is the lens. 8k pixel shift is fluff and bragging rights.

Agreed -- but that lens is nothing to sneeze at! But I am really mostly interested in your experiences with the projector series in general -- the frame adaptive HDR in particular.