4k Projectors Buyers and Owners Thread (1 Viewer)

[JediFonger]

either oled or projector make sure it's capable of 10,000nit or else HDR will not be as effective. no consumer displays have that yet!

most people cant tell between 720p vs 1080p even projected let alone 4k. the star 'feature' of 4k is HDR. when encoded media start arriving that is maxed out of Dolby's spec of 10k it will be amazing.

 

[Sam Posten]

That's just a ridiculous recommendation.

 

[titch]

Apart from the fact that one probably should have a 12 foot screen for 4K, if you really want to see a difference from a well-calibrated 1080p projection set-up, HDR in home theaters also presents major challenges. There are many things that need to be taken care of beyond the electronics, such as the design of the room, the gain and reflectivity characteristics of the screen and the achievable peak brightness (ref Alen Koebel from Christie Projectors in Widescreen Review December 2016). Those attempting the perceptual quantizer (PQ) transfer curve of HDR find it difficult to get there with lamp-based technology. Three-color laser light sources will help solve that issue. As far as I'm aware, at present there are only four laser-phosphor HDR-compatible home-theatre projectors: Barco's Loki at $95000 (3840 x 2160 pixels), Epson's LS10500 at $8000 (1920 x 1080), JVC's DLA-RS4500 at $35000 (4096 x 2160) and Sony's VPL-VW5000ES at $60000 (4096 x 2160) - so only the latter two have true 4K resolution. Also, you will need much brighter projectors for HDR than the ones currently in wide use for 1080p projection. The Sony has a light output of 5000 lumens, the Barco 8500-12000 lumens, the JVC 3000 and the Epson only 1500 lumens. These projectors are bigger and heavier than 1080p projectors, produce lots of heat and are horribly expensive. And as several others have pointed out, the specs are continuously being updated. I agree that the most sensible thing to do would be to just sit and wait patiently for a couple of years, while purchasing the 4K titles that catch your fancy. It wasn't many years back that a really good 1080p projector cost the same as the laser-phosphor projectors are going for now. Now $2000 gets you a 1080p projector which renders a truly wonderful picture.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Kevin,

That's good advice.

I am in no hurry anymore to upgrade to 4k. When we are talking about the exorbitant price of projectors, I am not going to buy something now just to get me through the hump. When i am ready to drop some serious money into a projector, it's going to be the ONLY projector I will be purchasing. Additionally, the projector will have all the final specs that should have been rolled out two years ago when 4k was introduced.

When I look at all the crap that the studios are putting out on the format, I have no desire to jump into this half-assed like they did.

Finally, I must say I am very happy with my Sony ES 1080p projector. It was calibrated by Gregg Loewen. The picture it produces is incredible. I don't sit there and think that I could be watching something better to the point that I want to spend a few thousand now for something to get me by, and then spend more in another two years.

I appreciate all the advice. I think we are all pretty much on the same page.

 

[Wes Nance]

Apart from the fact that one probably should have a 12 foot screen for 4K, if you really want to see a difference from a well-calibrated 1080p projection set-up, HDR in home theaters also presents major challenges. There are many things that need to be taken care of beyond the electronics, such as the design of the room, the gain and reflectivity characteristics of the screen and the achievable peak brightness (ref Alen Koebel from Christie Projectors in Widescreen Review December 2016). Those attempting the perceptual quantizer (PQ) transfer curve of HDR find it difficult to get there with lamp-based technology. Three-color laser light sources will help solve that issue. As far as I'm aware, at present there are only four laser-phosphor HDR-compatible home-theatre projectors: Barco's Loki at $95000 (3840 x 2160 pixels), Epson's LS10500 at $8000 (1920 x 1080), JVC's DLA-RS4500 at $35000 (4096 x 2160) and Sony's VPL-VW5000ES at $60000 (4096 x 2160) - so only the latter two have true 4K resolution. Also, you will need much brighter projectors for HDR than the ones currently in wide use for 1080p projection. The Sony has a light output of 5000 lumens, the Barco 8500-12000 lumens, the JVC 3000 and the Epson only 1500 lumens. These projectors are bigger and heavier than 1080p projectors, produce lots of heat and are horribly expensive. And as several others have pointed out, the specs are continuously being updated. I agree that the most sensible thing to do would be to just sit and wait patiently for a couple of years, while purchasing the 4K titles that catch your fancy. It wasn't many years back that a really good 1080p projector cost the same as the laser-phosphor projectors are going for now. Now $2000 gets you a 1080p projector which renders a truly wonderful picture.

Here's what I'm not understanding about the HDR spec- we need much brighter projectors than currently available to meet the nits requirement needed. The thing is, in my completely blacked out theater room with my JVC rs400 at -10 iris on a 131" wide 2.35:1 screen it can still be blindingly bright with SDR. That's 1200ish lumens calibrated and ballpark 15fl with the iris closed. I can't see running a 3000 lumen projector. Am I missing something?

 

[Race Bannon]

I want to be a fairly early adopter ( I have a home theater set up with projector), but I'm sitting out this year. It just hasn't settled into the sweet spot for me yet.

 

[ArnoldLayne]

Ron: Sweat it out. This is not the time to get flippant with your cash. I sense and relate to your regrets and desperation too. But I am hesitating until everyone gets on board with a 'standard' in much the same way I've absolutely refused to upgrade to the new Oppo 4K player because of its glitches and also, for the reason it lacks Dolby Vision which is being promised in all 'upgraded' players later this year. The Oppo rep hinted somewhere around June.

Epson's pixel shifting 5030 projector thoroughly impressed me, even if it is faux 4K. By far the best bang for the buck currently without sacrificing PQ on a screen max of 133 diagonal inches. Impressive to say the least. Good motion control, no blur, smooth transitioning without loss of fine detail. In the words of the immortal George and Ira Gershwin, "who could ask for anything more?!" And having attended shows and demos a plenty, honestly, the $30,000 plus models offered only marginal improvements to my eyes on screens of comparable size. Lets be clear here. The 'real' value of dropping a house payment on a deluxe projector is when the screen size exponentially grows to some gargantuan dimension. The losses in color density, detail, etc. et al become negligible to non-existent. But if you're looking to do yourself proud in a traditional home set-up (you know, a basement with 8 ft. ceilings and a screen that isn't 1 1/2 football fields in length) then the Epson is a solid choice with great value and sure to please. Best.

Agree. I think I will upgrade from 5020 to 5030- hopefully the motorization works well! And the pixel shift should look smoother on my 120" AT screen. Looks like a decent upgrade after 3 years with the 5020.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Here's what I'm not understanding about the HDR spec- we need much brighter projectors than currently available to meet the nits requirement needed. The thing is, in my completely blacked out theater room with my JVC rs400 at -10 iris on a 131" wide 2.35:1 screen it can still be blindingly bright with SDR. That's 1200ish lumens calibrated and ballpark 15fl with the iris closed. I can't see running a 3000 lumen projector. Am I missing something?

Wes, that's a great point.

I run my projector on low light -- except for 3D.

At low light, I am getting plenty of luminance.

These projectors start outputting these massive levels of brightness and it's going to be overkill.

I would love to know the answer to your question as well.

 

[titch]

Wes, that's a great point.

I run my projector on low light -- except for 3D.

At low light, I am getting plenty of luminance.

These projectors start outputting these massive levels of brightness and it's going to be overkill.

I would love to know the answer to your question as well.

HDR needs a much higher peak luminance than is required for an SDR image. A high peak luminance allows better reproduction of specular highlights, such as eye glints and reflections of lights from water, metal, jewelry, and glossy painted surfaces. Such highlights can make an HDR image appear almost three-dimensional. A higher peak luminance also allows better reproduction of colors, especially when shown at relatively high brightnesses. This follows from the fact that HDR supports a much larger "color volume" than SDR. With higher luminance comes the ability to show colors that in an SDR system would have been de-saturated or rendered much dimmer or both. This is irrespective of the "widening" of the color gamut, due to using primaries that are more saturated, which enlarges the color volume (ref. Alen Koebel, Widescreen Review, December 2016).

 

[Sam Posten]

Anyone who is telling you you need more than 1000 nits for quality HDR is either misinformed or trying to sell you something. Tell those people to get a life.

 

[titch]

Anyone who is telling you you need more than 1000 nits for quality HDR is either misinformed or trying to sell you something. Tell those people to get a life.

Current practice for HDR TVs, which are normally viewed in well-lit rooms, requires at least 540 nits of peak luminance for a “premium” experience (or a much higher 1,000 nits, depending on the technology). Achieving this with a projection system would be very costly for any reasonable-sized screen. Fortunately, it is not necessary for images viewed under the low-light conditions found in a typical commercial cinema or home theatre. Within a sufficiently darkened theatre, the natural adaptation of the human visual system slides its simultaneously viewable dynamic range down to a level that makes 100 nits (~29 foot-Lamberts), for example, seem very bright. That particular number is
just over twice the nominal luminance of digital-cinema images, which is 48 nits (14 fL). Not coincidentally, the peak luminance of Dolby Cinema is just a little higher at 108 nits (31.5 fL).

 

[Andy_Munich]

This thread has been very illuminating.

<rimshot>

But seriously, I'm glad this popped up in my HTF email. I'm in the same place as el presidente Ron on this one.

 

[oilmanmojo]

Just beware of the lower level 4k Sony projectors. there are reports, and it appears my Sony 500es may be suffering from contrast degradation. These are wonderful machines when new, but mine appears to have a brighter "dark screen" than when i first purchased it. Sony is not really helping in the matter, quietly replacing those still under warranty, but nothing for those who have projectors having this issue but out of warranty. I understand the newer 675 models are corrected, but thought i would caution especially since the problem doesn't manifest itself for a year or more

 

[Dave Upton]

As someone who owns the 675ES and watches HDR content on it - i'm very happy. It's certainly not as drastic as it would be on an OLED or newer LED television, but it's a dramatic improvement from Rec709, largely due to the BT2020 color space.

For HDR to truly work on a projector, you need high light output and deep blacks at the same time, which makes laser based units the only ones that can do this without compromising.

At the moment, I am guessing we will see an "affordable" laser based 4K PJ released at CES or CEDIA 2019. In the interim, the sharpness and clarity of the current 4K/semi-HDR units are still amazing, and they are fantastic displays. In 2-3 years time i'll likely be upgrading again, but I'm extremely happy for now.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Just beware of the lower level 4k Sony projectors. there are reports, and it appears my Sony 500es may be suffering from contrast degradation. These are wonderful machines when new, but mine appears to have a brighter "dark screen" than when i first purchased it. Sony is not really helping in the matter, quietly replacing those still under warranty, but nothing for those who have projectors having this issue but out of warranty. I understand the newer 675 models are corrected, but thought i would caution especially since the problem doesn't manifest itself for a year or more

I have the 55ES. It's now 2 years old. Wonder if it will have the same issues and if I should contact Sony.

 

[oilmanmojo]

I have the 55ES. It's now 2 years old. Wonder if it will have the same issues and if I should contact Sony.

ron--not sure if your unit is having the issue as there is some thought that the newer Sony projectors are not as susceptible to the issue. i had thought my unit was doing good but i had been watching the thread on the avsforum on degradation with some concern that mine might have the issue at some point. As i said earlier, i started noticing a brighter background (especially the dark screens). it is very noticeable when i use the zoom feature to zoom out on a 2.35 movie as i have a 2.35 screen. i started noticing the overscan (would be your "black bars" above and below the 2.35 style movie) lighting up the area below my screen. The top of my dropdown screen has a fidelio velvet top so it was never noticeable. If you know a calibrator, he can verify if this is an issue. However, if yours has an iris feature, and do not zoom out to fill a 2.35 screen, you might not notice the issue. My dynamic iris really keeps the contrast up, so right now its just a nuisance on my 2.35 movies when i zoom out.

 

[Ron Sutton]

Hi, I'm new to the forum.
Like some others here, I have been following the state of home theater projectors for some time. I am currently enjoying a Sharp XVZ 20000 on a 100" Elune Vision, 1.0 gain screen, which I have been using for a number of years now. I purchased it used at a fraction of its new price. My wife questioned why I bought it, and I replied that 4K was coming and that it would serve us until then. It is easy to be satisfied with what you have, unless you are spending time looking at something better. I too want to upgrade, but it seems like there is always some new technological reason to wait.
First it was getting true 4K, then HDR or Dolby Vision, now laser light or latest iteration of HDMI. Nobody wants to spend their hard earned money, on a expensive projector and then a year later have buyers remorse because of some new advancement they wished they waited for. As we all know, no matter what you buy, there is always going to be something better, or the item you bought, less expensive.
Also, may I add, you will probably have to upgrade the other components of your system to take advantage of what your new projector is capable of.
It seems like the improvements are coming too fast, for us to determine the best time to take the plunge?

 

[DaveF]

...It seems like the improvements are coming too fast, for us to determine the best time to take the plunge?

Welcome to the forum!

For me, the difficulty is that improvements are coming too slowly to projectors. UHD TVs are now mature: they are true 4k, support HDR, the wide color gamut, and are priced to sell in the 60"-70" range. But projectors are lagging several years behind. True 4k is still priced over $5000, I think. HDR is only now emerging in projectors.

Put another way, as you framed it: any projector bought today, especially under $5000, is compromised. Subsequent revisions are sure to be less compromised, until mature full-featured UHD projectors eventually are available for consumer pricing.

All that said: if I were shopping today, just one year after I bought an HD projector, I'd buy a pseudo-4k projector. They're now priced like my HD projector was from about a year ago. I don't think there's any reason not to buy a pseudo-4k projector as an interim solution until true 4k/HDR/whatever is available.

 

[Ron Sutton]

Hi David, wasn't sure if anyone was still following this topic.
I think it has to be native 4K for me, and I am willing to spend more to have it, even if I can't tell the difference. I don't upgrade very often. Contrast, Brightness and Colour accuracy have a greater impact on picture quality than resolution, that is, if we are only talking about difference between 1080p and 4K. There is also the issue of light source. Ideally the projector would employ a long lasting, stable, LED or laser source. My current projector uses a bulb that lasts only ~3000 hours at $350 each. You are right, about TVs getting the new technologies first, as there are more manufacturers making those, than those making projectors. Whatever new tech that comes to TVs, eventually comes to projectors. There aren't many big companies making 4K projectors. To me at least, it seems there is only Sony, JVC, Epson, BenQ and a few niche companies. $5000 dollars will buy you a very large, amazing TV, making one question the need for a projector. For me though, projector is the way to go. I'm only waiting for for the sweet spot where all the right advancements find their way into a projector in my price range. If I was to buy today, it would be one of the Sony 4K projectors.
After which, we can open a discussion about which is better, a white screen or black one.

 

[Robert_Zohn]

CEDIA is now less than 2 weeks away and we'll see every major manufacturers next gen of projectors. This will be a big year for not only 4K projectors, but also the integration of HDR and all of the great new TV system picture quality advancements.

Anyone going to CEDIA that would like to meet-up?