Lumagen Radiance Pro

[AVSCraig]

The Lumagen and Panamorph DCR lens have helped continue to squeeze more performance picture wise out of my RS4500. I'm loving it ! 

[AVSCraig]

This latest HDR dynamic tone mapping firmware is excellent. Blade Runner 2049 looked amazing. 

[AVSMike]

Lumagen has announced a price increase, starting January 1st. Also Lumagen has announced that the 4240 and the 4440 are being discontinued.

[AVSMike]

Lumagen has posted new firmware. I downloaded and installed it late last night, but have not had time to look at it yet. Will do so in an hour or two.
http://lumagen.com/testindex.php?module=radiancepro_updates

[AVSMike]

Looking at some movies and the picture with the new firmware is fantastic. I am going to have to rewatch many of my movies.  

[AVSCraig]

Looking at some movies and the picture with the new firmware is fantastic. I am going to have to rewatch many of my movies.

What dpad setting are you using - 1 ? Can't wait to try this. 

[DLCPhoto]

Looking at some movies and the picture with the new firmware is fantastic. I am going to have to rewatch many of my movies.

Hey Mike,

This will be difficult to answer, but can you characterize the nature of the improvements you see with the Lumgan vs the JVC on its own with DTM?  I imagine one aspect of it would be eliminating the need to tweak settings on a per movie basis, but there's likely more to it than that.

And do you think you'd be able to consistently identify the differences in a Blind A/B test?  If so, what would the giveaways?  And would this be for all movies, or just the more 'difficult' ones?

Thanks.

[AVSMike]

What dpad setting are you using - 1 ? Can't wait to try this.

Yes, using 1.  

[AVSMike]

Hey Mike,

This will be difficult to answer, but can you characterize the nature of the improvements you see with the Lumgan vs the JVC on its own with DTM?  I imagine one aspect of it would be eliminating the need to tweak settings on a per movie basis, but there's likely more to it than that.

And do you think you'd be able to consistently identify the differences in a Blind A/B test?  If so, what would the giveaways?  And would this be for all movies, or just the more 'difficult' ones?

Thanks.

I can't. Since I already had the Lumagen, I did not bother to download the update adding this to the JVC, because I can't really compare the two. The calibration for my JVC is in my Lumagen, so if I took out the Lumagen, I lose the calibration. So it would not be an apples to apples comparison. 
With the Lumagen, I do zero tweaking. 

[DLCPhoto]

I can't. Since I already had the Lumagen, I did not bother to download the update adding this to the JVC, because I can't really compare the two. The calibration for my JVC is in my Lumagen, so if I took out the Lumagen, I lose the calibration. So it would not be an apples to apples comparison.
With the Lumagen, I do zero tweaking.

Thanks Mike, and understood.

If anybody else here can speak to this, I think the observations could be useful.

[AVSCraig]

Kris Deering probably could. 

[AVSMike]

Yes, Kris has compared and he posted some info. Kris said that JVC did a very good job, especially for a first attempt. Now keep in mind that Kris's comparison between JVC's DTM and the Lumagen was done before the last two firmware updates on the Lumagen, so the gap between the two has increased. But back when Kris did compare, Kris said often times the two looked very similar. Where there was separation was in the tougher scenes. But I will say, Lumagen's DTM has improved a lot with the last two firmware updates. 

[Kris Deering]

Hey Mike,

This will be difficult to answer, but can you characterize the nature of the improvements you see with the Lumgan vs the JVC on its own with DTM?  I imagine one aspect of it would be eliminating the need to tweak settings on a per movie basis, but there's likely more to it than that.

And do you think you'd be able to consistently identify the differences in a Blind A/B test?  If so, what would the giveaways?  And would this be for all movies, or just the more 'difficult' ones?

Thanks.

I've mentioned before that I think JVC did a great job with their new tone mapping, especially given their first shot at it. When I did my comparisons against the Lumagen here, it was with a much older build of the Lumagen tone mapping than what is available now. Even then the differences with "difficult" material were quite noticeable. I had a friend that has a JVC over to see as he was curious and he was surprised at how much better the Lumagen looked with content that really tests tone mapping. Because of the nature of JVC's tone mapping it also still requires user intervention to tweak (sometime on a movie by movie basis), whereas the Lumagen is set it and forget it. So not only are we talking about much better performance across the full range of tone mapping but also a much easier experience for the user. 

This also doesn't take into account any of the other benefits the Lumagen brings to a video setup, which can be substantial depending on the setup.

[DLCPhoto]

I've mentioned before that I think JVC did a great job with their new tone mapping, especially given their first shot at it. When I did my comparisons against the Lumagen here, it was with a much older build of the Lumagen tone mapping than what is available now. Even then the differences with "difficult" material were quite noticeable. I had a friend that has a JVC over to see as he was curious and he was surprised at how much better the Lumagen looked with content that really tests tone mapping. Because of the nature of JVC's tone mapping it also still requires user intervention to tweak (sometime on a movie by movie basis), whereas the Lumagen is set it and forget it. So not only are we talking about much better performance across the full range of tone mapping but also a much easier experience for the user.

This also doesn't take into account any of the other benefits the Lumagen brings to a video setup, which can be substantial depending on the setup.

Appreciate this, Kris.

With regard to what I put in bold in your comment, did he indicate specifically what about the image he found to be that much better than his JVC?

To be clear, I'm not doubting or challenging his observations, just wanting to understand how the superior performance of the Lumagen manifests itself.

For example, when I compared my prior RS400 to my current NX7, for HDR content, colors were dramatically more vivid, and the image had overall much better 'pop' (not a very precise term, to be sure!).  Resolution and detail wise, the differences were much more subtle, at least with actual content, not patterns, and at normal viewing distance.

So I have a reasonably good feel for what someone would expect going from an RS400 to NX7, and am trying to get a grasp on what a Lumagen, or Envy for that matter, would bring to the table (other than a 'set it and forget it' capability, which would be most welcome by itself).

[Baseball0618]

I have been fiddling with the the Dpad setting after the most recent firmware update and have found that I prefer a setting of 1 over my previous setting of 3.  However I can't remember how to copy and save the change to all of my inputs.  Can anyone easily tell me the proper steps to do this?  I would contact Craig Round whom set up and calibrated my system, but I don't want to call him over the holidays.  

Thanks in advance.