BenQ LK990 First Impressions

[Javs]

I already said measuring this is very hard to do with this projector.  you think it isn't because you just input a 0% black pattern, measure it and call it a day,

No, I looked at a ton of content, I chose scenes and images which triggered the dimming. I tried to find the limit of when it would trip and when it would come out of dimming, I tried single pixels, I tried a mouse cursor, I tried the interstellar scene, I tries others like it, ALL the ADL patterns, ALL the Grey Gamma ADL patterns, In HDR and SDR (it was easy to kick the BenQ into HDR mode on my PC and then put whatever I wanted up).

I never saw the black floor go lower than a certain level. I didnt call it a day, I spent well over 30 hours on that projector just testing stuff. So, we obviously disagree on what good contrast is, as I said.

Measuring the power draw is not the same as measuring the actual light output, there could be 100 reasons why power draw is going up or down which none of us know about. The only quantifiable thing is a light meter reading.

[Javs]

I never said they were the same as the JVCs or Sonys, let alone the OLED. What I have repeatedly said is that is is good enough (to you) and acceptable enough so that the very real advantages that I see and that the LK990 has outweighs the disadvantages I see with the LK990's total black levels and contrast, capisce?

Then stop arguing that everybody 'did it wrong' and let people have their own opinions, and more importantly allow them the respect to have been able to figure it out on their own without constantly insinuating that they did something wrong.

MadVR tone mapping has been incredible for a couple years almost now, certainly since before the BenQLK990.

YES I sent HDR to it. Yes I had dynamic tone mapping, SO DID DYLAN. SO DID KRIS (With the Radiance).

Can you please have the respect to accept our conclusions.? Our opinions differ to yours. Thats it. The end.

[Javs]

Yep, and they also saved TONS of cash over buying a super high end, more expensive video processor like the Radiance Pro or Envy which they most likely can't and never will be able to afford!  They also didn't have to buy (also more expensive), build and/or maintain a PC in their HT environment, which many like me never want to have to do and deal with the hassles that it most likely will involve, especially those that aren't as PC or even tech savvy as you and I.

So tell me again how this is a bad thing or a disadvantage, being able to get dynamic tone mapping and also native DV support (which your Radiance Pros, Envys and MadVRs can't do btw) at utterly substantial cash savings of thousands of dollars and/or time savings and hassles with setup and maintenance of a PC?  I spoke with that ISF Calibrator/Dealer from Perth yesterday about LLDV, and he said that the Radiance Pro, which he is a dealer for, goes for about $10,000 there.  That is 20 TIMES what it costs for a Vertex2!  Granted, the RP does a lot more and may have slightly better images depending on which display it's used with, but at what point does the price/performance difference kick in at 20 TIMES the price???  I had them both and I can tell you, maybe 2 times the price of the Vertex2 for the RP is what I would pay, maybe even 3 times, but never 20 TIMES unless my financial situation drastically changed.  Beleive me, if I could I would have the Envy with a JVC RS4500 right now, but I would also now have an HDFury Vertex2/DIVA/Maestro in the chain so I could play native DV sources when they are available.  I hear it is especially good to do this with the AppleTV 4K since its conversion from DV sources to HDR10 is sub-optimal.  I believe this is why folks like @Claw and @Dominic Chan use it.

A PC running MadVR is not expensive at all. Maybe $1000. You dont need to run what's possible at 10/10ths. The way I run it, my video card is not even sweating so I could actually downgrade to a 2060 or 2070 most likely, and I am running a 5-6 year old PC with a GTX1080 which is a few years old now (probably equal to a 2070)... So I am just not buying that cost excuse.

I think the Envy is way out of the universe in terms of price, but that's up to them, I think the same of the Radiance, you would never catch me buying either.

I am not made of money either, I wish I was. In fact, you had the Laser Sony at one point? You have had twice as many projectors as I in the past few years on the forum, man, that aint cheap, even as a dealer (which I hardly am) I wouldn't have the cash for something like a laser Sony for another couple years those start at $20k here, so much more stuff to pay for in life. Even the LK990 here is $18k!!, not worth it at all!

As I said though, your spoof is great, good for you! Its simple just a form of DTM (I dont care about the native DV titles we are talking about ALL titles), but I also just dont care or need it. Importantly, It does not radically transform my opinion of the LK990 is the point here (and why I even chimed in days ago). Because I had the same greatness available to me here in the guise of MadVR, BACK THEN you told me since I wasn't using your settings I was not seeing the best image, which is pretty arrogant considering, dont you think that was a little over the top? If you have what you had now, and you met your own self from a year ago touting your settings while you had full dynamic tone mapping telling you that you didnt have the best image, would you really give that person the time of day? I dont think so.

WELCOME TO DYNAMIC TONE MAPPING. Its awesome. What you have is one flavour of it, and there are many. Accept them all and move on.

[AVSMike]

NO, I can send a FULL HDR signal. Tone-mapped as I want, however I want. There is NO SDR if I click that button.

The bandwidth is the same, I can send a 10,000 nit Tone Mapped signal or a signal optimised for my EXACT screen brightess (which DV doesnt even know!).

There is only a value between 0.0 and 1.0.

Do you understand that you cannot have any information above 1.0 for pixel brightness?

Can we please agree on that, this is actually FUNDAMENTAL to our discussion. You seem to think an HDR signal is superior to an SDR one purely based on its name, that's no way correct at all when you have control over how the container is filled with information.

I can put it within an SDR Gamma container or I can wrap it with an HDR flag and send it that way, its of no consequence. What matters is the source AND the display talking exactly the same language which means the display promises its calibrated to say, SDR 2.4 Gamma in which the source tone mapping knows that its going to look exactly as intended by the algorithms, if I choose to set my display to clip to 10,000 nits, but the peak white in the real world is 100 nits, or 300 nits, you have to tell the source what that peak is, that way it outputs the correct levels. The tone mapping we use largely leaves totally untouched any pixel brightness under the display peak you enter, if you enter 100 nits, and the peak is 90 nits, it will not compress a single pixel, it will be exactly 1:1, thats how you get 3 nit scenes like the one on the train in Terminator Dark Fate to look ABSOLUTELY SOURCE PERFECT. DV in its native form usually will do this too. The OLD way would compress all pixels in the same fashion no matter what, you would either clip to get shadow detail or roll off shallow and lose shadow detail in order to keep the highlights.

Also, ANY TIME you touch a contrast control, or select a mode which brightens or darkens the image, or use ANY kind of algorithm OTHER than the full 10,000 nits uncompressed image on disc you are either adding compression, or expanding the signal, please make this distinction EVEN WITH DV.

The assertion the '100 nits tone mapped SDR' is inferior to DV is absolutely nonsense when the algorithms behind it are sound.

I don't think you are ever going to get through to Dave. Also from my understanding, the LK990 is only able to do Rec709 color space even in HDR mode. So it is not just contrast that the JVC has as an advantage.

[rob-houston]

CLOSE THE THREAD!

[Dylan Seeger]

CLOSE THE THREAD!

 Absolutely agree. Points have been made on both sides. We're just going in circles now. Readers joining after this post can make up their own minds.