Banned at AVSForum

[Andreas21]

Andreas,

First of all, thank you for the apology. I have always tried to be careful about how I post, especially knowing how people take things out of content. I never post a lie or purposely try to mis-lead anyone. 

I have never praised Sony as the "end all / be all" of the projector world. I have spoke about the pros and cons of the 885, which I do believe is a very good projector. Just as I have spoke about the pros and cons of the RS4500,  RS600, or other previous JVC models. Each have their own strength and weaknesses but again both are fantastic projectors. 

I spoke with Kris Deering on Tuesday and we are both on the same exact page regarding the 885. Just as I said then, which he agreed, that I don't believe a "manual" iris setting will ever be added to this unit. It was never listed as a feature of the unit and no one even knew the unit had one until someone caught a video of it. Would it be great if they "turned it on"? Absolutely. But I think people are fooling themselves if they are just waiting for this to happen.

But I do think Sony can offer a few firmware updates which would fix some of these issues, without the need of this iris.

I believe they should increase the "dimming range" of the laser power setting. If the laser power is set to 0, it needs to put out even less light, so those with small or high-gain screen can easily target their desired fL for SDR. Even though from the best I can tell, this really isn't an issue except for a couple people with fairly small, high-gain screens.

I also believe Sony should be able to issue a firmware update to address the "non-functioning" dynamic dimming. There currently is no benefit to this feature at all. They have done a good job in with their "Dynamic Iris" systems, so I believe Sony can improve on this "Dynamic Laser Dimming".

I never said any A/B (Sony - JVC) demo was biased, or rigged in JVC's favor. I never weighted in at all on the John Schuermann's shootout. I did weigh in when Arrow demo'd a JVC RS4500 against the Sony 885, especially when one unit was calibrated and the other wasn't, to which he stated. I did say that I couldn't understand how Bandyka could say the JVC RS4500 "killed" the 885 in contrast, when Arrow confirmed they were both setup with a Native contrast between 16-17K:1 with matched light output. Now it seems clear the "Dynamic dimming" is broken on the 885, so the RS4500 should certainly preforms better in low APL scenes, especially if the DI features were enables on both units.

Both of these shootouts had guys who favored each of the units. I think a lot of these things come down to a person's budget and what aspects of an image are most important to them.

I run a 5000ES stack, so I can light up my 17' wide Stewart Vistascope 2-way masking screen at one house. I have a single 5000ES on a 14' wide 2.0 4-way masking screen at another house. Both of these units look great, especially on these large screens. But do I want even brighter units, and even higher native contrast? Heck Yes I do!

I am not a huge fan of DI tricks, and one reason I have always enjoyed my RS600 in my bedroom. It has incredible native contrast, and I don't have to deal with any trade-offs of DI.

And no, I do not have a storefront, and I don't push products on any AVS members. I am a dealer mainly so I can buy products for myself, and for other family and friends. I have been a member of AVS for about 13 years. I can tell you I haven't sold 13 projectors on AVS in all my years online. So thats less than one projector a year.

I hope within the next few years I will be able to move away from projectors completely, and have some sort of huge "LED Micro-Tile" display. 

Thanks,
Chris

The problem with going brighter and get even more contrast is normally not what happens, but I think JVC and Sony has done a good job keeping the contrast as high as they have with the brightness increase. But for people with normal size screens and SDR the brightness has been enough for some years, not if you prefer 100+ nits when watching SDR though (personally I like around 16-18fl). Now that HDR has come we need more brightness, but for me personally I will not accept a big increase in blacklevel so I am stuck with a Cineversum BW2 (JVC RS520) and not bright enough for the specular highlights for HDR as I can only manage around 80-90 nits in 2.35:1 mode and the iris at 0. I think blacklevels and contrast is as important or even more important than brightness even when it comes to HDR. It is not called High Dynamic Rage for nothing. I also don´t think 15000:1 is enough contrast to call it HDR.

To get something we can call "real" HDR on really big screens we need to wait for things like Samsungs The Wall or we need to get a personal Dolby Cinema at home.

I am impressed when I read about the new 85" Sony TV with 10000nits in the spec, I actually did not think we would see that in many years. I have not had the pleasure yet to visit a Dolby Cinema as no such thing exist in Scandinavia. But I actually think we would have a much better HDR experience at home with projectors if the same standard was implemented for HT and then "only" 100nits would be enough. But for people like you that prefers brightness that would not do it. Personally I think 30fl and 100IRE at full screen when coming from a dark scene (it happens sometimes) is way to bright even with my puny 10 feet wide screen and when the size increases the same brightness looks even brighter. There is a reason for both THX and ISF has set a "standard" at around 50nits, but it is only a recommendation and when I calibrate for customers I always listen to their preference and calibrate to the brightness they want.

I also think the "LED Micro-Tile" is the future of HT, but I think it will be a while before normal people with normal wallets can afford one. And we also have the problem with it being non acoustical for people using AT screens. For me that is not a problem as I don´t use AT screens.

[rob-houston]

So this is where the gang is all hanging out? I actually miss our dust-ups. Seegs, Andreas, Kris, etc... And I don’t mind everyone talking about me. I am excited I was included in some of the discussions here. I do find it interesting that the majority here are jvc owners. That is an odd trend. Anyway, I won’t jump in here on my first post and start a war... I just wanted to say Happy New Year to everyone and yes I do miss you all...

Carry on...

Where's the IGNORE button? 

[Andreas21]

Where's the IGNORE button? 

I asked myself the exact same question when I read his post.

[Baseball0618]

Dylan and Tom,

I truly appreciate both of your comments.

Im not in the RS600 thread much anymore, but I still have my RS600.

Once I loaded the custom gamma curves it fixed the main issue I had with the unit which was the default HDR performance. Now it looks great with HDR.

Its hanging in my master bedroom and I use it every single night.

I too have appreciated Chris's participation over at AVS and he has always been a poster whose opinion I valued.   However that place just gets overrun w/ misinformation and complete and utter blind brand loyalty.  I have owner Sony and now JVC projectors and I am only loyal to one entity, me and my happiness w/ my equipment.  Every-time I post over there I accuse do being a troll as if I talk about the RS4500 all the time and how great it is and if you go back and read the posts that's not the case at all.  Anytime a few obvious posters post over there blatantly post incorrect info and you try to bring it to light they are afforded free reign to dismiss anything that's said and criticize people who are just trying to make sure all the info being put forth in that thread is factual so that people that might be in the market aren't give false representation of a given unit.   Some people will just gloss over a projectors faults just because the want to think they have the best projector on the face of the earth or so that they think there's is better than another unit it's constantly compared to.  It's so stupid.  No projector is perfect and I'll be the first to be open about the the fan noise on the RS4500, the poor hdmi sync times and the want for more native (which applies to just about everyone that has a projector). 

If  AVS wanted to make their forum more informative they should put post restrictions on some people that constantly flood the threads w/ misinformation and personal attacks.   I am guilty of the attacks too to one individual (bark,bark) b/c there is absolute no reasoning with them and it tends to push you over the edge.

[Baseball0618]

I am excited about the next (hopefully) firmware update for the Oppo, giving it HDR tone mapping along the lines of the Lumagen. That will make the Oppo the player to have in my opinion.

Added
I should have quoted the post about the Samsung 8500.

I saw this, but if you have custom gamma curves already loaded up will you use it?

[DavidHir]

I saw this, but if you have custom gamma curves already loaded up will you use it?

No.  The Oppo is outputting a 2.4 gamma, so that is ideally what you would target while using the feature/tone map.

[AVSMike]

I saw this, but if you have custom gamma curves already loaded up will you use it?

Do not know, but will be interesting to see. I believe Kris uses the tone mapping of the Lumagen over custom gamma curves. So if oppo's implementation is good, then it will be very welcome. Especially so that owners do not have to go through the learning process of custom curve design.

[DavidHir]

Honestly, I think everyone here is pretty much on the same page.  I think everyone in this thread wants the best projector for his purpose and needs along with price factored into it, of course.  I also think everyone here wants the REALITY about the positives and negatives of every projector which is opposite to what is going on at the other forum among too many people there. 

I too am not brand loyal as I've owned A LOT of Sony displays (LCD, SXRD RPTV, direct view CRT, SD CRT RPTV, HD CRT RPTV), Toshiba CRT, Samsung plasma, Insignia LCD, Panasonic (ST30, VT60 plasmas), Epson (LS10000) and several JVC projectors.  I simply go with what I feel is the best based on my preferences, reliability, and money I am willing to spend at that time.     

[AVSCraig]

I saw this, but if you have custom gamma curves already loaded up will you use it?

The new Panasonic, being able to re-map 4000 nit movies to 1000 nits sounds more useful to me with the custom gamma curves, but I may wind up with both players at some point. Maybe the Oppo will gain that feature too.

[AVSMike]

Yep, rather than push one brand over the other, I usually list the positive and negatives for each model. But, you also have to take into account the screen and screen gain, along with throw. Reason being, if let's say we are comparing a VW385 with an RS640. If the screen is small enough or has enough gain, the DCI P3 filter can be a pretty big advantage for the JVC with HDR. If the screen is going to be big enough that it will not be able to be used, then the DCI P3 filter is a smaller factor. Just like I do not count the DCI P3 filter in the Epson 5040 as a huge factor. The 5040 has so little light output with filter engaged, that I do not know a single person that uses it.

[DavidHir]

The new Panasonic, being able to re-map 4000 nit movies to 1000 nits sounds more useful to me with the custom gamma curves, but I may wind up with both players at some point. Maybe the Oppo will gain that feature too.

The new Panasonic does sound very interesting.  I just sold my UB900 as I figure it will take a big drop with the new units coming out soon - will ride it out with my Oppo for a while and see how the Panasonic 420/820 turn out in reliable hands.  Chad will be out Tuesday for my RS440.   I have about 20-plus UHD BDs waiting here.

[darinp]

Just as I said then, which he agreed, that I don't believe a "manual" iris setting will ever be added to this unit.
...
I also believe Sony should be able to issue a firmware update to address the "non-functioning" dynamic dimming.

You think it is more likely that Sony will change their DI algorithms to be like their other projectors (where it did help intra-image CR in low level scenes) than to allow the user to pick the iris position? I'm not so sure about that.

I think there is a pretty good chance that adding the iris option would take less time to implement and test, and would get more bang for the buck as far as selling this projector model. It would be pretty easy to explain to people how adding the adjustable iris feature brought something good to the user, as opposed to basically admitting that the dynamic dimming didn't work very well in the first release. That is, marketing a new feature like the iris should be easier than marketing that they have now fixed something that was poorly implemented.

Even if Sony doesn't enable iris position choices in this model, I think it is good if people keep reminding them why it would be advantageous for many people (including those who want very different white levels for SDR than for HDR), so that in follow-on models they think about enabling this feature.

--Darin

[Ccool96]

You think it is more likely that Sony will change their DI algorithms to be like their other projectors (where it did help intra-image CR in low level scenes) than to allow the user to pick the iris position? I'm not so sure about that.

I think there is a pretty good chance that adding the iris option would take less time to implement and test, and would get more bang for the buck as far as selling this projector model. It would be pretty easy to explain to people how adding the adjustable iris feature brought something good to the user, as opposed to basically admitting that the dynamic dimming didn't work very well in the first release. That is, marketing a new feature like the iris should be easier than marketing that they have now fixed something that was poorly implemented.

Even if Sony doesn't enable iris position choices in this model, I think it is good if people keep reminding them why it would be advantageous for many people (including those who want very different white levels for SDR than for HDR), so that in follow-on models they think about enabling this feature.

--Darin

Yes, that’s my personal opinion.  I had a long talk with Kris Deering yesterday, and he also thinks it’s a long shot that Sony will ever do anything with the iris.

If they would increase the dimmable range of the laser, so people can target a lower fL for small or high-gain screens, I would consider that a reasonable solution. And personally I think that should be super simple, unless the laser doesn’t function properly at a lower power. 
 
But again, I would love for Sony to add manual control of the iris, I’m just not holding my breath. Even better, enable the dynamic abilities of the iris, especially if the dynamic laser dimming isn’t easy to improve.

[JoeRod]

Where's the IGNORE button? 

I asked myself the exact same question when I read his post.

No worries. I will stay over there and leave this site to you guys. Though we know a few of you are posting over there under different names. This means you. Lol

Take care and good luck.

[Dylan Seeger]

Yes, that’s my personal opinion.  I had a long talk with Kris Deering yesterday, and he also thinks it’s a long shot that Sony will ever do anything with the iris.

If they would increase the dimmable range of the laser, so people can target a lower fL for small or high-gain screens, I would consider that a reasonable solution. And personally I think that should be super simple, unless the laser doesn’t function properly at a lower power. 
 
But again, I would love for Sony to add manual control of the iris, I’m just not holding my breath. Even better, enable the dynamic abilities of the iris, especially if the dynamic laser dimming isn’t easy to improve.

My guess is, to save costs, the control board for the laser may actually be less refined than what's found in the 5000ES. This may be the cause for the crudeness of the laser dimming on the 885ES. We saw the same thing happen with LED control. Only OSRam with their RAPCUR module offered a powerful competent LED control module that offered fine step gradation and the speed necessary to act as a suitable replacement for a physical dynamic iris. The RAPCUR module was only found in the most costly LED based projectors.