Let’s talk about 4K/8K projectors…the technology, where are we right now and what to expect moving forward. We have seen ultra short throw with hybrid laser illumination that flooded the market in the past couple of years…are they any good? How is the PQ compared to the traditional projector brethren?
Let’s discuss. 
Here’s some insights shared by Alf.
Looking to replace an old Panny AE2000 (yeah still going) and wondering if anything can be affordable for 4K but need maybe 5M throw to 96" screen
Mrs likes the film look of plasma so maybe could go to a bigger screen, maybe 120" but needs to be motorised as its dropping over a 65" Panny Plasma Commercial Monitor display.
Harder to justify 96" over 65" now without going bigger - then also have to maybe consider PrePro upgrade from XMC-1 as no 4K support in that. Is Atmos and 4K really so great to spend on?
See u still an ardent Emotiva supporter. 
For projector, if you want good PQ, there are only 2 brands to recommend - Sony and JVC. I have the privilege to play with both brands on several occasions. I’ll say go for a native 4K projector regardless laser or lamp based. If you desire only blacks akin to OLED, there is only one choice which is JVC. For for the N5 or N7 or if you want to save some $$$, you can go for the X7900 albeit using pixel shift technology but the PQ is almost as good as a true native 4K. JVC lamp module has had improved over the years and I am quite confident to say that the longevity of the lamp is rather good these days with rather good brightness level sustainability over time, meaning less need to recalibrate for colors for longer stretch of time. Anyway, OOTB calibration for my last JVC N7 is quite good. So there is really no need to do much calibration. Hassles free and great image quality.
Unless you want to go laser? Then it’s a while different ballgame altogether.
Just for info，
The JVC current series is the N series:
NX 5 / N5 / NX7/N7 / NX9/N9 ,some country have N11 and other naming , but all are refer to N .
The replacement of UH1 is the NZ3/N3 Laser light source DLP 4K for some market is called N68 .
Z is another series more toward the high end and integrated market.
Thanks for the clarification Peng and welcome to the forum.
Wiz,
when you ready ,i have a place called Workshop .
Here you go for the JVC N series new FW…
Live now
Just came across this very professional site.
JVC really 
♂.
Was wondering about the calibrated brightness of PJ image wrt HDR image peak brightness.
As we all know, PJ struggle to achieve the brightness of TVs, 500nits or more for true HDR presentation.
However, should the calibrated image be manually stopped down to the standard 22 FL (~75nits) or maintain whatever brightness the PJ is able to achieve? This is mainly in context of a dedicated bat cave room.
From the article, they seemed to have stopped down almost half the the available brightness to hit the 22 FL reference. I suppose the calibrated brightness is a bit less than peak numbers.
Very good question…from my understanding when it comes to foot lambert (fL). For a man-cave, the ideal fL should hover around 16 - 22fL so that we won’t feel the eye strain. For higher ambient lighting condition like in a living room with some stray lights, the fL will be considerably higher to compensate.
To measure the brightness of the image cast on your Projector screen which will in turn determine the ideal fL will depend on 3 variables namely, the lumens of the Projector (for my Sony VW870ES or VW995ES is about 2,200 lumens), the distance from the MLP to the screen, the screen size and the gain of the screen. For instance, my distance is about 3.42m with a zoom factor of 1.32X and a gain of 1.3. This roughly translates to 29.67fL for a 106" (diag) 2.35:1 cinemascope aspect ratio screen. This is plenty of brightness for a man-cave which needs about 22fL to avoid eye strain. But when it comes to HDR, particularly HDR contrast that will somewhat be affected by Dynamic Tone Mapping (DTM), having more headroom in fL is always a plus to get the best out of HDR quality. Because of DTM, Kris Deering found that Sony has issue with dynamic HDR Contrast level where he will have to lower it from the recommended setting of 80 to 43 to avoid white clipping whereas JVC N9 did an admirable DTM job to get the best HDR image.
For me, calibrating HDR is nigh impossible compared to normal Rec 709 (SDR) calibration because of the use of DTM. In short, I will not worry too much about the fL thing as long as your eyes feel comfortable for bright HDR scenes as well as darker scenes. Leave everything else to the display or source to do the DTM.
If you want to know how bright can your projector go for a certain screen size relative to your seating distance etc…visit this site: Projector Calculator | Projector Screen Calculator | Aspect Ratio Calculator | Screen Size Calculator | Distance Calculator - Projector Screen | Projection Screen
Having calibrated both OLED TVs and PJ, they are drastically different when it comes to HDR calibration
I believe the approach for HDR calibration on PJ seem accurate in that the calibrated image should average 40-50 nits and have a peak brightness no more than 100nits
The main issue is not calibrating to a standard brightness. The main issue is some disc /movies are mastered in 4000 nits and some in 1000 nits. This is the main problem
Movies mastered in 1000 nits are less of a problem for most pj. The ones in 4,000 and 10,000 are
When the source plays a material mastered in 4000 nits, we need to use a different profile , calibrated with settings optimised for 4000 nits source material .
On the same movie itself, like blade runner movie, US Disc are mastered at 10,000 nits ! Whilst the UK UHD version is mastered at 4,000 nits ! That’s why this is one helluva challenging movie when it comes to video
They will look drastically different using the same pj, one will appear slightly more washed out , if you apply the calibrated 1,000 nit setting on the PJ for the 4000 nit bluray source from UK. They will look awful
So it’s also important, if the PJ comes with at least 2 picture modes for HDR, if you intend to calibrate the PJ for HDR 1000nits curve and HDR 4000 nits curve
Agreed but sadly not all projector or TV allows that.
I didn’t know the master bootleg copy is mastered at 10,000 bits (Dolby Vision standards) for this movie when the display of today not able to support. 4K movies maxed out at 4,000nits for those with DV enhancement layer. 10,000 nits is a theoretical figure that DV is able to support.
You can try this for demo, once u get past blade runner, almost all others will be ok , lotsa Pj torture scenes in this one
But I agree, what we really want to achieve is to max out the dynamic range , not really about how much lumens each PJ is capable but more on how big pipeline of the dynamic range and how well the tone mapping engine maximises it
Gavin here is one video from kris deering, well explained on your question above , zoom in to about 37mins
He takes into consideration the viewing environment and how the eyes adapt when there is a sudden jump in light output . If you had used an Oled , you will understand what he means by that. That’s the problem most were complaining in xtremeplace previously with HDR when they first got their OLED few years ago , me included for the subtitles were also extremely bright. That’s the problem with static tone mapping, constantly bright throughout the entire movie
Zoom in again to 42mins and kris explains dynamic range is what matters
That’s the headache I have now with the BenQ 5700 , lol
To echo what Bryan already mentioned, HDR with dynamic metadata isn’t gonna make the whole movie brighter but rather it focuses on the specular highlights. This is where the HDR shine over SDR content. Of course HDR also brings about WCG which is 4 times more colours than Rec709 colorspace. Is it good or natural? It’s a moot point. Human eyes reacts more readily to luminosity (brightness of the color spectrums) as it affects the way we perceive contrast. Hence there is a differentiation in Contrast when we calibrate SDR vs another kind of Contrast adjustments when we calibrate HDR content.
I hope LG can also launch this projector in Singapore.
