Excellent job. One question, since you mentioned you don’t have a batcave, do you calibrate for day time and night time viewing using gamma 2.2 and 2.4 separately?
Very nice Sammy.
I wonder in expert dark mode with iris 3, how much luminance does it produce before the calibration?
mine is only about 40 and I have to set as high as 8 to get it over 55+.
I’ve calibrated Expert Dark at BT1886 and Expert Bright at 2.2, the apparent ISF modes. On the LG, you can also calibrate Filmmaker, Cinema and Game. During the day I often have considerable light coming in as I’m too lazy to engage the black out curtains (which I had to do with the previous BenQ). The LG HU810 is bright enough in Standard Mode with the iris open all the way that the picture is actually quite bright with the window behind the screen and some light coming in from the door. Watching news or sports or reality TV is fine like that. However, if I’m watching a movie during the day, I will engage all the blackout curtains and use Expert Bright. But it is still not a batcave so I can only get a perfect picture at night. I can watch the OLED if I’m not happy enough with the contrast in the day.
I’ve also calibrated 1886 and 2.2 for the two ISF modes on my Panasonic OLED, which are Professional 1 and Professional 2. Works quite well too.
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I get about 50 nits max luminance with Expert Dark Mode at Iris 3. Interestingly, I get about the same 53 nits in Expert Bright at Iris 5. Expert Dark (Iris 3) looks brighter in a completely dark room compared to Expert Bright (Iris 5) even though they are about the same lumens. I think this is caused by the higher contrast in Expert Dark due to the lower black levels. I adjust the Max Lumens setting in MadVR to match so it tone maps down to the exact level. With LG’s dynamic tone mapping it’s a mysterious black box but sometimes works well. With MadVR you have full control and I hardly adjust things these days as MadVR usually gets it just right.
I didn’t calibrate the SDR Game mode, only HDR game mode and the max luminance in HDR Game mode is about 100 nits. But the 100 lumens was with DTM off. With DTM on, everything is darker, even dark scenes. Interesting DTM off or on doesn’t make as much of a difference in calibrated HDR Cinema mode. It seems that LG has set certain operating parameters with each mode and you really have to try to calibrate each mode to see which works best since each mode reacts differently to things like DTM.
For SDR, I calibrated Expert Dark, Expert Light, Filmmaker and Cinema. For HDR I calibrated Game and Cinema modes. The best in a completely dark room is Expert Dark and its the only one I really use at night. Since I tone map Dolby Vision and HDR10 to SDR BT2020 using MadVR, I don’t use HDR on the projector except for comparisions
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Here is a discussion on the difference between BT.1886 and 2.4
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Interesting, actually u can just stick with either 1 gamma mode will do. For most calibration s/w, BT1886 around (2.35) is recommended.
I’ve got two version, expert dark on gamma 2.4, for movies at night with black out automated curtains flanking for light absorption . It’s superb with iris at 3, especially when watching movies at night movies. I never find the need to push iris down to 1 or below 3. Black levels are good enough with iris at 3. On scope 2:35 :1 content, the black masking bar works wonder! Contrast is damn bloody good with the ultra black masking bar
For SDR, I usually shoot for 15-18 fL (51 to 62 nits). For HDR, the minimum goal is 100 nits, but 120 to 150 is better.
I switch it to BT1886 during the day, that is slightly nicer.
Apart from a good calibration from calman, the biggest improvement can be seen from light control within the room. All those calibration will mean nothing if you have light bleed all over the room. So you will notice there is absolutely no need to upgrade to JVC laser if you get the light controlled and calman 1D 3D LUT done for HDR on the LG, they are far superior and the best way to calibrate the PJ. Or take the path Sammy has taken vide the madvr approach maximising the system for better results vide SDR2020.
Sammy’s approach is very wise indeed, using a much superior 3D LUT & 1D LUT calibration with calman with SDR picture modes for HDR content. So hdr content now plays back in SDR picture mode. Which the Lg has a superb autocal by calman built in. It is impossible to beat this approach compared to using a manual calibration approach. The 3D LUT and 1D LUT for grayscale is “FAR FAR SUPERIOR” to any method of manual calibration or autocal . One can really forget about eyeballing the pic for calibration, that is not called calibration . That is simply hantam according to your eyes. So ya, no such thing as “calibration with your eyes and preference.” Only the meter can pick up these colours accurately. Too much red, your purple that is a combination of blue and red is gonna look different. So does your pink when red combines white. So no such thing as “ I calibrate with my eye”, if u hear someone say that, he has no clue what he is doing…
This approach that Sammy has taken is something a lot of people are starting to do, because it preserves more dynamic range for the SDR content that was graded at 100 nits. Especially for pj. Ultimately, it comes down to how comfortable the end user is with a brighter SDR image in their viewing environment vide madvr
So ya, that’s the benefit of sdr2020 with madvr. Using original hdr content, it strips everything and presents it in SDR mode but a superior SDR image
It really depends on how you want to present SDR. SDR uses a relative gamma, so it can be tailored to any light level. If you use all 100 nits for SDR and HDR, the difference might not be pronounced, since the projector’s tone mapping should do an ‘on-the-fly’ grade of the HDR content to the same light level (100 nits). The HDR image will still have the benefits of 10-bit resolution—better delineation of color and grayscale with less chance of artifacts like banding or crush—and wider color gamut. And there is more range in the signal, which can provide a different overall look depending on grading choices.
On the other hand, if you use, say, 50 nits for SDR and the full 100 nits for HDR, and the tone mapping tries to preserve the typical SDR range within that 50 nits—which is hard to do with most onboard projector processing—you will get a bit more upper range for highlights in HDR compared to the SDR grade. This may preserve a bit more of the HDR look compared to the SDR look."
I still find the hdr approach with LG’s tone mapping to be good enough for my environment, especially when you have light control and black masking bar for scope 2:35 : 1, they do an excellent job.
If I had to upgrade again, I would still pick the LG’s 8k native 4k projectors with built in autocal calman… it’s very hard to beat for its price
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With MadVR you have the option of output in SDR or HDR with HDR content as its just a switch in the software. I’ve compared the two and find the output almost indistinguishable except for the different color calibration. MadVR has a scripting language, where you can tell it to tone map HDR content to, say, 120 nits and output via HDR; while processing SDR content differently and outputting via SDR. It’s very flexible. I would say the main reason I am using SDR BT2020 with HDR content is that the Calman calibration is better and projectors can’t get very bright anyway.
Depending on the power of your GPU, MadVR has a ton of options for various sorts of upscaling/downscaling of chroma etc. Basically, you can tailor the picture to your exact preference given your GPU processing power.
The main effect of using MadVR with the HU810 now, is that for whatever content, I don’t find myself adjusting anything. Once set up, everything comes out very nice, and with HDR I’m not constantly fiddling with the controls to get the best picture. It just works. Just like an OLED. Highly recommended for the HU810 and probably most projectors.
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Hey @desray, for this, is it referring to PJs or also for TVs in general?
For my oled, for sdr, i use 2.2 for bright room and 2.4 for dark room. Wanted to explore bt1886 too but still mulling if there are advantages
As you are aware that all my calibration focused primarily on the projector. So I’ll say BT1886 is more suited for the projector in my case. I’m not sure whether it will have any difference for OLED TV. But in any case, I wouldn’t waste time recalibrating at BT1886 if you have already achieved good results with 2.2. For dark room viewing, 2.4 is the way to go for either TV/Projector setup.
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I concur with desray, I have both gamma 2.2 for tv and BT1886 for projector. Id have to say that Bt1886 is nicer for PJ and tv compared to 2.2 in brighter room… Gamma 2.4 is solid at night with all the blackout curtains absorbing stray lights and black masking bar
I’ve had both TV (past) and Projector(present) in the living room… the experience is slightly different… I think for TV, BT1886 is better in a bright room compared to 2.2, but you can try. If u have stray sunlight shining towards your OLED panel, then probably 2.2… I’m sure most will have thin curtains to block the stray lights shining towards your tv … so if that’s the case, BT1886 will/ should be nicer… I think it really depends on how much light u let in the room
If u open all curtains and windows and have light through the living area, then I reckon 2.2 is good for day viewing … for TV still ok, u can open all the curtains and windows and watch your programme… projectors challenging unless u have ALR screen, but ALR screens has its limitations also…
Anyway, u only calibrate once and u r done ! The autocal from calman is so easy… hit calibrate and go for your coffee. If u need to do it at night, calibrate early and wake up midnight, no choice…
I do it once and I’m done now … no more fiddling with the video
Maybe if need be, follow the path of Sammy with MadVR… it is so good this MadVR thing…
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Thanks for the inputs. Ok i will stay put with 2.4 for dark room then 
For my Panasonic OLED, using Calman Home for Panasonic and Pgenerator, I calibrated ISF dark (called Professional 2) to BT.1886 and ISF bright(called Professional 1) to 2.2 It’s just nice for those two modes. In total I have four calibrations two for HDR and two for SDR. ISF dark is too dark with light coming in from open windows and ISF Bright is too bright in complete darkness. It’s very obvious to me and not a matter of liking it or not. In the daylight, with ISF dark, I struggle to see things and in complete darkness with ISF bright, everything is too glaring and uncomfortable to watch. I’m not so sure its just the calibration and the gamma chosen. I think the TV manufacturers design their ISF dark and bright modes for exactly those two situations because they are so dramatically different.
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I just took a little time to compare my two calibrations in HDR at BT.1886 and 2.2 on my Panasonic OLED. Extremely bright scenes make no difference, but there is a clear difference in dark scenes. Check out Harry Potter 7 Part II, the scene where Valdermoot brings his followers to the clifftop to attack Hogwarts. I’m using the Dolby Vision file processed through a HDFury to LLDV. I previously analyzed the scene with MadVR and most of it is around 5 nits, so its extremely dark. With 2.2, the black is very slightly green and hazy, whereas on BT.1886 it is deep OLED Black. You do get ever so slightly more shadow detail at 2.2, but its really just a tiny bit and cannot make up for the absolute deep black in BT.1886.
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Heads up. Calman home has new release. 1 dec 2022
The release notes does not seem to have major upgrades.
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Happy with the calibration now so won’t be using the update, however, you reminded me to put in my calendar to do the update around Oct 2023 when my one year subscription is up.
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Not much to gain if use this rev to recalibrate, unless your display had a bug that is fixed w this version.
I’m also not recalibrating w this version. But i may want to dive deeper using the PGen w calman w spectro to see if can improve results further. So far, not much time to do so w 2 young kiddos lolol
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I’m overseas until just before CNY so no access to play
Downloaded and kept the new version on laptop, in case the need arises to recalibrate the pj again in the future, only then I might explore using the new version.
For now leaving everything as it is… so much work and time to recalibrate… probably not worth the effort if previous calibration on old version software looked good
LG’s 2023 Multi Lens Array OLED …