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Test: Lumagen Radiance Pro high-end video processor - HDR tuning for projectors
Magic word "High Dynamic Range". The HDR works well and improves the image quality of classic displays, sometimes drastically. But HDR is also a problem - at least for projectors. The brightness and dynamics required for HDR are neither desired nor achievable on screens. So you have to trick. The Lumagen Radiance Pro was the first processor in the LowBeats test cinema with which any image adjustment is possible and with which this problem can also be solved. And it was absolutely convincing: The picture tuned by Radiance Pro looked fantastic, let us anticipate this.
Lumagen Radiance Pro in the LowBeats test cinema. It is no coincidence that he found space on the Trinnov Altitude 32. Because what the Trinnov is in the audio area is the Lumagen Radiance Pro for the projectors (Photo: R. Vogt)
The Lumagen Radiance Pro is an inconspicuously narrow box; its already low weight comes purely from the housing and the solid front panel. Because the actual intelligence and computing power inside the Radiance Pro weighs - as is so often the case in digital technology - practically nothing, especially since the power supply is outsourced. The majority of the weighty price anyway makes up the software with its years of development costs, similar to Trinnov's on the audio side, for example.
But where exactly is the problem again? As already described in more detail in the article on JVC's Frame Adapt HDR: everything we get today as HDR images from TV, streaming or UltraHD Blu-ray is optimized for TV displays, the peak brightness between 700 and 2,000 nit reach and cover a huge color space. So you can display extremely rich and bright colors.
Projectors usually deliver a peak brightness of 50 to 150 nit on a typical home theater screen. In addition, they practically all have certain color space restrictions, especially green. In addition, our sense of vision reacts somewhat differently in a completely dark room than in an illuminated living room with a display that only fills part of the active field of vision. Those who are familiar with colorimetry can therefore give a projector a correspondingly shifted proportioning of the different bright parts of the image. This is called tone mapping. Statically adjusted, it fits better sometimes worse.
So far, only JVC with its projectors of the N series from firmware generation 3 (function "Frame Adapt HDR") offers automatic adaptation. The software constantly adjusts the brightness proportions of the main subject and highlights to the capabilities of the projector in real time. That makes the JVC algorithm really convincing.
And still a problem remains because JVCs Processing primarily affects the brightness proportions. This is called 2D tone mapping and creates the problem that you lose color saturation, especially when lightening. You can imagine it like a vat of red color. If the red should become lighter, stir in white accordingly. Now the color is lighter, but also paler. A further degree of freedom is required to correct the brightness and the color tone at the same time with 3D tone mapping. You add white color and an additional (richer) red hue practically at the same time to get a lighter color of the same saturation and tint. However, this requires computing power that no manufacturer has integrated into a projector.
Screen Professional Chef Ralf Lulay (Photo: R. Vogt)
Ralf Lulay (Photo: R. Vogt)
The Lumagen Radiance Pro solves this non-banal task. To try this out and demonstrate the comparison with JVC's technology, Ralf Lulay traveled with the aforementioned Lumagen Radiance Pro and JVC's steamer DLA-NX9 in their luggage.
Lumagen Radiance Pro: image comparison in practice
Now a calibrated JVC DLA-NX9 is per se one of the best projectors that you can buy for money: crisp, neutral, plastic image with realistic colors and bomb-like contrast. In addition, free of show effects through any "miracle automatics". Yet. Even with conventional video images (BT.709, SDR) from Blu-ray Disc, an even more balanced and calmer image impression can be seen via Lumagen with 3D LUT correction. Sure, the difference is rather fine, but noticeable.
That changed with HDR. With their Frame Adapt HDR mode, the JVC projectors conjure up the best and most realistic HDR images on the big screen. But if the picture becomes very bright on average or should be bright, there is no reserve for color in the highlights. And as a compromise, the Japanese algorithm drives the overdrive down to the native, uncorrected lamp color and thus a subtle green tinge to the brightest peaks.
Different with the American processor. Correctly set for the achievable brightness on the screen, the image was brighter, more homogeneous on average and above all regardless of film and scene, but still richer in colors - especially in the highlights. Positive: Something like banding or solarization, as occurs with simpler HDR conversions in Blu-ray players, did not occur. For this we have dispensed with any taste tuning such as resharpening or contrast boost through the integrated Darbee processor.
Here is a note on our own behalf: Why don't we document these differences with the corresponding photos? Because the JPEG format used for photos technically corresponds to SDR video. JPEG cannot display the extended color space and more dynamics. The display on which you are reading this test should also be able to show this difference. A realistic image can therefore hardly be conveyed. For example, how much more realistic and rich gold shimmers, how much more vivid the pictures become and, above all, in the colors more realistic.
https://www.lowbeats.de/test-highend-videoprozessor-lumagen-radiance/
Magic word "High Dynamic Range". The HDR works well and improves the image quality of classic displays, sometimes drastically. But HDR is also a problem - at least for projectors. The brightness and dynamics required for HDR are neither desired nor achievable on screens. So you have to trick. The Lumagen Radiance Pro was the first processor in the LowBeats test cinema with which any image adjustment is possible and with which this problem can also be solved. And it was absolutely convincing: The picture tuned by Radiance Pro looked fantastic, let us anticipate this.
Lumagen Radiance Pro in the LowBeats test cinema. It is no coincidence that he found space on the Trinnov Altitude 32. Because what the Trinnov is in the audio area is the Lumagen Radiance Pro for the projectors (Photo: R. Vogt)
The Lumagen Radiance Pro is an inconspicuously narrow box; its already low weight comes purely from the housing and the solid front panel. Because the actual intelligence and computing power inside the Radiance Pro weighs - as is so often the case in digital technology - practically nothing, especially since the power supply is outsourced. The majority of the weighty price anyway makes up the software with its years of development costs, similar to Trinnov's on the audio side, for example.
But where exactly is the problem again? As already described in more detail in the article on JVC's Frame Adapt HDR: everything we get today as HDR images from TV, streaming or UltraHD Blu-ray is optimized for TV displays, the peak brightness between 700 and 2,000 nit reach and cover a huge color space. So you can display extremely rich and bright colors.
Projectors usually deliver a peak brightness of 50 to 150 nit on a typical home theater screen. In addition, they practically all have certain color space restrictions, especially green. In addition, our sense of vision reacts somewhat differently in a completely dark room than in an illuminated living room with a display that only fills part of the active field of vision. Those who are familiar with colorimetry can therefore give a projector a correspondingly shifted proportioning of the different bright parts of the image. This is called tone mapping. Statically adjusted, it fits better sometimes worse.
So far, only JVC with its projectors of the N series from firmware generation 3 (function "Frame Adapt HDR") offers automatic adaptation. The software constantly adjusts the brightness proportions of the main subject and highlights to the capabilities of the projector in real time. That makes the JVC algorithm really convincing.
And still a problem remains because JVCs Processing primarily affects the brightness proportions. This is called 2D tone mapping and creates the problem that you lose color saturation, especially when lightening. You can imagine it like a vat of red color. If the red should become lighter, stir in white accordingly. Now the color is lighter, but also paler. A further degree of freedom is required to correct the brightness and the color tone at the same time with 3D tone mapping. You add white color and an additional (richer) red hue practically at the same time to get a lighter color of the same saturation and tint. However, this requires computing power that no manufacturer has integrated into a projector.
Screen Professional Chef Ralf Lulay (Photo: R. Vogt)
Ralf Lulay (Photo: R. Vogt)
The Lumagen Radiance Pro solves this non-banal task. To try this out and demonstrate the comparison with JVC's technology, Ralf Lulay traveled with the aforementioned Lumagen Radiance Pro and JVC's steamer DLA-NX9 in their luggage.
Lumagen Radiance Pro: image comparison in practice
Now a calibrated JVC DLA-NX9 is per se one of the best projectors that you can buy for money: crisp, neutral, plastic image with realistic colors and bomb-like contrast. In addition, free of show effects through any "miracle automatics". Yet. Even with conventional video images (BT.709, SDR) from Blu-ray Disc, an even more balanced and calmer image impression can be seen via Lumagen with 3D LUT correction. Sure, the difference is rather fine, but noticeable.
That changed with HDR. With their Frame Adapt HDR mode, the JVC projectors conjure up the best and most realistic HDR images on the big screen. But if the picture becomes very bright on average or should be bright, there is no reserve for color in the highlights. And as a compromise, the Japanese algorithm drives the overdrive down to the native, uncorrected lamp color and thus a subtle green tinge to the brightest peaks.
Different with the American processor. Correctly set for the achievable brightness on the screen, the image was brighter, more homogeneous on average and above all regardless of film and scene, but still richer in colors - especially in the highlights. Positive: Something like banding or solarization, as occurs with simpler HDR conversions in Blu-ray players, did not occur. For this we have dispensed with any taste tuning such as resharpening or contrast boost through the integrated Darbee processor.
Here is a note on our own behalf: Why don't we document these differences with the corresponding photos? Because the JPEG format used for photos technically corresponds to SDR video. JPEG cannot display the extended color space and more dynamics. The display on which you are reading this test should also be able to show this difference. A realistic image can therefore hardly be conveyed. For example, how much more realistic and rich gold shimmers, how much more vivid the pictures become and, above all, in the colors more realistic.
https://www.lowbeats.de/test-highend-videoprozessor-lumagen-radiance/
