JVC's 2019 NX5, NX7 & NX9 projectors

[sapiendut]

Thank you. I will check it out!!

[gates70]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

Thank you. I will check it out!!

Welcome bud!

[gates70]

This is taken from a post at AVS. A translation from somebody that compared MADvr to the new firmware...

Interesting comparison of MADVR with new JVC Firmware from German Forum (Google Translation)
" # 666 created: Today , 10:46
FIRST COMPARISON: FRAME ADAPT HDR vs. MADVR

The weekend was over. A home cinema friend from Hamburg visited me. In the luggage a ready made ready made Media PC. Price: 3500, - Euro.
We wanted to find out how Frame Adapt HDR, which provides JVC as a firmware update for free (!), Can prove it in the A / B comparison.

Excerpts from the following films were used:
- Sully
- The Martian
- Tomb Raider

Preparation:
The JVC DLA-N7 was connected via an HDMI input. The image signals from the Media PC and Panasonic DP-UB9004 went first into the Marantz SR7011 and from there to the projector. The projector is calibrated, the color temperature is 6505 Kelvin (D65). Color is set to 10 to add a bit more brightness to the mottled colors without "bleeding out" in the films. HDR level (for Frame Adapt HDR) is high.
The Media PC was optimally adjusted according to the specifications of the dealer. No changes were made to that. In the Panasonic DP-UB9004 there were also slight adjustments in the picture menu, so that the sharpness was perfectly exploited on the basis of sharpness test images.
The projector has turned off all noise filters and blur.

All three films were previously ripped from the 4K Blu-ray from the Media PC and "read" via madVR. That took about 20 minutes per film. We did not use the live feature because the owner of the media PC did not use it.

First impressions of the picture:
Sully:
1. While the plane is flying over Central Park (Chapter 1), the paths are clearly visible on the snow. The sky offers a light blue course in the backlight. On the road between the skyscrapers, individual cars can be seen.
MadVR represents everything true to the original. Paths, gradient in the sky, cars. Everything seems very natural.
Frame Adapt HDR is in no way inferior here. Paths, gradient in the sky, cars. Everything looks very similar. Notable differences can not be seen here.

2. The plane hits the building. A flash explosion can be seen. In the background, the sun shines on a building and the blue sky can be seen behind it.
MadVR shows a very fine explosion. Sky and building elements are well differentiated.
Frame Adapt HDR is also no nakedness. However, the explosion seems a bit fuller. Sky and buildings in the background are also optimally differentiated.

3. Sully strolls through New York at night (Chapter 5). All around him are pictures and texts on all displays. The US flag shines in beautiful blue and red.
MadVR shows almost all the details here. The picture is crisp. Only the "Mitsubishi" logo outshines white. As Sully heads for a side street, there is a shadow of a building far away in the darkness.
Frame Adapt HDR brings out the flacons (back left) from the advertising a bit more detailed. Even the red of the US flag lights up a bit fuller. The blue lettering in the background is a trace blue. The Mitsubishi logo is completely displayed. The picture is as bright as from madVR. As Sully turns off towards Nebenstraße, the shadow in the dark background turns out to be clear as a building. Here, Frame Adapt HDR performs much better with the same black level.

The Martian
Already the beginning scene is a real touchstone, because the film no HDR metadata are stored. You can see behind Mars the slowly rising sun, a few lens flare effects and the flight over the surface of Mars. Later, the actors will be added. In the control room, two scientists monitor the work on the surface of Mars.
MadVR shows a really rich black in space. Individual stars are clearly visible. As the sun emerges behind the planet, the picture really shines magnificently. The surface of Mars is shown crisp, dark contents have a lot of drawing. The control room is of course mapped. Neon lights shine, skin colors look natural.
Frame Adapt HDR can do a better job. The black space is comparably dark, but there are significantly more small stars to see, which also shine (teilise) a trace brighter. The red on Mars is a less colorful and darker elements have significantly more drawing. At madVR, it is no doubt that details in black are drunk here. The control room also looks natural via Frame Adapt HDR. However, with Frame Adapt HDR, the hair of the scientist has more drawing. For the neon lights seem a bit darker.


Tomb Raider
Lara Croft is looking for her father. There is a lot of action and very warm filtered colors. Panoramic shots are crisp.
madVR also leaves a very good impression here. Of course, the colors look natural, the panorama shot of Hong Kong shows some small windows crisp. Unfortunately, there were repeated slight picture shakes in pans and turbulent scenes. When Lara signs the contract, a hoodie and a leather jacket run into each other in the shade. There is a little missing the tracing.
Frame Adapt HDR makes the colors seem a bit stronger. The panoramic view of Hong Kong looks similar. After repeated switching back and forth but shows that madVR still a touch appears sharper. If this was adjusted via the focus controller in Panasonic, this leads to slight double contours (white edges on high-contrast edges). Image jerking never occurred with the combination of Panasonic DP-UB9004 and JVC DLA-N7 with Frame Adapt HDR. Everything is reproduced very cleanly. Also, the shadow area in the contract signature is visibly better drawn. Hooded polo and leather jacket feature Frame Adapt HDR for all the details.

First conclusion:
The differences are extremely low at a very high level. Without direct A / B comparison, each of these films seems very natural.
It is noticeable that Frame Adapt HDR produces more drawing in both light and dark scenes, with the same black and identical maximum brightness. Moreover, the colors are a bit lighter and fuller.
Anyone who owns madVR can continue to use software and media PC on the JVC DLA-N7. If you're considering a new acquisition, you can opt for a lower-priced 4K Blu-ray player. With Frame Adapt HDR, any HDR-10 content can be optimally projected in real time. The long ripple and readout times (about 20 minutes) of madVR are eliminated. With Frame Adapt HDR, 4K Blu-ray movies as well as Netflix HDTV and Amazon Video HDR10 content can be played - virtually plug & play."


Pros and cons
+ minimal better sharpness with madVR
+ clearly visible better throughput with Frame Adapt HDR in bright and dark scenes with the same black level and maximum brightness
+ Somewhat brighter and brighter colors via Frame Adapt HDR

http://www.hifi-forum.de/viewthread-94-15753-14.html

[Jim L]

I too have one of the new native 4K JVC's (the RS2000 - same as NX7) and it is an incredible upgrade over my previous JVC RS-520.

The RS-520 (on paper) had higher contrast 130,000:1/1,300,000:1 (native/dynamic) vs the RS200 (80,000:1/800,000:1), but with a little bit of tweaking the difference is negligible to me.

What really surprises me is that I can see a dramatic difference in resolution at 14 ft viewing distance over the e-shift model. The super-fast HDMI sync times and now the new DTM (dynamic tone mapping) make this projector the one to get. The fact that JVC is adding quality and features through firmware makes it hold its value, especially since there was a price increase.

Can't wait to try out the new DTM myself.

[sapiendut]

I just tried the dynamic tone mapping of the new firmware update. It’s amazingly good. I would have not believe how much of an upgrade the firmware update can be If I didn’t try the feature myself

[gates70]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

I just tried the dynamic tone mapping of the new firmware update. It’s amazingly good. I would have not believe how much of an upgrade the firmware update can be If I didn’t try the feature myself

Cool! Installing it as we speak.

[gates70]

OMG its phenomenal! What a change.

[roar]

I'm going to add this to my Thanksgiving Day weekend project list Looking forward to it.

[sapiendut]

???? It’s only plugging a USB key and press enter. Not a DIY project.

[roar]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

???? It’s only plugging a USB key and press enter. Not a DIY project.

Shhhhh, don't tell my wife... it's a project and will take a couple of hours of testing movies

Edit: Just noticed your sig... you do home calibration? are you in the GTA by chance? I may be interested, then we could actually call this a project!

[sapiendut]

Bahahahahah!!!!!!! Good idea!!!!!!

Yes, I’m in the GTA but have done projects well outside the GTA in the US, Indonesia, Australia, Dubai and Germany.

Just PM me.

Cheers!

[Jim L]

I had time last night to install the update on my RS-2000 which took ~20 minutes. Let me say that I also have the Panasonic UB-9000 so I have been using the dual Panasonic/JVC tone-mapping for UHD HDR discs.

This is an incredible upgrade!

Under the old dual tone-mapping setup, I found that I still needed 3 custom Picture Modes to handle most discs that were mastered at High or Low nit levels or had inaccurate/missing metadata. Even with the improvements that offered, the tone-mapping was only static (i.e. - one setting for the entire disc).

After the firmware upgrade I tried 5 different discs with varied content: Planet Earth 2, Earth - One Amazing Day, The Martian, Passengers, and one other (can't recall at the moment).
It seems to solve all the major problems I've had with viewing HDR content.

Dark scenes have truly BLACK blacks with lots of shadow detail and bright specular highlights. Starfields are completely black and more and brighter stars are visible than before. Any color in these scenes is fully saturated too.
Bright scenes with problem areas like vast landscapes of snow or sand retain all their detail and full color saturation without blown-out highlights.
Scenes with bright, colorful content on black or near-black backgrounds pop even more like the displays inside the Hab or the Hermes. The background is truly black with brightly colored displays. Might I say that in these scenes I can especially tell I'm watching 4K content. The detail visible is dramatically greater than that in 1080p content

The new JVC DTM (dynamic tone mapping) is by far the most preferable way to watch HDR content with the JVC RS-2000. The only question for me is whether to use HDR Medium or HDR High level. In some cases Medium is better and in other cases High. I will continue to test this weekend.

[sapiendut]

I’m hoping for it to be available for the RS4500 too

[gates70]

Originally Posted by Jim L

I had time last night to install the update on my RS-2000 which took ~20 minutes. Let me say that I also have the Panasonic UB-9000 so I have been using the dual Panasonic/JVC tone-mapping for UHD HDR discs.

This is an incredible upgrade!

Under the old dual tone-mapping setup, I found that I still needed 3 custom Picture Modes to handle most discs that were mastered at High or Low nit levels or had inaccurate/missing metadata. Even with the improvements that offered, the tone-mapping was only static (i.e. - one setting for the entire disc).

After the firmware upgrade I tried 5 different discs with varied content: Planet Earth 2, Earth - One Amazing Day, The Martian, Passengers, and one other (can't recall at the moment).
It seems to solve all the major problems I've had with viewing HDR content.

Dark scenes have truly BLACK blacks with lots of shadow detail and bright specular highlights. Starfields are completely black and more and brighter stars are visible than before. Any color in these scenes is fully saturated too.
Bright scenes with problem areas like vast landscapes of snow or sand retain all their detail and full color saturation without blown-out highlights.
Scenes with bright, colorful content on black or near-black backgrounds pop even more like the displays inside the Hab or the Hermes. The background is truly black with brightly colored displays. Might I say that in these scenes I can especially tell I'm watching 4K content. The detail visible is dramatically greater than that in 1080p content

The new JVC DTM (dynamic tone mapping) is by far the most preferable way to watch HDR content with the JVC RS-2000. The only question for me is whether to use HDR Medium or HDR High level. In some cases Medium is better and in other cases High. I will continue to test this weekend.

I like low lamp high level. They are reporting on AVS (Mike) that the Auto feature does this;

Frame adapt
When in auto mode, it looks at frames or scenes and selects what it feels is most appropriate. So it will vary between low, medium and high throughout the movie. So for images above 2,000 nits, it selects low. For images between 500 and 2,000 nits it selects medium and for images below 500 nits, it selects high.

[Jim L]

Originally Posted by gates70

I like low lamp high level. They are reporting on AVS (Mike) that the Auto feature does this;

Frame adapt
When in auto mode, it looks at frames or scenes and selects what it feels is most appropriate. So it will vary between low, medium and high throughout the movie. So for images above 2,000 nits, it selects low. For images between 500 and 2,000 nits it selects medium and for images below 500 nits, it selects high.

Very interesting! I will be trying that out this weekend.
Mike on AVS is the dealer I got my JVC from.

[evanft]

So does this eliminate the need to use Panasonic's HDR->SDR conversion?

[Robert Zohn]

Just spoke with JVC top technical specialist and they suggest using Panasonic's HDR Optimizer as the first stage of tone mapping HDR content.

[gates70]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

Just spoke with JVC top technical specialist and they suggest using Panasonic's HDR Optimizer as the first stage of tone mapping HDR content.

Really? On AVS they kept saying not to use it. Haven't read there today yet but...I really don't see the need either with what it's giving me.

[Robert Zohn]

After reading your post I just sent a follow-up email to JVC's technical friends. I specifically asked them to tell me the best set-up configurations for the UB9000 and NX5/7/9.

Stand by for the official reply.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

Just spoke with JVC top technical specialist and they suggest using Panasonic's HDR Optimizer as the first stage of tone mapping HDR content.

Spoke to JVC Canada and they said the exact same thing. I still output the HDR Optimizer set to low luminance projector and then set the JVC to frame by frame analysis.