HDR = Death of Home Projection [Long Read/Educational]

[tp4tissue]

Probably every human male has dreamt of owning a home theater projector.

Tp4 wuz amidst realization of such ambition, only to find out that with the advent of HDR, the faint ember of hope has been permanently doused.


Buh wha.. why Tp4.. how so has the heavenly apple been wormed and rotted.

It comes down to ANSI-Contrast ratio. (CR)

Simplified, ANSI-CR is the real contrast ratio of the viewer system displaying full black and full white simultaneously.


Your cheapest of cheap modern $200 TV w/ IPS panel has CR of ~800:1.

Cheep $200 TV w/ VA-panel has CR of ~4000-5000: 1

Old CRT/Tube tvs have ~20,000 : 1

Expensive OLED has CR of ~20,000 : 1


HDR is a color proofing process. It's the result of a Human Color-Artist tweaking every scene of the movie on the best available studio equipment. They then take this version of the movie and make Discs.

There's no absolute standard or requirement, but in general, to faithfully display the Color-Artist's intent,  it is agreed upon that Contrast ratio is a critical element for end users to properly render HDR highlights.

The Higher the CR, the better; studios use the 20,000:1 proofing monitors.

Well, what about Projectors.

Unfortunately, Projector companies typically DO NOT advertise the True ANSI-Contrast ratio of their product.

The reason is, that number is incredibly low and extremely dependent on room conditions, such as wall color, seat color, lighting, your Shirt color.

If your house has white walls, even if you turned all the lights off at night, Regardless if you buy a $1000 projector or a $30,000 projector, the achievable ANSI-CR is ~ 100: 1.

This Versus a $200 Va-panel TV which can do 5000:1.

Under Ideal black wall, black seat, black shirt conditions, a $1000-3000 projector can do ~200-400:1 CR.  the $30,000 may be able to eek out 600-700:1

Your 10yr old IPS panels can do 700:1. That's about the quality you can expect.

A typical Loews Movie theater ? ~500:1, yea that low.


It's unfortunate, the age of projection is over..

Your home TV is better , and has been better since around 2003, you didn't know it, but it's true.


There is no good reason to go projection nowadays unless size is the only thing you care about.

But , with 85 inch tvs becoming so affordable,  and 90/100+ to come, The trajectory is obvious.

It is Impossible to faithfully render HDR- home media on current projection technology.

[Sintpinty]

F

[Bhk1004]

But.. I needs 100+ inches for my future theater room in the basement....

[xtrafrood]

Recreating that film studies nostalgia might be worth the loss in picture quality.  I don't know if movies like The Rope will ever be re-mastered for HDR...

[tp4tissue]

But.. I needs 100+ inches for my future theater room in the basement....

Not that far away from 100+ in tv at this point.

Recreating that film studies nostalgia might be worth the loss in picture quality.  I don't know if movies like The Rope will ever be re-mastered for HDR...

Well for very old movies, HDR doesn't really bring anything new. But the issue is coverage.  You wouldn't spend $10,000 on a projection home theater to NOT be able to watch FUTURE MOVIES.

That wouldn't make sense.

And now that 85" is available, with even larger panels going into the future,  projection will fall on yesteryear.

[Findecanor]

With the term "HDR", they have actually bundled together two improvements. Not just higher contrast, but also wider colour gamut.
HDR and UHD BluRays are encoded with Rec. 2020/Rec. 2100 colour spaces. These are wider apart than what any camera is capable of, just to be future-compatible.

BTW. Theatre projectors use DLP with a rotating colour filter or lamps or lasers in primary colours, not LCD with just a white bulb like in most home-projectors. These have a contrast ratio of at least 1500:1.

[xtrafrood]

$10k?  Good golly, that could buy a decent film projector setup along with a few crisp films.  That's a large entertainment budget youse got tp4tissue.

[Bhk1004]

But.. I needs 100+ inches for my future theater room in the basement....

Not that far away from 100+ in tv at this point.

Recreating that film studies nostalgia might be worth the loss in picture quality.  I don't know if movies like The Rope will ever be re-mastered for HDR...

Well for very old movies, HDR doesn't really bring anything new. But the issue is coverage.  You wouldn't spend $10,000 on a projection home theater to NOT be able to watch FUTURE MOVIES.

That wouldn't make sense.

And now that 85" is available, with even larger panels going into the future,  projection will fall on yesteryear.

Yes but pricing is insane. I have an 82 inch tv right now and it's reasonable but above that in a high quality panel, you start hitting 5-6 figures for a tv.

[tp4tissue]

With the term "HDR", they have actually bundled together two improvements. Not just higher contrast, but also wider colour gamut.
HDR and UHD BluRays are encoded with Rec. 2020/Rec. 2100 colour spaces. These are wider apart than what any camera is capable of, just to be future-compatible.

BTW. Theatre projectors use DLP with a rotating colour filter or lamps or lasers in primary colours, not LCD with just a white bulb like in most home-projectors. These have a contrast ratio of at least 1500:1.

You misunderstand the fundamental drawback to Projection, That being Light pollution.

No matter how good your chip is, you can't stop light from bouncing around the room and coming back at the screen. This is why even in professional theaters you only get roughly 500:1.

It's even harder to get higher in a theater than at home, because of how far the projector is from the screen. They need an extremely bright laser for most modern projection distances, this powerful light will bounce and lose final contrast.

In terms of gamut, this has never been an issue for projectors, they've always been able to produce very high gamut typically surpassing flat panels. Even more so now with laser

[tp4tissue]

Yes but pricing is insane. I have an 82 inch tv right now and it's reasonable but above that in a high quality panel, you start hitting 5-6 figures for a tv.

I am holding out for light-modulated IPS panel.  I believe this will probably be the end game TV for most people.  It will have OLED like contrast ratio, along with Very good viewing angles.

Right now most of the big sets are VA-panel to produce HDR near the lvl of OLED.

However, with VA, the black lvl drift makes it a Single viewer machine, it's unsuitable even for 2 people sitting side by side, because of how sensitive it is to viewing angle approximately 10 degrees.

[cicada]

Yes but pricing is insane. I have an 82 inch tv right now and it's reasonable but above that in a high quality panel, you start hitting 5-6 figures for a tv.

I am holding out for light-modulated IPS panel.  I believe this will probably be the end game TV for most people.  It will have OLED like contrast ratio, along with Very good viewing angles.

Right now most of the big sets are VA-panel to produce HDR near the lvl of OLED.

However, with VA, the black lvl drift makes it a Single viewer machine, it's unsuitable even for 2 people sitting side by side, because of how sensitive it is to viewing angle approximately 10 degrees.

What are the advantages that IPS has over OLED other than the burn-in thing?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tp4tissue]

What are the advantages that IPS has over OLED other than the burn-in thing?

Current IPS only has ~1000:1 contrast ratio, so it does a bad job of HDR, and general movie/game viewing.

It has an advantage over VA for viewing angle/ contrast Uniformity, making it more suitable for Couch and photography work.

But it loses to VA panel in contrast ratio, va 5000:1 , ips 1000:1


With the nextgen light modulation cells, Ips will have 20,000:1 contrast ratio. That makes OLED obsolete.

IPS with 20,000:1 + Black light blink blur reduction will have significant motion clarity advantage against OLED.

OLED can never be blur-reduced, because it has no backlight system which becomes a disadvantage in motion clarity.

[Coreda]

Just on the cinema side of things there's a new draft spec for displaying HDR content, which I saw an article on recently.

According to the specification, the displays have to be able to show content in 12-bit color-depth, a minimal active black level of 0.005 cd/m2 and  a displayed luminance of 500 cd/mē

[tp4tissue]

Just on the cinema side of things there's a new draft spec for displaying HDR content, which I saw an article on recently.

According to the specification, the displays have to be able to show content in 12-bit color-depth, a minimal active black level of 0.005 cd/m2 and  a displayed luminance of 500 cd/mē

That's not ANSI-Contrast ratio.

That's Full on vs Full off..

It's the same advertised number that projector companies use like 100,000:1 contrast ratio, or 1,000,000:1 ETC..

Real achievable contrast ratio on the very best equipment in theaters is ~500:1.. That's the top end.. And if the whole audience wore white shirts that day, you can expect 300-400.

[Coreda]

That's not ANSI-Contrast ratio. That's Full on vs Full off..

It's the same advertised number that projector companies use like 100,000:1 contrast ratio, or 1,000,000:1 ETC..

Real achievable contrast ratio on the very best equipment in theaters is ~500:1.. That's the top end.. And if the whole audience wore white shirts that day, you can expect 300-400.

Where are you sourcing these figures you're posting btw? As for example a Barco projector used by someone I spoke with last year who does professional event/portable cinema projection, has a spec contrast ratio of 2000:1 and that's a $30K projector. Are there examples of projector companies actually claiming 100,000:1 contrast?

I'm just curious about the tests that have been done with such projectors.

[tp4tissue]

That's not ANSI-Contrast ratio. That's Full on vs Full off..

It's the same advertised number that projector companies use like 100,000:1 contrast ratio, or 1,000,000:1 ETC..

Real achievable contrast ratio on the very best equipment in theaters is ~500:1.. That's the top end.. And if the whole audience wore white shirts that day, you can expect 300-400.

Where are you sourcing these figures you're posting btw? As for example a Barco projector used by someone I spoke with last year who does professional event/portable cinema projection, has a spec contrast ratio of 2000:1 and that's a $30K projector. Are there examples of projector companies actually claiming 100,000:1 contrast?

I'm just curious about the tests that have been done with such projectors.

Room physics make it impossible to achieve much better than 500:1 ANSI, in a big theater.

LIGHT, bounces back at the screen.  For ANSI, the white boxes will illuminate the simulcast black boxes. When the light bounces back at the screen, the contrast ratio drops by a factor of 10 or more.

In a smaller controlled environment , it is possible to get ~ 800-1000:1 on the very best equipment, $30,000 projectors.

ANYTHING that is quoted Above 800-1000:1  is always full on/ full off .. NOT Ansi.

Anything North of 3000:1  is Typically Dynamic contrast ratio, like 100,000:1



The reason ANSI contrast ratio is not quoted, is 1, it's very room physics dependent,  and 2 the number usually SUCKS, and people would think projectors suck.. and THEY DO SUCK for certain applications such as HDR,  but it is what it is.

[fanpeople]

Nothing was better than going to my friends house, entering his garage and watching Friday on a bed sheet with the projector he stole from school.

Sometimes its about the journey and not just the end product tp.

Also that guy is in Jail now, not for stealing the projector though.

[tp4tissue]

Nothing was better than going to my friends house, entering his garage and watching Friday on a bed sheet with the projector he stole from school.

Sometimes its about the journey and not just the end product tp.

Also that guy is in Jail now, not for stealing the projector though.

I would still say, it's a bit different with projectors.

Because home media that comes out on _regular blurays_  look OK on tvs with 400:1, 500:1 contrast ratio.  Not great, but OK.

At no point would we say, oh that looks BAD..

HDR movies however, which are the only ones coming out in the future look horrendous on Low contrast ratio displays.

[xtrafrood]

I can see the backyard BBQ movie thing becoming a thing of the past. 

Invite the neighbors over and they deny the invite not only because of your projector quality but also because you're not using the latest video codec.

[tp4tissue]

I can see the backyard BBQ movie thing becoming a thing of the past. 

Invite the neighbors over and they deny the invite not only because of your projector quality but also because you're not using the latest video codec.

It's very possible people may stop going outside altogether..

The future of many humans may well be, A Mind and A Terminal.


heck, that's basically Tp4 righ'nao

[xtrafrood]

I can see the backyard BBQ movie thing becoming a thing of the past. 

Invite the neighbors over and they deny the invite not only because of your projector quality but also because you're not using the latest video codec.

It's very possible people may stop going outside altogether..

The future of many humans may well be, A Mind and A Terminal.


heck, that's basically Tp4 righ'nao

Can confirm. 

A mertx is building an iso in one terminal emulator in a virtual machine through the main desktop, has calendar, youtube feed, email, music player, markdown editor, etc. in other terminal emulator on the main desktop monitor.  And another terminal emulator on external monitor of laptop for scratchpad stuffs.

I haven't gone full commando console yet because my keyboard firmware is suxers, but my fbterm, tmux, and vim configurations are ready.