Abacus said:
Why is it that all Native 4K projectors OOTB settings suck, I realise owners will probably get them calibrated but when projectors that cost a fraction of the price have much better OOTB settings, it seems like the Native 4K projector manufactures are just taking the P.
Apart from the above, another excellent review so keep up the good work.
Bill
Funny I was think the very same thing but didn't want to be the first to mention this.
Guess there are many possible answers to that one, here is some of my thoughts on this...
The Native 4K projektors have a higher picture quality potential and therefore need more accurat calibration on sight were it shall be used, and the OOTB is not prioritized.
Projectors that can shut down the light level to almost 0 is more difficult to measure correctly, and need better and more accurate calibration tools. (in reviews and after installation etc.)
4K high end projectors are often more complex build and often uses 3 chips and the way the light is traveling "there and back again" (polarizer/wiregrid, panel, mirror panel polarizer/wiregrid) in these D-ILA, the native contrast is higher and therefor small errors caused by a standard factory setting makes bigger DeltaE errors OOTB.
If a manufacturer shod take the cost and time to brake in the lamp (50+ hours) for a more stable color accuracy and then do a more accurate calibration, that may help the OOTB readings, but these expensive projectors will then cost even more if they do that and in different installations with different screen sizes and material etc. the buyer will need to get the projector calibrated again to be sure it will reproduce the source material correctly again.
Take the Popular EPSON EH-TW9400 with its 5-6000:1 native contrast vs this JVC N5 with almost 10x that contrast.
I think it is quite easy to see why some projectors are measured more "correct" OOTB with a set of standard settings than others....
One thing that was quite important when setting up the X series from JVC was to calibrate after the "gamma drop" had happened. If the new native 4K models get that drop too, a new projectors OOTB accuracy is not something to care much about to begin with...