Kaleidescape on Large TV vs Projector

[Gui0312]

Is the Kaleidescape‘s main uncompressed video a waste on a larger TV vs projector? I am inquiring because I may not be able to create my theater room in my garage after all and may need to settle for a smaller room or one of my living rooms (which a projector will NOT get wife approval) and utilize an 83-86 TV. I have a 77 OLED in my family room now, but I think it maybe a bit too small for this venture. I know Kscape has the audio component as well which if it’s in the small room will probably Do well, but in the living room space, I’m afraid the acoustics even with treatment will suffer, it’s sort of an open concept.

Thanks!

 

[Substance]

Are you comparing to physical media as in 4K UHD and Blu-ray discs or streaming media as in Apple, Amazon Prime and alike?

You will immediately see and hear a big difference when compared to streaming media, even on a smaller TV than yours. Contrary to common belief, you will see a bigger improvement in the darker areas of the image. Compressed streaming media really suffers in dark images. If you watched Obi-Wan on Disney Plus, you will know what I mean. You can barely make out the dark images. Way too much luminance noise. Streaming media also suffers tremendously when fast motion is involved in the scene. It simply doesn't have the bandwidth. I am not even comparing the audio. We are talking about a bandwidth difference of 20x. Your room acoustics matter but no guarantee your garage will sound better. In my experience it is easier to treat audio coming from a good source than a poor one. Garbage in=garbage out applies here a big time. Let's talk about just the dialog on the movies. I am using an Electrostatic center speaker. It is debatable whether Electrostatic technology on a speaker is a friend or foe. But there is no argument they are extremely revealing. Perhaps too revealing for the streaming audio. The dialog feels like the sound coming from a tin can, a common artifact of bit and depth deprived compressed audio.

Against physical media, you will not see a much of an improvement even on the largest projector screens. It really depends on which disc version and how good the Kaleidescape encore is. The disc media and Kaleidescape have the same specifications. Actually, the disc is more capable in terms of Dolby Vision and 3D support. Otherwise, they have the same max bitrate per second ceiling limits. The question is how close do they get to the max ceiling in the mastering. There are a handful of titles which Kaleidescape encodes are utilizing about %10 higher average bitrates. This is probably negligible on most display except the very best and the largest. Where Kaleidescape has the biggest advantage is the the container file is not limited as in the disc media to 50GB or 100GB. Kaleidescape movies can be well beyond 100GB in total size, meaning longer movies like Lawrence of Arabia does not need to be split into 2 discs or more.

I hope this helps your decision. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[Gui0312]

Are you comparing to physical media as in 4K UHD and Blu-ray discs or streaming media as in Apple, Amazon Prime and alike?

You will immediately see and hear a big difference when compared to streaming media, even on a smaller TV than yours. Contrary to common belief, you will see a bigger improvement in the darker areas of the image. Compressed streaming media really suffers in dark images. If you watched Obi-Wan on Disney Plus, you will know what I mean. You can barely make out the dark images. Way too much luminance noise. Streaming media also suffers tremendously when fast motion is involved in the scene. It simply doesn't have the bandwidth. I am not even comparing the audio. We are talking about a bandwidth difference of 20x. Your room acoustics matter but no guarantee your garage will sound better. In my experience it is easier to treat audio coming from a good source than a poor one. Garbage in=garbage out applies here a big time. Let's talk about just the dialog on the movies. I am using an Electrostatic center speaker. It is debatable whether Electrostatic technology on a speaker is a friend or foe. But there is no argument they are extremely revealing. Perhaps too revealing for the streaming audio. The dialog feels like the sound coming from a tin can, a common artifact of bit and depth deprived compressed audio.

Against physical media, you will not see a much of an improvement even on the largest projector screens. It really depends on which disc version and how good the Kaleidescape encore is. The disc media and Kaleidescape have the same specifications. Actually, the disc is more capable in terms of Dolby Vision and 3D support. Otherwise, they have the same max bitrate per second ceiling limits. The question is how close do they get to the max ceiling in the mastering. There are a handful of titles which Kaleidescape encodes are utilizing about %10 higher average bitrates. This is probably negligible on most display except the very best and the largest. Where Kaleidescape has the biggest advantage is the the container file is not limited as in the disc media to 50GB or 100GB. Kaleidescape movies can be well beyond 100GB in total size, meaning longer movies like Lawrence of Arabia does not need to be split into 2 discs or more.

I hope this helps your decision. Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for the thorough explanation. Well I mean most of the stuff you stream will still be “streamed” for example if I’m watching stranger things or like you mentioned Obi-Wan, am I going to be able to watch that on Kscape, no. So the streaming part is mostly with movies I would otherwise get from the iTunes Store or what have you.

I’ve made some adjustments so far and have decided against the garage and the living room. I will be using another spare bedroom I have which is smaller but the layout is the best I could get. It’s 11.2x12.4’ I could potentially fit a 100-115 screen on the wall and have the projector coming in from the walk-in closet (will house the AV rack as well) I have behind me or the 85” TV So my eyes will be approximately 8-9ft away from the screen.

I’ve been using more streaming lately than disc eventhough I have a UB820 Panasonic player just because I rarely will go to the store to buy a movie and renting them at Redbox is almost impossible to find a movie you want to watch let alone the 4K variant which is SUPER RARE. I popped in John wick 2 the other day on disc and wow such a massive difference in sound coming from just using my 3 front speakers and two subs (no surrounds at this time). Going with the projector I don’t think Dolby Vision matters much, and I don’t care much for 3D, with the TV I do get the DV though.

 

[Substance]

I rarely will go to the store to buy a movie and renting them at Redbox is almost impossible to find a movie you want to watch let alone the 4K variant which is SUPER RARE.

This is where Kaleidescape is great. I still get some Blu-rays from Amazon for the catalog titles which are not on the K store. All new releases, I get to watch them in the best presentation right on the release day.

 

[Substance]

just using my 3 front speakers and two subs (no surrounds at this time). Going with the projector I don’t think Dolby Vision matters much, and I don’t care much for 3D, with the TV I do get the DV though.

I also have a 3ch setup. In movie soundtracks, %95 of the energy is on the front stage. This is not to say %95 of the enjoyment is also on the front stage but adding good speakers is a big step up from TV speakers or a soundbar. For me the dialog is very important. We hear people talking all the time and our brains translate these soundwaves into sensible sentences. Our ears and brains are very sensitive to the 400Hz-1KHz band because of this. An excellent front speaker setup ensures that you are really right there when the actors are talking. You don't get the same feeling from the TV speakers (and bit deprived lossy audio).


DV is much less relevant for projectors like you said. I have a Lumagen Radiance Pro and I use it behind a 77" OLED. I prefer its HDR to SDR conversion to DV. DV gives much more pop and fools people into thinking its a better image. "Better" here is subjective. I want my image realistic. I don't think there is that much pop in what I see when I look outside my window. This is more inline with what Radiance Pro is giving me. 10bit vs 12bit argument is also irrelevant because the masters are in 10 bit. DV is not a true 12 bit anyway. I am not saying it is a gimmick at all. It is good to have but oh well if your setup doesn't have it. I understand a Radiance Pro is an expensive investment and probably a big time overkill for anything other than a projector. Kaleidescape offers SDR versions to most movies. These are professionally converted from HDR to SDR in the mastering therefore more likely to get the final image right. I would trust the Kaleidescape engineer more to do this process manually with multiple passes than any TV doing it on the fly, even with DV. These are of course my opinions.

 

[Gui0312]

Nice to see someone else with a 77 LG OLED. Curious how far do you sit from it and how big is your room? I have the 3 speakers in my profile now however they are a bit on the bulky side and don’t want to take away from the room. I do think they sound fantastic though, my center channel specifically, the voice is just great. That being said, couple of more questions on your set up.

- Do you have that area completely light controlled? do your black bars disappear completely when viewing 2.35 content etc.?
- You are going from the kscape to the lumagen, then your AV processor (which) or?

Thanks

 

[Substance]

Nice to see someone else with a 77 LG OLED. Curious how far do you sit from it and how big is your room? I have the 3 speakers in my profile now however they are a bit on the bulky side and don’t want to take away from the room. I do think they sound fantastic though, my center channel specifically, the voice is just great. That being said, couple of more questions on your set up.

- Do you have that area completely light controlled? do your black bars disappear completely when viewing 2.35 content etc.?
- You are going from the kscape to the lumagen, then your AV processor (which) or?

Thanks

I have the Sony version of the LG OLED aka LG paneled Sony

I don't have any light or audio treatments whatsoever. A couple reasons for this, primarily, none of those would pass the wife approval factor (WAF) but also, this is a rental property. I deal with it with watching most of my movies in the evening and targeting a little higher gamma in calibration. On the audio front, Electrostatic speakers are line source and dipoles therefore almost all side, ceiling and floor interactions are cancelled. This doesn't apply to bass which I simply don't have much, especially deep bass because this is a rental property with neighbors I am fortunate that the living room is extremely awkwardly shaped and far from symmetrical. Because of this, I don't have overly irritating nodes and whatever bass I have is very satisfactory. It is actually better than satisfactory that I don't use any audio correction in DSP. The only issue is the narrow sweet sport of the Electrostatic speakers. Magic only occurs in the middle seat (where I sit) but others in my family wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway. All this was supposed to be temporary and the plan was to buy a house. I started my own company a few months ago and I am dirt poor now Until I have enough momentum with my new business endeavor, I need to settle with what I have.

Black bars indeed disappear but that's thanks to the OLED technology and good calibration. I bought a couple of probes some 10 years ago as a hobbyist and started calibrating my displays. It got more complicated now with HDR and all. I am sure someone with professional background or more experience can do a far better job in video calibration. Sony OLEDS are a lot less capable in this. Radiance Pro handles all calibration. LG OLEDs offer vast amount of calibration adjustments. You can technically auto calibrate with Calman but I wouldn't trust auto Calman with HDR.

I have all my video source devices connect to the Radiance Pro. I use a single HDMI per source device. Alternatively, you can use one HDMI for video and another for audio from Kaleidescape Strato-C. I don't do this because the Radiance Pro has a signal buffer which re-clocks (hence de jitters) the audio. From the Radiance Pro, I have one HDMI into Sony OLED and another into McIntosh SSP.

 

[Gui0312]

I have the Sony version of the LG OLED aka LG paneled Sony

I don't have any light or audio treatments whatsoever. A couple reasons for this, primarily, none of those would pass the wife approval factor (WAF) but also, this is a rental property. I deal with it with watching most of my movies in the evening and targeting a little higher gamma in calibration. On the audio front, Electrostatic speakers are line source and dipoles therefore almost all side, ceiling and floor interactions are cancelled. This doesn't apply to bass which I simply don't have much, especially deep bass because this is a rental property with neighbors I am fortunate that the living room is extremely awkwardly shaped and far from symmetrical. Because of this, I don't have overly irritating nodes and whatever bass I have is very satisfactory. It is actually better than satisfactory that I don't use any audio correction in DSP. The only issue is the narrow sweet sport of the Electrostatic speakers. Magic only occurs in the middle seat (where I sit) but others in my family wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway. All this was supposed to be temporary and the plan was to buy a house. I started my own company a few months ago and I am dirt poor now Until I have enough momentum with my new business endeavor, I need to settle with what I have.

Black bars indeed disappear but that's thanks to the OLED technology and good calibration. I bought a couple of probes some 10 years ago as a hobbyist and started calibrating my displays. It got more complicated now with HDR and all. I am sure someone with professional background or more experience can do a far better job in video calibration. Sony OLEDS are a lot less capable in this. Radiance Pro handles all calibration. LG OLEDs offer vast amount of calibration adjustments. You can technically auto calibrate with Calman but I wouldn't trust auto Calman with HDR.

I have all my video source devices connect to the Radiance Pro. I use a single HDMI per source device. Alternatively, you can use one HDMI for video and another for audio from Kaleidescape Strato-C. I don't do this because the Radiance Pro has a signal buffer which re-clocks (hence de jitters) the audio. From the Radiance Pro, I have one HDMI into Sony OLED and another into McIntosh SSP.

How far are you away from the screen?

 

[Substance]

About 9 feet.