Hello! Yesterday I installed my Z9X Pro in my cinema-room, where I have a Sony HW65 projector and a Yamaha RX A8A receiver. The Z9X is connected via HDMI to the receiver, and the projector is connected to the HDMI out port from the receiver. I tested one of my movies, Star Wars I Phantom Menance, which is ripped 1:1 from a 4k UHD bluray disc and stored in my NAS. I noticed that the colors are bleak, especially the red color, which more looks like bleak purple. I tried many different settings, but with no success. The only clue is there is some type of problem with HDR / Dolby Vision to SDR conversion, as my projector does not support HDR. I had a similar problem with the movie Mortal Kombat which I streamed from HBO Max on the Nvidia Shield, where the colors did not protrude well on the screen. I remember I solved it (but not how), so I guess it would not be impossible to fix this problem with the Z9X. I thought that the Z9X would support and convert HDR / Dolby Vision movies to devices which does not support HDR / Dolby Vision (which is common with many projectors), or do I need to buy a new 4k projector which supports HDR?
With an SDR display you have 3 HDR settings to choose from. Auto will play SDR natively, HDR10(+) is converted to SDR using the Realtek engine and DV is converted to SDR using the VS10 engine. Highest SDR Rec.709 uses the Realtek engine for all SDR conversion and shouldn't be used as although the tone mapping isn't bad, the colour space conversion is flawed. Dolby Vision VS10 Engine (OutputSDR) uses the VS10 engine for everything, including SDR and is the best option in your case. However, regardless of which setting you choose, the output ranges from good to excellent and the colours certainly cannot be described as "bleak" so I think you need to take a look at the projector settings. As I say, in your case, the VS10 option is the best as this gives a pretty flawless HDR>SDR conversion in terms of tone mapping and colour space - just to note that when you select this option from another HDR setting, restart the box, because for some reason the colours in the GUI are slightly off until you do so.
Thanks! I have Rec.709 set in my projector (and VS10 in the Z9X Pro device), but I am not sure if that helped. I think maybe it is the movie which is is not so colorful. In the movie Star Wars Phantom Menace, in the scene where a ship lands in the hangar (about 2-3 minutes from the start of the movie), the color of the ships look like greyish-purple, I guess that is by design. I have tried other movies, with good red colors, so therefore I think it is more the visual design of the movie. Maybe I should take a photo, and try to find a photo of that scene from internet. Edit: Is it recommended, or unnecessary, to install the beta firmware in the Z9X Pro?
At the moment, yes it is - the Z9X Pro is in early development and we're still ironing out bugs, so I'd definitely recommend installing the betas. The public betas (released by either Mirror, me or released OTA) are generally very stable. There should be a new one along soon. Occasionally private betas slip out and they should be avoided as they often contain regressions.
