[hdmkv]

how's ur new 4k projector?
satisfied?

Partially. At my budget ($3K), think Epson 5040UB is the best 4K + 3D combo PJ out there. Also tried BenQ HT2550 before settling on Epson. Considered Optoma UHD60 & 65, as well as Vivitek HK2288, but none of these support 3D.

BenQ's contrast & colors are mediocre in comparison to Epson, even though details are slightly better. As Epson supports WCG, HDR has nice pop. Believe good HDR > 4K sharpness. What the BenQ does better is 3D w/no crosstalk or ghosting. Epson has mild crosstalk & ghosting, which is sometimes a bit annoying. For 4K, Epson's eShift technology really yields picture that's 2K max. And HDMI is only 10.2Gbps vs. 18, so no 10-bit 4K@60. This also causes issues with LibreELEC builds, and a bit of an annoyance w/nVidia Shield, needing to switch between 4K@60 at 8-bit for apps like PSVue/DirecTV Now and to [email protected] for 10/12-bit and HDR to work correctly.

Hoping Epson release a 5050UB this Fall w/full 18Gbps support & further improved eShift for 4K. Would love to have a true 4K PJ around $3K, but looks like we're still a year or more away from it.

[djnice]

Please modify the picture quality in the first post to B, due to the banding and the white/chroma clipping.

[sergejskr]

 

Hoping Epson release a 5050UB this Fall w/full 18Gbps support & further improved eShift for 4K. Would love to have a true 4K PJ around $3K, but looks like we're still a year or more away from it. 

This won't be for several years I'm afraid, 3-4 years for sure. I would increase your budget and buy either Sony 4k native projector Lamp based or JVC with eshift, they are much better projectors than Epson 5050UB (but this is also a great projector).

[hdmkv]

Please modify the picture quality in the first post to B, due to the banding and the white/chroma clipping.

 Agreed, grade adjusted.

[lionne]

In regards to bandings, you need to be very careful on relying someone feedback about that, from my own experience and being a member of avsforum for 6 years, calibrating many projectors and learning the curve, I can tell you for sure 80% of users don't understand how to setup TV or a projector correctly regarding the colorspace. 
So I've tested Zidoo x9s with my SONY VML-VW760ES/VW885ES and there are no banding issues at all, so far the picture quality is absolutely the same as OPPO UDP-203 throws out, I didn't run specific tests yet like chroma sampling and other test patterns, but if you calibrate your unit correctly you shouldn't see the bandings. I'm pretty sure others people feedback about banding, was related to their PJ or TV settings not being able to provide good HDR along with BT2020 colorspace and HDR Gamma handling, that's why for instance you should use Tone Mapping as at the moment its best viewing experience than using native Gamma Handling of any Projector or a TV. Now there are many ways how you can achieve tone mapping, but I have Lumagen Pro 4444 and it does the job perfectly. Colours are superb, no bandings all details are present and its crispy as hell.      

 I reported my findings with banding in-depth on the Zidoo forum as well as in here previously. As I described in my banding tests here a while back, the test file I have been using:

The World In HDR 4K Demo.mkvhttp://4kmedia.org/the-world-in-hdr-uhd-4k-demo/

produced minimal banding when played directly though my TV using the TV's USB 3 input port. I use this file because it has serious banding issues and makes a great test file for banding. On the Zidoo, it suffers from severe banding in some modes, but some modes show minimal banding, exactly as my TV looks when playing it directly using its own media player. So it's not my TV - the Zidoo has banding issues in some modes.

Banding on the Zidoo:

HDMI mode: AUTO
Color Space: AUTO / YCbCr 444 / YCbCr 420
Deep Color Mode:
- OFF - severe banding
- 10bit - much less banding
- 12bit - minimal/no banding- AUTO - minimal/no banding

HDMI mode: Auto
Color Space: YCbCr 422 / RGB 444
Deep Color Mode:
- OFF - severe banding
- 10bit - severe banding
- 12bit - severe banding
- AUTO - severe banding

This also applies to the HDR 4k movies I have watched, including The Peanuts CGI film, which is also a good test for banding. As you can see, the modes that have the least banding is YCbCr 444 12bit / YCbCr 420 12bit. If it was my TV, then all modes would have severe banding, as well as playing back the content directly in my TV. As you can see, some modes show minimal/no banding, so my TV is certainly capable of displaying even problematic files with minimal banding, if sent the right signal.    

You cannot do reports like this.

1.  You haven't provided what display you've used.
2.  You haven't provided any screenshots of banding present
3. You should test those things via professional test patterns (HDR 10 Test Patterns ) https://diversifiedvideosolutions.com/dv...dr-10.html or at least AVS HD 709 test patterns known for all video calibrators)
4. You should test this on multiple displays to ensure its not the problem of your display and etc. 
When I have time I'll run several tests as I have all patterns required, will provide some screenshots as well.   

Wow, how nice of you to tell me how wrong everything I'm doing is. I have been posting for 3 months in here and also the Zidoo forums. I don't have multiple TVs - sorry, I'm not made of money. I'm posting what I felt might help - and, by the way, posting it in a (hopefully) easy to read and understand format. That's a lot better than a lot of posts I see. I have already talked in more detail about banding in previous posts. This was just basically a re-post. I don't see how using the AVS patterns would help as far as banding, since the whole point is finding a problematic video test file that is freely available that we can all use for reference. The file I linked to suits that purpose well. As I said, the Peanuts movie UHD also works well to show banding issues. Also the Revenant and Martian clips previously posted.

[lionne]

I will, but unfortunately very busy, that's a quick one for the image quality I've taken on iphone 8 - don't take it too seriously but obviously you can appreciate how the image looks. 

In the past, I have said that this is mainly a display processor related issue. I am having to reconsider that thought. On my Samsung TV, I get severe banding with 12-bit YCbCr 4:2:2/4:4:4 inputs from the X9S, but I don't see that with the nVIDIA Shield or Apple TV 4K both of which outputs YCbCr 4:2:2 at 4K 24Hz. It looks like something is not right with Zidoo's output. 

So the plot thickens. I would love to know if it really is the Zidoo causing the banding problems here. I am also very interested in the new Dune that just came out that uses the same chip as the x9s. It seems that player also has banding issues that owners are reporting. So is it a chip issue, a Zidoo issue, or a TV issue? That's the $100,000 question.

[hdmkv]

Good question. It will also be interesting to see how Zidoo X20 w/RTD1296 SoC fares. Should be sent to reviewers any day now.

[vj950]

I am trying to understand why Zidoo Player can't play bluray menus when used as external player in ZDMC or with a regular file explorer vs when used in HomeTheater 2.0 and MediaCenter apps. This is true for both ISO and BDMV folders. Couldn't figure out what's different. If there is an explanation, could someone please explain me?

thanks

[looun]

Full menu BD work only with  file explorer or HomeTheater 2.0.
ZDMC is nice only for TV show for "watch status", missing on HomeTheater.

[riddle]

=11ptI am realy intrested by direfence in PQ X9S vs X20...

[hdmkv]

Zidoo just put up the product pages for X20 & X20 Pro, so I assume they're getting closer.

[lionne]

Tried playing a 4k SDR (no HDR) video file last night and it wouldn't play - it was extremely choppy and wouldn't play smoothly - just chugging and freezing with weird motion. It's a newly-released 4k scan/file of the original Star Wars: A New Hope, released from the fan community. Here's the video specs:

Writing application: mkvmerge v23.0.0 ('The Bride Said No') 64-bit
Writing library: libebml v1.3.6 + libmatroska v1.4.9

Video
ID:1
Format: HEVC
Format/Info: High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile: Main [email protected]@high
Codec ID: V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration: 2 h 2 min
Bit rate: 89.4 Mb/s
Width: 3 840 pixels
Height: 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio: 16:9
Frame rate mode: Constant
Frame rate: 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space: YUV
Chroma subsampling: 4:2:0
Bit depth: 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame): 0.450
Stream size: 76.3 GiB (91%)
Language: English
Default: Yes
Forced: No

There are also 15 audio tracks. Based on this, can anyone guess why this won't play on the Zidoo? It played perfectly fine straight through without a single issue directly from my LG TV's built-in media player via USB thumb drive. The Zidoo should have easily played this.

[vj950]

Full menu BD work only with  file explorer or HomeTheater 2.0.
ZDMC is nice only for TV show for "watch status", missing on HomeTheater.

 Yes, that's correct. I am trying to understand why not with ZDMC. It also does not work with 3rd party file browser. I was hoping someone can explain me how the files/folders are passed by HomeTheater app to the zidoo internal player, so that it plays menus. 

Also, I have noticed a difference when loading menus vs playing files directly, both with external player. The "loading" rotating circle is blue for menus and white for direct file playback. I believe there is another app named "bluray menu" or something that loads first while playing menu.

[looun]

ZDMC not support full menu , why do you need 3rd party file browser !?! use file explorer . BD must be mount on file system as virtual .

[gpmc]

New firmware v2.0.25 is out!