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Video Like the Filmmaker Intended Reviewing the LG HU810P CineBeam Projector By Jeremy Glowacki I’ll cut right to the chase. I love the picture quality of the LG HU810P 4K UHD Laser Smart Home Theater CineBeam Projector so much that it makes me sad that I’ll have to send it back after completing this review. The combination of the projector’s dual laser light source and much-heralded Filmmaker Mode (thank you Tom Cruise) is everything that I’d hoped for from a premium 4K laser projector (MSRP $2,999). You really can’t beat the efficiency, lifespan (20,000 hours), and color accuracy of a laser light source. The 2,700 ANSI lumens brightness output and 2,000,000:1 contrast of the HU810P was the first indicator that I was experiencing a step up in video performance. It’s also a firm reminder of how much video technology has improved in the relatively short seven years since I bought my current projector. But brightness, alone, is not the entire story, of course. The accuracy of colors and picture quality has to be there, too. Because I have a dedicated, light-controlled home theater, I was able to experience the HU810P in both a darkened room, where image brightness could be toned down a bit, as well as with full-on overhead lights to test the ability of the projector to adjust. Through the HU810P’s Iris Mode, brightness and black level are optimized to the lighting levels in the room. In bright rooms, since lighting prevents deep blacks, the iris widens to increase the range of brightness. In dark rooms, since excessive brightness can hurt the eyes, the iris narrows to decrease the range of brightness without ruining the screen brightness. The projector’s Adaptive Contrast capability also works to optimize brightness and black levels according to the image brightness.
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Residential Tech Today | Summer 2021
The LG HU810P 4K UHD Laser Smart Home Theater CineBeam Projector from all angles
According to LG, this gives deeper blacks in addition to brightness range for each iris mode. With Adaptive Picture Pro (Iris Mode and Adaptive Contrast), it physically adapts to the display’s brightness and darkness range, while Dynamic Tone Mapping optimizes the image for that range. Depending on the lighting in the viewing environment, a user can change the iris mode. Dark Room (Standard) mode is recommended for optimized images with balanced brightness and black level, while Bright Room mode is recommended for bright environment viewing with the projector’s iris fully open. This capability is unique to LG projectors. In what I can imagine would be a perfect use case for a bright room, I found live sports video in Bright Room mode was not washed out yet was bright enough to come closer to the experience of watching a large TV. Conversely, the Dark Room mode in a dimly lit room provided the high contrast ratio and black levels required of a more subtly lit cinematic movie.
The way that LG’s Adaptive Contrast has been explained to me is that it gives more depth to an image by adaptively adjusting the laser output to the image, creating a high contrast ratio. Bright scenes appear brighter, while dark scenes remain detailed with deep blacks and shade detail. The best endorsement that I can give for this feature is that at no time was I distracted by the image quality on the screen nor was I frustrated by a dark movie scene appearing too dark or a bright scene washing out or looking unrealistically “sharp.” Clearly my experience was aided not only by the features I just described (and the dual laser light source), but also the projector’s 3840 x 2160 (2160p) resolution with 8.3 million discrete pixels projected with XPR (Expanded Pixel Resolution) video processing. LG says that this combination provides a picture that is four times denser and more detailed, which was obvious with my 110-inch diagonal, anamorphic screen.
