I watched Chris Majestic’s review on YouTube using pre-prod unit and he mentioned the same thing about too much contrast on HDR quality and obviously, Vava didn’t fix the issue shipping prod units.
The biggest software bug I think is this:
The dynamic contrast is really a bad feature implementation, it’s very SENSITIVE to scenes that are bright and dark so you have scenes that looks soo digital and unnatural. It’s like doing photography using automatic white balance in a dynamic light setting that you won’t have consistently of color when you review your photos. This is where your movie watching experience is way superior using the old Vava, you’re not worried about the next scene what it will look like. I usually have movie nights with friends and I am not confident to use Chroma, it will be surprise after surprise what vava’s color, contrast, algorithm will apply in every scenes of the movie.
This is the biggest feature that I think should have not failed. It’s huge and it will be a deal breaker for a lot of people.
The HDR is attached to Dynamic Contrast, meaning that when I turn off the dynamic Contrast , it also turns off the HDR. I wonder if separating these buttons (on the next firmware release), if possible, so dynamic contrast can stand on its feet (turning it off won’t turn off HDR) will resolve the issue.
Photos I attached here show the HDR off and on using “Film” preset. But even tweaking and customizing it to the lowest Chroma, Hue, and Contrast, when you know you got the perfect customized setting, the next scene looks bad— it’s like a box of chocolate —you’ll never know what you’re gonna get as Forest Gump would say:)
I followed Chris Majestic’s setting of turning the HDR off and boost the Chroma to 80 and less hue to -5 and with this setting, you might as well use your old Vava. And I did. It looks better and it was movie night with friends last night and Chroma was out of the picture.
If they will not fix it, then this is a BAD product overall. So right now, sadly, my Chroma who I thought would be my best friend is in the box and will be waiting if there’s a firmware release soon or I will get a replacement unit hoping that the unit I got is bad…