Vava Chroma: Picture washed out when HDR /Dynamic Contrast is ON

4K Laser Projector
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It’s been two days since I got the Chroma and IT IS A LETDOWN.

I had a high expectation ( I upgraded all my toys to the latest and greatest —surround system, ALR projector screen, theatre seats including hdmi cable to UHD in anticipation of this, yeah Chroma made me broke :weary:) considering how great is the first generation is even after all the buggy software issues and being told all the time —“we will communicate all the issues to our team or factory reset it” (as a solution).

Watching a movie with Chroma is making adjustments all the time. When I watch UHD/HDR movies, this is where it shines but I still have to make adjustments because it tends to oversaturate. But when I watch an HD, I have to disable HDR/Dynamic Contrast or else a lot of the faces of people in the movie looks like they have reddish spot or washed out faces in dark scenes.

Watch “King Richard” on HBO and UHD/HDR movies such as “Deadpool 2”, “Guardians of the Galaxy”, you will be ending up making adjustments and not enjoy your movies. And yeah, wasted time.

Watching “King Richard” last night was a bad experience cause I could not find the best setting —washed out pics when HDR is on and when it is off, it looks 1080p. I ended up putting my old Vava back.

And try to connect and use Amazon Fire Tv Cube and good luck with over saturation and you will make an adjustment all the time! I was trying to see what HDR10 looks like (appleTV doesn’t support it) but it doesn’t look natural and really off with Chroma. In the older Vava (I shared it here and still waiting for the fix), I can’t hear any sound when it’s TruHD but I got to give Vava’s developers for fixing the Dolby/TruHD with Chroma.

My overall first two nights with Chroma—NOT GOOD! I ended up putting my old Vava back!

Using only Apple TV with the first generation for me is the best setup—I don’t have to deal with all the adjustments even the first day of getting it (July 2021, kind of late discovering Vava, I thought I have to put the time factor here cause I’m sure people who bought this at the beginning had to deal with all the updates and software bugs more that I do). Not with Chroma — the constant adjustments makes my movie watching experience really BAD!

Yeah, colors pops and Dolby Atmos at it’s best when you watch UHD/HDR with Chroma ( with surprises that the next scene might be over saturated or washed out, not consistent and really true to its definition of “dynamic”) but when you watch HD, the first generation shines!

And yeah, for the last two days, I spent so much time factory default it just to make sure (since this is a popular troubleshooting step here)—I did 8x!
My system engineering, QA career was put to the test :grin:

For now, I’m keeping the first generation and will come back here when there is a new firmware update.

… Or I’m just realizing this now as I write that maybe I have a bad one. No point of waiting for new firmware update when I can’t do update with this system when I get “update failed” message trying to click update even after 8x factory resetting it.

What is the process of exchanging it so I can definitely say it’s a hardware or software issue?

Thanks!

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Hello @Lmagy2k,

I was also late discovering Vava and also late to UST projectors. Like you, I only just bought the Vava 4K in Jul 2021 - in fact, 28 Jul 2021.

When I found out about the new model Chroma, I felt a little regret because I might have waited for the Chroma instead of buying the old model.

But after reading all of your posts about Chroma, I am kinda relieved that I didn’t wait for the Chroma. I am truly happy with my Vava 4K. The image quality is great, the sound is great, I am enjoying Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime on an 100” ALR screen everyday.

I hope they will fix all the issues you had discovered about the Chroma. I think it has the potential to be a great projector.

All the best,
William

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Yeah, it’s really disappointing.

I hope it’s just my unit and I can get a replacement.

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…

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I have the same reddish issue. You’ve been doing a good job posting here but it’s pretty dead here. Post to the VAVA Chroma Crowdfunding group on Facebook. There’s a bit more activity there.

  • Edit: Nevermind, looks like you posted your issues on the VAVA 4K Projector Community | Official Group. Hopefully it gets resolved in some future firmware update.
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Hello, @Lmagy2k and @Patrick We are truly sorry for this issue. This is something we don’t want you to experience. Don’t worry we are looking into this and forward feedback to our Engineering team to further escalate these issues. We suggest joining our VAVA Chroma FB page to check for the latest firmware updates. Thank you for all your support!

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Man, seeing how Vava never fixed software issues with the original Vava 4k USTP, I was reluctant to upgrade to the Chroma. Your review confirmed my decision, thanks.

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I have all the same issues and complaints. This is my first projector and coming from an LG OLED, the Chroma is extremely disappointing. The colors are always overblown or washed out, and any change of source content means image settings need to be changed again. I am hoping they improve with updates, but then I had an issue where the image was bluring and tearing, and it seemed like I was watching the processor try to keep up with the content with it making adjustments, so I worry this may be hardware related…

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HI, @AllBacon We are grateful for sharing your opinions with us. Don’t worry we will take note of this feedback and forward this over to our Engineering Team for future upgrades.

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Hi @TeamVAVA ,
I just received my VAVA Chroma projector and I have absolutely the same issues with HDR/non-HDR content as @Lmagy2k . The image is washed out no matter what settings you apply. On default settings, everything looks like you’re watching cheap DVD rip but actually, it’s a 4K Dolby Vision content.
I’ve updated to the latest firmware and tried a factory reset multiple times. Nothing helps.
It’s an absolute disaster. My previous original VAVA 4K Projector worked absolutely amazing out of the box.
Is there a solution for that or I’ve got one of the defective units?

@Lmagy2k How did you solve your issue?

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Hello, @nikolalalai We appreciate you reporting to us about the problem. We will look into it immediately. To better isolate the issue, is this only happening on a streaming device? Please note the cable required to stream 4K videos is HDMI 2.0. In order to enable 4K please turn on HDMI 2.0 function on the projector. If the issue still persists could you send us a sample photo or video of the issue a hello@vava.com

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Hi, I never got a resolution and I gave up on Vava—promises after promises—they don’t deliver! Never again will support this company!

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Same. Never got good support and ended up selling my Chroma and ate the selling fees. Picked up a Hisense L9 instead which was totally worth it.

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Hey @TeamVAVA,
I’m using an Amazon FireTV stick 4K. It’s connected directly to HDMI port without any additional cables.
I also tried Google Chromecast 4K. Same results.
After hours of testing, I figured out the root cause of the problem.
Enabling HDMI 2.0 function on the VAVA Chroma projector causes this issue. After turning it OFF, I’ve got at least an OK picture to look at. But of course, the resolution was dropped to 1080p.
It looks like a defect to me. The original VAVA projector worked fine in both modes (HDMI 2.0 ON/OFF) without any colors issue.
Also, the projector constantly resets the image settings.

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I am also having same issues with HDR in chroma. I am using fire stick directly no HDMI cable .also it’s 2.0 is on. Tried with HDR on . Images are blur . Colors are bad no accuracy. Dark scene looks cloudy . I tried different image settings .also tried advanced settings. But no luck. No doubt SDR you can not watch due to very less color contrast. HDR is like full of red color and Sdr is like no red color . Sdr and HDR both are having the blurry image , picture are getting washed out .While we see the faces in movies it looks like faces are having red patches . Actually there are bunch of issues which is stopping me to watch anything in this projector. I don’t want to play with any more image settings. It really requires significant improvement. Hope you will fix. I will suggest don’t watch 4k testing video there you won’t find the real problem with the projector. Because you are going to watch movies or some other programs not those testing video. Testing should be done on different movies.

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Hi, i got my VAVA Chroma some days ago and had the same issues (big redshift). As i want to use that thing in my cinema room, i know it needs to be calibrated. I will use HFCR for this, already watched a calibration webinars. So to calibrate you need to calibrate SDR and HDR separatly. So in my version of the current firmware, there are not enough possibilities to calibrate properly. I found a setting in another Forum which eliminates the Red-Shift properly and movies look very good.

My Question to the VAVA Suppport: Are you planning in the future the possibility for more expert settings? Like Overwriting settings in Film mode for example? Or calibrating also gamme curves or something?

At the moment i have only one setting “Custom” to be used for calibration. I think the rec2020 (for HDR) and rec709 (SDR) color spaces can be calibrated properly, as i think the beamer will be able to do a perfect image, but i have to decide which i want to have, as i only have one saveable setting.

I hope you can give me some informtion on this :slight_smile:

Greetings, Marc

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Hey Marc,

could u give me a hind for the Forum where u found the settings or even better a link? :smile:

Oh found the Post xD please ignore the question xD

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Hi @marc_cologne We are grateful for sharing your opinions with us. It will surely benefit our company.
Don’t worry we will take note of this feedback and forward this over to our Engineering Team for future updates. Have a great day ahead of you. Thank you for your support.

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So…here we are in April and the same issues expressed by OP are still in place. I just received mine a couple weeks ago and am slowly getting to the conclusion that it was not the right decision to get one. Will continue tweaking the settings as suggested here and adjusting the position of the projector to get it to fit within the 120" ALR screen that came with the combo. It can’t be that hard, right? :frowning:

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Hi, @a1arc0n We appreciate your feedback. For starters on how to set up your projector and the 120" ALR Screen. We suggest you use a measuring device or ruler to follow the W1 and H2. An image is also found in the Manual on how to set up the projector. There is about a 5% variance in the measurements. These measurements may not be an exact fit. The most important measurement is the distance from the screen and the height from the bottom of the projector to the bottom of the screen. Desk height does not matter, it can be placed on the ground or on a table (but you may need to raise or lower the projector to reach the required height).

If you need further assistance kindly email us at hello@vava.com. Thank you!

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Hello ,man . How is going on . Does new version V 1.7.4 fix your probolem with HDR ?