The Max menus offer a wealth of settings, including seven SDR picture modes, seven HDR modes shared by HDR10 and HLG, and three Dolby Vision modes, letting you choose among only the three or seven modes that are appropriate for the current input. Both SDR and HDR menus include a Filmmaker preset, while the HDR list also includes one for IMAX. In addition, the 3D mode works with any SDR picture mode. Valerion says there’s also a separate menu for HDR10+, but I wasn’t able to find an HDR10+ source to connect to. (Most online sources support more than one version of HDR, and different projectors negotiate using different HDR versions with the same source.)
For those who want the best possible picture, there are more options than I can count for customizing each picture mode. You can even choose whether the settings you change apply to all sources or just the current source. That could enable you to customize a single picture mode differently for, say, your streaming input versus your cable box.
You also get a color-management system that allows a full calibration if you know how to do one, or are willing to pay someone to do it for you. However, there’s little reason to bother with that. Depending on the picture mode, the color accuracy with default settings ranged from more than acceptable by most people’s standards to definitively good.
(Credit: M. David Stone)
Based on my preliminary tests, Theater and Filmmaker modes offered the best color accuracy for SDR, with little to no difference between them. The same was true for the two equivalent HDR modes. For both kinds of input, I chose Filmmaker for my formal tests, set frame interpolation (the Motion Enhancement menu choice) to Film, and adjusted black level correctly. (The default setting for both was just a touch high.) I also made some further adjustments to HDR, because the overall brightness was a little too low with default settings in scenes dominated by midtones. Setting Dark Detail to On, Active Contrast to Medium, and Dynamic tone mapping to High largely solved that problem.
After my adjustments, the Max offered excellent image quality across the board, and only minor differences between SDR and HDR versions of the same scenes on disc. Scenes dominated by midtones were still a little brighter overall with SDR, but they weren’t enough darker for HDR to be an issue. Shadow detail may have held a touch better in HDR, but even the SDR version showed all the details that I know to look for in the dark scenes in our tests, and it would take a side-by-side comparison to be sure there was any difference.
(Credit: M. David Stone)
The image for 3D input, using DLP-Link glasses, also earned high marks. I didn’t see any crosstalk in my tests, and 3D-related motion artifacts were at the low end of the range for today’s 3D projectors.
Image brightness is yet another strong point. Based on the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendations for a dark room, 3,500 ANSI lumens is bright enough to light up a roughly 230-to-310-inch (diagonal), 1.0-gain, 16:9 screen in a dark room. For the notably lower-brightness picture mode I used, the Max was easily bright enough to light up my 135-inch screen. And in informal tests in my family room using the largest patch of blank painted wall I have available, it delivered a 115-inch image that stood up nicely at low to moderate levels of ambient light (meaning at night with lights on, and daytime on an overcast day). Spring for an ambient-light-rejection (ALR) screen, and the picture will stand up even better in daytime. (For more on ALR screens, see How to Choose the Right Screen for Your Projector.)
(Credit: M. David Stone)
If you’re concerned about rainbow artifacts despite the Anti-RBE feature, or about the laser speckle that tri-color laser projectors can show, keep in mind that how easily you see either varies from one person to the next, so our standard advice still applies. Buy from a source that allows free returns, so you can check out the projector for yourself.
Two final extras for gamers are support for Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), and a short input lag. My Bodnar 4K Lag Tester measured the lag at 17.6 milliseconds (ms) at 60Hz for both 1080p and 4K, 11.9ms for 1080p/120Hz, and 4.6ms for 1080p/240Hz.
