Desk of Contents
A up to date residence cinema isn’t nearly high-end image high quality and wealthy visuals; it also needs to have the kind of connectivity that makes it simple to hop right into a recreation or stream your manner by a Scavenger’s Reign rewatch. The Valerion VisionMaster Professional 2 is a way of life good projector that brings the large display screen residence, whether or not you’re enjoying cinema or blitzing by FPS video games. It connects historically by way of an HDMI cable, or performs content material by way of Google TV OS, streaming out of your WiFi connection or enjoying video forged straight out of your iPad or different system. With highlights picked out by lasers, vibrant darks, excessive distinction ratios, and full sound, this 4K projector appears to be like glorious.
We did have a few qualms: We weren’t in a position to validate Valerion’s extra excellent body fee specs; moreover, whereas the projector is gorgeous, its exhaust isn’t. It has a powerful plastic odor whereas working — although this has began to go away with continued use. In addition to these points, the projector actually feels particular. Its picture high quality is so wealthy it borders on hypnotic, its sound is dynamic and highly effective, and the system’s design is comment-worthy.
The picture appears to be like implausible
The VisionMaster Professional 2 introduced illuminated the world of “Warhammer 40,000: Darktide” like I’d by no means seen it earlier than.
Credit score: Gabriel Morgan / Mashable
One of many first movies I watched on this projector was a nature movie about coral reefs. Stuffed with kaleidoscopic photographs of sea anemones, jellyfish, and cephalopods, it seemed unbelievable on the VisionMaster Professional 2. The Valerion’s use of lasers to create highlights is palpable — the picture’s brights peak in a manner that may be dazzling, creating results you couldn’t replicate on even the most effective TVs.
Taking part in cinematic cutscenes from Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, highlights on armor bounced luminously off the wall. Simply because the highlights are dazzling, the darks are wealthy and sophisticated.
Even within the daytime with the home windows extensive open, the VisionMaster Professional 2 is vibrant sufficient to take pleasure in.
The projector can emit as much as 2,500 to three,000 ISO Lumens, relying on the mode. It has ravishing HDR10+, a 15,000:1 distinction ratio, and shows 110 % Rec. 2020 coloration gamut, which is a lot wider than the DCI-P3 coloration house. It throws image sizes from 40 inches to 300 inches.
If you happen to’re trying to expertise basic movies at residence in a manner you haven’t been in a position to earlier than, the IMAX mode will enchantment. Allow it to expertise movies in IMAX 1.9:1 or 1.43:1 side ratios.
Whereas the picture appears to be like fairly good proper out of the field, it offers you a software belt for calibration. The system additionally has various picture modes. We tried it with totally different settings; two standouts have been Vivid Mode, which creates excessive highlights, and Filmmaker Mode, which we settled on as our normal.
It achieves game-ready refresh instances with wonderful graphics
At 120Hz, in-game movement is seamless.
Credit score: Gabriel Morgan / Mashable
I examined the Valerion’s capability for gaming utilizing an HDMI cable related to my laptop computer. I ran Warhammer 40,000: Darktide on it, enjoying with a controller. The visuals have been hypnotic. True to its identify, Darktide’s palette leans darkish, with hits of neon and excessive distinction chroma including element to a shadowy, ruined metropolis.
In cutscenes, the picture seemed beautiful and much more dynamic than it did on my laptop computer display screen. In-game, the graphics stored up with my character’s movement.
I used to be unable to confirm the excessive refresh charges that Valerion advertises on its web site. Valerion advertises speeds of as much as 240Hz at 1080p. This 240Hz mode achieves a zippy 4ms enter lag. When sending a 1080p picture, the most effective fee I might obtain was 120Hz. The max refresh fee I might get with 4K was 30Hz. Nonetheless, that is probably attributable to my HDMI cable. If you happen to’re planning to purchase the Valerion for gaming, we suggest that you just spend money on an HDMI cable designed for high-resolution content material, just like the Kelink 48Gbps Extremely Excessive Velocity Black Braided 8K HDMI 2.1 Cable.
120Hz continues to be extraordinarily quick, and at this fee, the movement felt seamless. 120Hz refresh charges are aggressive with many gaming laptops. Even at this fee, this projector is an efficient decide for gameplay.
The system itself appears to be like nice
With a majority of these aesthetics, this projector is greater than only a machine.
Credit score: Gabriel Morgan / Mashable
The Valerion VisionMaster Professional 2 projector is a supremely stunning object. It manages to look completely excessive tech whereas concurrently invoking the class of one other period. You would think about this projector straight into the world of Adolfo Bioy Casares’ 1940 novel The Invention of Morel, a piece of science fiction by which projectors eternally recreate a forged of revelers on a forgotten island.
The projector options chrome, electroplated steel ridges round its rectangular body, with recessed vents between the ridges. The lens emerges from the flat of its entrance profile. A hatch folds down on the projector’s rear, exposing its sockets. A small stand on the underside props it up at an angle.
The tripod stand labored nicely
Flip the tripod’s high piece to lock the projector in place.
Credit score: Mashable
The projector may be mounted with three totally different programs: a tripod stand, a desktop gimbal stand, and a ceiling mount.
We tried the Valerion Walnut Tripod Stand, which completely matches the aesthetic of the system. It has enticing, molded steel parts and pretend wooden tripod legs. The tripod appears to be like stunning and works fairly nicely, standing sturdily and permitting for easy positioning.
It has optical zoom
You would possibly must go on the lookout for it within the menu, however this projector has high-end mechanical zoom in-built.
Credit score: Gabriel Morgan / Mashable
Connect this to a ceiling mount with out worry. With true optical zoom in-built, it should regulate picture measurement primarily based in your wants, enabling you to zoom in or out to arrange your projector and place the picture appropriately in your display screen, even from numerous throw positions. Optical zoom does this mechanically with a lens, a lot the best way {that a} DSLR digital camera allows you to zoom out and in optically. As a result of it makes use of a lens, which means that the picture doesn’t sacrifice pixel richness to attain totally different sizes.
This higher-end function isn’t accessible in lots of lower-cost projectors. Some low cost projectors will as an alternative promote digital zoom. Digital zoom can change the scale of the picture, however loses pixel richness to attain this.
Keystone has you coated; lens shift is accessible within the improve
When you must alter the size of your picture, the Valerion additionally has an auto keystone function in-built. That is broadly efficient. In a big room, I consider that it will do a great job of matching the picture to the wall.
When the auto keystone doesn’t land proper, the system prompts you to enter handbook keystone adjustment mode. That is easy to navigate to from settings.
Keystone usually isn’t one of the simplest ways to change the positioning of a picture. It really works by altering how a lot of the projection shows the picture and remapping the size throughout the projection. This will cut back brightness and create artifacts.
This was obvious. In our exams, we performed with this and created an oblong picture on the wall, with the pure borders of the picture extending as a vibrant rectangle far past it. A superb display screen would have omitted this border, however on the wall, it was seen.
The upgraded model of the unit we examined, the VisionMaster Max, is the one Valerion mannequin with vertical lens shift. As with optical zoom, this function isn’t accessible on most lower-cost projectors. Lens shift lets you mechanically reposition the lens and transfer the picture up and down.
Lens shift precisely strikes the picture with out lowering its high quality. VisionMax’s vertical lens shift, paired with its optical zoom, signifies that most customers ought to be capable to match the picture to their wants with out lowering high quality.
Connectivity is straightforward to attain
This projector will connect with your entire tech arsenal.
Credit score: Gabriel Morgan / Mashable
The Valerion is appropriate with most traditional connections. With a number of HDMI ports, an eArc port, Apple AirPlay, Home windows Display screen Casting, and Google OS organizing your WiFi accessible apps, there are ample methods to hook up with this unit. It additionally comes with a helpful distant.
We examined it with an HDMI cable, AirPlay, Home windows Casting, and WiFi. Home windows Casting from Home windows 10 was the one technique with a drop in high quality, and we’re inclined in charge Home windows 10 for this, relatively than Valerion.
With an HDMI jack, Valerion defaulted to 30Hz display screen refresh instances, nonetheless, I used to be in a position to alter this within the choices window on my laptop computer. I might change the output on my pc to as much as 120Hz.
AirPlaying a Youtube video from my iPad Air is straightforward and fluid. It defaulted to 1920×1080 at 60Hz. Once I navigated to Youtube by way of WiFi contained in the Valerion interface, the standard additionally defaulted to 1080p at 60Hz.
Can it actually hit these spectacular refresh instances in 4K? Not in our exams.
We couldn’t get a 4K connection quicker than 30.000Hz with any connection we tried.
Credit score: Screenshot: Home windows
We wished the VisionMaster Professional 2 to be the distinctive gaming system it’s marketed to be, and it is excellent. Nonetheless, we weren’t in a position to confirm the numbers Valerion cites concerning its refresh fee. Particularly, the web site advertises that the mannequin can obtain enter lag latency of 4ms at 1080p at 240Hz, 8ms at 1080p at 120Hz, and 15ms at 4K at 60Hz.
Confusingly, in a single place, the web site claims that the “VisionMaster Google TV Platform” can hit a max body fee of 4K 144Hz, whereas elsewhere the web site claims the 60Hz body fee that the rep confirmed.
Not one of the connection strategies we tried might attain refresh charges above 120Hz. Worse, we couldn’t get any 4K movies to play above 30Hz with any of the strategies we tried, and at 30Hz, they really feel a bit laggy and sluggish.
The system doesn’t include an HDMI cable. To check it, we grabbed the one we have already got. Utilizing my HDMI cable, the projector’s max refresh charges have been 120Hz at 1080p and 30Hz at 4K.
We requested Valerion in regards to the difficulty, they usually instructed us to disable Movement Enhancement Mode and to allow Excessive Refresh Fee Mode within the recreation bar. Neither of those fastened our difficulty with the configuration we now have.
We tried to validate these numbers utilizing strategies aside from HDMI. We tried a couple of strategies to play 4K content material from YouTube and Vimeo, and every time we did, the machine dropped the body fee to round 30Hz or beneath, or ceased to play. Once we related by way of AirPlay and scaled the standard up from the default 1080p, movies ceased playback in 4K.
Once we pulled up the identical 4K video on the VisionMaster Professional 2’s browser or by the YouTube or Freeplay apps, the movies generally performed in 4K, however the high quality once more dropped to 25Hz or 30Hz.
We have been annoyed to search out that we couldn’t run 4K video from the projector above 30Hz in any of the codecs we had accessible.
Doubtless, it ought to be capable to obtain 4K video at 60Hz with the fitting {hardware} and HDMI cable. Nonetheless, it’s one thing to be careful for. If you happen to’re on the lookout for most efficiency in 4K and 1080p efficiency above 120Hz, it’s possible you’ll must do some fiddling.
It’s fairly smelly when working
Usually, odor isn’t an element that weighs on the standard of a tool like a projector. Nonetheless, it’s a issue right here. The VisionMaster Professional 2 vents from its facet, expelling scorching air between the ribs that encompass it. This scorching air smells very strongly of plastics and glues.
This odor will nearly undoubtedly go away with time. Nonetheless, it’s totally distracting in the beginning. I made positive to open my home windows and run my air air purifier whereas I watched. Due to this, we suggest utilizing this projector in a well-ventilated house at first.
Is the Valerion VisionMaster Professional 2 price it?
The VisionMaster Professional 2 is completed in stunning reflective plating.
Credit score: Gabriel Morgan / Mashable
If the Valerion VisionMaster Professional 2 4K Projector is in your value vary, then it’s a real deal with. This projector supplies extraordinarily lush visuals accented by lasers, easy Google OS good TV options, and lots of the capabilities you count on from a projector at this value, together with optical zoom. It has the high-end specs to enchantment to projector nerds, but its Google OS makes it intuitive sufficient to exchange your TV.
Whereas the VisionMaster Professional 2 supplies glorious response instances and lavish 4K visuals, it did not obtain the specs the web site claims with the gear we now have. That does not imply it will possibly’t, it simply means it’d take some fiddling, relying on the best way you employ it.
This projector supplies unbelievable picture high quality in a bundle that is easy to make use of. Pair it with the fitting connections, cables, and media, and it will likely be a real stunner.
