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The company currently offers lifetime upgrades. In theory, Lumagen can add as many functions and features as it can come up with as long as they don't exceed the memory size or bandwidth of the FPGA chip. This, in part, accounts for its cost, and gives it a level of futureproofing.

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Ready for anything?Īt the heart of the Radiance Pro 4242 is an FPGA (Fully Programmable Gate Array) integrated circuit.

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As this next-generation laser PJ sells for around £50,000, you would hope it can scale a Full HD Blu-ray to its native 4K resolution to the point where it looks like perfection.ĭoes adding a £4,000 scaler box to a £6,000 TV or a £50,000 projector make an image quality difference. And does it do anything else? Let's find out. I also used the Sony VPL-VW5000ES projector. It's been marketed as offering 'Ultimate picture quality, true to the film maker's Intentions', which might be the case as long as the source is 4K, but how does it fare with SD material? For a TV, I used Panasonic's TX-65CZ952B OLED model. I tested the Lumagen with what I consider some of the best high-end equipment around at the moment. But don't let the UI fool you when it comes to the box's underlying power. So the menu system is functional and gets the job done, rather than looking sexy. Often it will be installed by a dealer/AV professional. It's worth stressing that this equipment needs a high level of competence to get the most out of it.

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Backlit, this zapper is the user's way of navigating the system – the Lumagen is controlled via a series MS-DOS-looking dropdown onscreen menus. It's supplied with a fairly cheap-looking remote. I'd suggest the 4242 is the optimum combination for an average home cinema setup. There are other models with eight-in/four-out HDMI stages, and a simpler two-in/two-out offering. All can be configured to be HDCP 2.0 or 2.2, HDMI 1.4 or 2.0. This model has six HDMI sockets – four inputs and two outputs. The Radiance Pro 4242 is a relatively unassuming 1U black box with a single LED on the front, which shows if it's on (blue) or in standby (red). But I think this certainly has the talent to succeed. Interestingly, he started in this business around the time Snell & Wilcox and Faroudja were pulling out – standalone scalers were always a niche product, and it's no doubt a tough market. Peterson became obsessed with one thing – producing the best video image processor. Lumagen has been going since the late 1990s, founded by Jim Peterson, a former computer graphics processor engineer, based in Portland, Oregon.

Step forward the Lumagen Radiance Pro 4242. Getting, say, a 720 x 576 image scaled up to 3,840 by 2,160 on your new shiny 4K TV is not easy, and, unfortunately, the job done by the display isn't necessarily best-in-breed.

In essence, scaling is mathematically increasing the surface area of an image while maintaining its integrity. This can involve the intelligent creation of pixels it's where art meets science. So why the need for a high-priced outboard model, such as Lumagen's Radiance Pro 4242? Twenty years later all equipment seems to have some form of scaler built in. This upmarket 4K scaler/processor is a fine fit for high-end cinema setupsĪround twenty years ago an essential component of any high-end home cinema was a scaler, with companies such as Faroudja and Snell & Wilcox striving to deliver the very best picture from the humble old DVD.

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