Upgraded UHZ65 FAQS

Optoma USA has approved this modification and the warranty for UHZ65’s bought in the USA are still valid. Please notify us of any failures first.

Currently, with our Optoma contract, we are not authorized to sell or ship projectors outside of the US – even though Optoma representatives from around the world are aware of our modification.

Unfortunately, we are only authorized by Optoma USA to perform these modifications. If we were to do these modifications on one purchased outside of the US, we cannot, at this time, guarantee that the projector would still be covered under warranty.

We understand there is international demand, and we apologize for the inconvenience.

As mentioned above, we are only authorized by Optoma USA to perform these modifications on projectors bought from Optoma USA. If these modifications were performed on a projector purchased outside of the US, we cannot, at this time, guarantee that the projector would still be covered under warranty.

Although Optoma USA has approved this modification they will not make them, nor will the international divisions make them either.

In addition, it is not just a simple custom-made filter installation that we’ve had made for the projector. There are additional optical modifications (such as reducing the amount of reflected light inside the light engine) that have to be done to each projector by a highly skilled technician. On top of that, custom calibration and configuration has to be done to effectively to reach 80% BT2020. Each Theo-Z65 projector takes over 5 hours to modify (The Theo-Z65 Lite takes much less time); it’s very time consuming. It is not something that can easily and quickly be done.

It is not simply an addition of a filter. There are additional optical modifications (such as reducing the amount of reflected light inside the light engine) that have to be done to each projector. On top of that, custom calibration has to be done to effectively reach 80% BT2020. As word has gotten out, demand for the upgrade has also risen.

Fortunately, due to improved filters and a new process, we now are able to make the upgrades quicker than they have taken in the past.

Two main reasons: cost and brightness. To add a custom-tuned cinema filter for this projector would add considerably cost and would place the projector outside of their target price point. The wide color gamut also reduces the overall brightness and Optoma chose to hit their 3,000 lumen output with the UHZ65.

In addition, Hollywood is currently grading content to P3 inside of BT2020. With our background and experience in the motion picture industry (we are a Red Camera, Sony CineAlta, and Canon Cinema dealer) we knew about and have been shooting in very wide color gamut (even beyond BT2020) for at least the last 8 years. We also knew that most current displays cannot even do 100% of P3 color. When we measured and saw what color beyond P3 looks like we wanted to share that with other enthusiasts of ultra wide color – even though it is outside of normal calibration and what the director is currently limited to with P3 inside of BT2020 (whether or not they want wider color).

If it is a lamp-based projector it is much more difficult (not realistic with most current filter designs) to get much beyond the 60% to 65% of REC2020. Other 4K laser projectors could achieve this, but so far, we’ve seen no other laser light source 4K projectors that have achieved this that we could find for less than $35,000.

In addition, Hollywood is currently grading content to P3 inside of BT2020. With our background and experience in the motion picture industry (we are a Red Camera, Sony CineAlta, and Canon Cinema dealer) we knew about and have been shooting in very wide color gamut (even beyond BT2020) for at least the last 8 years. We also knew that most current displays cannot even do 100% of P3 color. When we measured and saw what color beyond P3 looks like we wanted to share that with other enthusiasts of ultra wide color – even though it is outside of normal calibration and what the director is currently limited to with P3 inside of BT2020 (whether or not they want wider color).

Most likely yes, unless it is over 150” and you have lights on in the room. It also depends on the type of screen, the color mode selected, the color of the walls etc. If you want to watch the projector with some lights on then we would suggest keeping the screen to less than 120”. The best HDR experience will be in a dark theater-like environment with screens less than 140” and a screen gain of .8 to 1.3. A standard white matt screen is a gain of 1.0.

It is as accurate as is possible using a balance between technically correct and a reasonable amount of brightness. Each projector comes with an information sheet for optimizing the user’s preference for brightest or most accurate in each color mode for REC709, DCIP3, or REC2020.

No, the brightest setting “Bright” on the this projector is still very usable and only the trained eye will notice the slight differences in color accuracy and white balance.

The “Bright” mode is used with some lights on like in a sports gathering or for very large screens over 150” and up to 180”.

Since the modified UHZ65 starts with 3,000 lumens we are able to achieve a very good balance of wide color and good brightness of up to a usable 2,400 lumens for the Theo-Z65 and 2,200 lumens for the THeo-Z65 Lite. The HDR mode with wide color (up to 80% of REC2020) will typically reach a brightness of 1,600 to 1,800 lumens. Lamp based projectors rarely reach past 65% of REC2020 with their best color mode and rarely reach past 1,200 lumens.

It is largely due to the Helmholtz-Kohlrausch effect which states that pure color is perceived as being brighter.

Quick Version: The Theo-Z65 Lite is 200 lumens less in brightness, is calibrated to 4 settings instead of 12, costs less, and takes less time to calibrate and ship out.

We’ve made a video to help explain: