LG CineBeam HU915QE Review | LG's Newest 4K Ultra Short Throw Projector

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Watch The LG HU915QE UST In Action

Highlights on the LG HU915QE:

This new 2022 LG CineBeam Premium Projector Sets a New Standard for a Home Cinema Experience. This New 4K Ultra Short Throw Model Delivers an Immersive Visual Experience with Sharp, Vibrant Images, Boasting a Stylish and Modern Design

LG is adding to its premium 4K CineBeam laser projector lineup with this new, incredible UST triple laser HU915QE projector. It is the follow up to the LG HU715Q which was released earlier in the year. Engineered with serious cinema lovers in mind, LG’s latest top of the line projector solution produces a sharp and stunning gigantic 120” image at a mere 7.6” away from the screen or wall!

Owners no longer have to have a dedicated room to enjoy a cinematic experience in their homes thanks to the new HU915QE’s advanced Ultra-Short Throw projection technology. This new LG Boasts 3,700 lumens with a marketed 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, The HU915QE delivers colorful and realistic images to ensure maximum viewing pleasure. LG has evolved and adopted a 3-channel laser technology which uses a separate light source for each primary Red, Green and Blue color, with the Green being derived from an extra blue laser and phosphor. This new projector offers great, vibrant images even during the day as compared to other competing ultra-short throw projectors using a single laser or lamp as its light source.

Aesthetics

The design of this new LG HU915QE is similar to the prior premium offering, the HU85LA. Although this new projector features an off-white, almost Rose Gold, bisque colored chassis with straight lines and a squared off chassis with a cloth front trim covering the internal speaker system. The sides are louvered vertically to allow for adequate cooling. The area around the lens where the RGB lasers reside and exit the projector is smooth all the way to the top of the chassis. This may cause some light reflections back into the room and onto the screen.

We like to see other USTs like the Hisesne L9H and PX2-Pro which have ridges and barriers to assist in blocking this stray light. There are no visible buttons on the smooth surface. On top of the HU915QE you’ll find a manually operated thumbwheel for adjusting focus. It has a spring loaded cover plate to keep it from being accidentally moved after adjusting. Like the prior HU85LA, it has no menu driven, motorized lens controls,

This projector is definitely in the larger built UST category. It’s about the same size as other higher end 4K Laser USTs, such as the Samsung LSP9T. The measurements are 5.00" x 26.80" x 13.70" and the weight is 26.9 lbs.

When you look at this Laser Projection TV, you can see that LG used the same physical design as the previous model, but decided to change the color when they engineered this projector.

Installation, Throw Ratio, Zoom:

Throw Ratio

• 0.19:1

Lens Shift

• N/A

Keystone/Warping Adjustment

• 15 Point

Placement Guide

• At just 2.2” from the back of the projector to the screen, the HU915QE projects a minimum 90” 16:9 diagonal image, a 100” image from just 3.9”, or at its maximum 120” from a mere 7.2” out.

Projector to Screen Alignment

Because the HU915QE lacks a motorized lens zoom, you’ll need to manually and physically move the projector to align it with the screen.

Move the projector back and forth to adjust the size of the projected screen to be smaller and inside the screen borders. You’ll need to move the UST projector to the left or right to adjust its angle and use the 4 angle adjuster feet to make the screen rectangular.

It is a bit difficult to adjust the feet without lifting the projector.

Projector Focusing

Unlike most other USTs, there is no electronically adjustable motor focus mechanism built into the HU915QE, so it isn’t as easy to adjust focus compared to those models. It is a manually adjustable focus wheel, hidden under a spring loaded trap door. You can focus based on your screen size up to a large 120” image.

Lens Zoom

• N/A. USTs are fixed zoom and rely on physically moving the projector forward and backwards to make their images smaller and larger.

Geometric Correction/Warping/H & V Keystone

Correcting keystone: Keystoning refers to the situation where the projected image becomes a trapezoid due to angled projection.

• There are usually no horizontal or vertical keystone adjustments with UST projectors. To set up and correct geometric distortions, all settings should initially be done manually by physically realigning the placement of the projector and adjusting the feet, in relation to the screen surface. If this doesn’t align the image completely and properly, then your only option is to proceed to adjust the 8 point warping electronically.
• To manually correct this:
  • 1. Press the Settings button on the remote control then go to the Installation Menu >Edge Adjustment.
  • 2. There are three selections under the edge adjustment menu. Each one corresponds to the number of points you can adjust such as 4 points, 9 points, and 15 points.
  • 3. Press the number of points selection you would like to adjust. This brings up a cross hatch box with white dots at each adjustment location.
  • 4. Press the up/down/left/right arrows on the remote control to go to the zone to be corrected.
  • 5. Press the center Select button on the remote to select a zone, then use the arrows again to move it in the direction you want the image to go. Hit Select again to save the position. Do this for all zones needing correction.
  • 6. When done, press the BACK BUTTON to save and exit.

Laser Light Source

The HU915QE utilizes a three laser light source for RGB (Red, Green, Blue) but it is an RBB based laser light engine, which uses the extra Blue laser shining on green phosphor to produce the green colors. Unlike laser phosphor based designs which are paired with a yellow phosphor wheel, this design is capable of reaching a little closer to the full BT.2020 Color Gamut, which also puts it a little closer to DCI-P3, but not much upon measuring. It comes with a life expectancy of at least 20,000+ hours. This is dependent on the laser power and modes used throughout its lifetime, as always.

Brightness

This LG UST boasts a brightness of 3,700 ANSI making it work very well in rooms with lots of ambient light from windows and lighting fixtures, such as your living room. When you pair this with a proper ultra short throw, Ambient Light Rejecting (ALR) screen, you've got a viable television replacement while increasing its size exponentially!

Peak Center Brightness For Each Picture Mode (Uncalibrated, In Lumens)

Color Gamut

The new LG UST uses a three laser system for RGB (Red, Green, Blue) as mentioned before, which allows it to achieve 94% of the DCI-P3 color space. Other DLP competitors that use blue laser phosphor may employ a color wheel which has RGBY or RGBW segments to increase overall brightness, but at the expense and sacrifice of total color volume as compared to tri-laser projectors.

This RBBg (Red, Blue, Blue w/ Green Phosphor) is not as ideal for color rendition as a true RGB discrete laser UST that has actual true red, green and blue colored lasers, which can be much better in a home theater environment as well as in a living room. As we’ve stated, we wish this and more affordable standard throw projectors would also start using discrete RGB lasers. It has already been shown with many USTs that they can be engineered into an affordable package, so there are no more excuses why they can’t be used here and in regular front home theater projectors!

BT.709 SDR Color Gamut:

HDR BT.2020 Color Gamut:

Sharpness, Detail, Clarity

Sharpness in displays is usually a rudimentary edge enhancement processing feature which, if not done well, can result in severe edge outlining, especially on straight lines and the outlines of objects in the image. This is known as “ringing” or “haloing”, as can be seen in the below examples. Very few manufacturers and displays do sharpness in a helpful way which makes the image appear to have more detail or sharper lines without distortion. A good example of doing it right would be DarbeeVision, which if used judiciously makes the image appear more detailed, 3-dimensional and with more contrast without causing white lines (ringing) around objects. Sony’s Reality Creation is that and so much more.

One thing we can say about this new LG HU915QE is that it's incredibly sharp and detailed. It clearly has a great lens. The brightness combined with its inter image contrast gives it a depth to the image that is not seen on many other USTs. The focus gets razor sharp all while not looking digitally over-enhanced.

I even realized I forgot to reset our UHD player back to 4K HDR from 1080p SDR and the images from Spider-Man took on an almost three dimensional realism in some scenes, in 1080p SDR! It displayed a lot of image clarity,giving the new LG a nice, deep image without overblown colors and a green/blue grayscale as you can get with other RGB laser USTs.

Motion Handling

The HU915's frame interpolation feature is called TruMotion. It is available for all content up to 60Hz, including 1080p and 4K UHD. The TruMotion settings are under the Clarity menu. It offers five total settings. They are Off, Cinematic Movement, Natural, Smooth Movement, and a User selection. The best one is clearly the Smooth Movement setting as far as removing judder and stutter. The user setting works well but anything above 5 or 6 shows the soap opera effect. It is a 10 point adjustment called De-Judder. The Smooth Movement setting appears to be the same as using a User selection setting of 10. Natural mode does a pretty good job but there is still a little bit of judder and stutter to the movement. Cinematic movement is designed to smooth out 24P signals without imparting the soap opera effect and it does a fairly good job but micro judder is still noticeable. If you don’t mind the soap opera effect then either smooth movement or a user selection above eight seems to be the best at removing poor motion horizontally.

Imaging Technology/Chipset

The new LG HU915QE uses the larger, superior Texas Instruments 0.66” DMD chipset with 2 way eShift, as opposed to the 0.47” DMD chipset with 4 way eShift that’s being used in many competitors. This chip’s 2-way eShift configuration is used to render 4K UHD on screen resolution.

Gaming and Input Lag

LG reports that the HU915QE has a 53.3ms lag time in 4K/60p. This is good, but isn’t great for super competitive gamers.

The HU915 does have a dedicated Game mode with a Game Optimizer Menu. These modes usually disable most of the projector's processing to provide the lowest latency response for the serious gamer.

Good motion handling also helps make the Game mode work better. The HU915QE renders 4K graphics nicely, sharing the same sharp and colorful look on this projector.This projector is restricted to 4K/60p gaming though. It also does not feature VRR (Variable Refresh Rate).

Built-In Sound

The LG HU915QE CineBeam features a built-in 2.2 Channel, 40W speaker system that enhances the viewing experience with strong, rich audio. This sound system is more powerful than most other built-in soundbars you’d find on UST projectors.

For more powerful, theater-like surround sound, users can easily connect up to two LG Bluetooth speakers at once.

When using its HDMI port with eARC, this new LG UST allows Dolby ATMOS with lossless audio data to your AVR or external soundbar. You can also use the built in 40W speakers for a pretty good audio experience, which can enhance your home theater sound much better than the tiny speakers found in just about all flat panel TVs or the underpowered speakers in many other USTs.

The projector is measuring an average of about 33dB which is pretty quiet in operation even when standing right next to it. Any type of ambient noise in the room makes it hardly audible when you sit at your normal seating position.

Projector Remote

The classic Magic Remote for this projector is basically the same one they use for all the other higher end LG displays. It has the jog wheel which you press in for Enter located in the center of the directional buttons, the numbers at the top along with many needed quick buttons to access various functions you’d need on a regular basis.

It looks and functions in the menus similarly to the other remotes from LG. It is oblong, fairly light for its size with a rounded bottom and oval shape. It has your normal power, volume, page up/down, Home, Settings buttons along with direct access to features like ratio, source, Guide, and Back buttons that you can press so you won’t have to dig into many layers of the menu.

Streaming Applications

The LG UH915QE includes built-in Wi-Fi which lets users connect it to their home’s LAN network and internet. The built in WebOS includes a web browser as well as a certain number of pre-authorized apps which can be downloaded directly to the projector and installed. You don’t have to have an external streaming box like an AppleTV, Shield, Roku or Fire TV. Some of the app providers are Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, Prime Video, AppleTV+ and many others.

User Interface and Menu System

The User Interface and Menus are consistent with prior LG projectors, so those that have experience with them should feel right at home when using the menus and remote.

Connectivity Ports

The new LG HU915QE maintains the three HDMI ports that were featured on their previous model, the HU85LA. One big decision to omit on this new model is the coaxial RF cable/antenna F-Type connection.

It is also surprising they didn’t decide to upgrade to the full 40 Gbps HDMI 2.1 to take advantage of 4K/120Hz and other features that mainly enhance gaming experience.

Image Modes

Standard

• Best for rooms with more subtle ambient light, such as sconces on dimmers, but nothing too overpowering that would wash out the screen. Good for non-critical movie, sports and TV watching, where you may want some ambient light to multitask or to interact with other people.
• This mode basically just boosts up the blue to give a more cool looking presentation that is more pleasing to the eye, and also helps overcome the small amount of ambient light. Black levels may be slightly elevated as well.
• Looks similar to the Sport and Game modes, but with a cooler blue, more TV style image giving higher brightness, to help alleviate the effects of room lighting. It has a more natural tone to it than Vivid Mode.

Vivid/Brightest

• Best for bright environments such as board rooms, rooms with many windows or light fixtures. Graphic presentations to highlight colorful charts, Slideshows, etc.
• It boosts up the peak brightness and over saturates the colors to make them “pop” in bright rooms.
• Looks overly bright and peaked with vibrant, unnatural colors.
• This mode usually creates a very green and sometimes blue image as they are the two colors that give the most brightness.

Cinema/Cinema Home/Filmmaker

• These modes are for the serious home theater enthusiast who watches in a dedicated, light controlled blacked out room and wants the image to be rendered as close to the film maker’s intent as the manufacturer allows.
• These are the most accurate modes out of the box with colors and grayscale before any calibration. They’re usually supposed to be close to the UHD Alliance standards to preserve the creative intent of the content creator.
• They should defeat all processing in the projector and are supposed to be calibrated closest to the standards, without being overly bright or clipped in either the high or low ends of the spectrum.
• They look more “celluloid and film-like”, to some seeming flatter and less dynamic in its default settings. It is the least bright of all the modes. Colors seem more muted than other modes, but in reality are closer to the standards, which most are not used to being exposed to.

Sports

• As the name implies, it is for watching sports in your cinema.
• This increases the projector’s color gamut and brightness at the expense of overall accuracy, to give your sports fields and courts a more vibrant experience. This also has increased motion interpolation for smoother movement, but we feel this is a compromise we weren’t willing to make because we don't like the Soap Opera Effect, even with sports.
• This mode looks similar in its appearance to Standard and Game modes in how it presents itself, but has some boosted colors and brightness to allow you to watch with some lights on in the room while you interact with your fellow fans.

Game

• This mode defeats much of its built in video processing to get to its rated lag time.
• It appears much like the Standard Mode in its presentation.
• You can get basically the same effect with other modes by turning off all the “features” such as MEMC, MPEG Filters, etc.
• Only supports 4K 60p gaming.

Expert Bright/Expert Dark (SDR Only)

Expert Bright

Expert Dark

• It looks most like the Cinema Modes for HDR at their default settings.
• They have the same appearance, with one being more designed for bright environments and the other for a dark, light controlled cinema.
• Expert Bright is the mode we chose to use for our SDR Calibration

Two-Point White Balance

Now onto the two point white balance.This adjustment usually takes a few iterations of going back and forth as each adjustment affects the other when changed, but with this LG HU915QE it was a very different story and I never got great results. I couldn’t lower green and blue enough to meet the red in any mode. Blue was over by 6% and red was under about the same at 6% down. They were around 106% and 94% respectively. You can see this on the White Balance chart below and also in the Grayscale chart further down. I have reported this to our contacts at LG and as of this writing I am still awaiting a reply. We will update this online review as we need to. This shows using 30/70 IRE, but we got the same results with 30/80 IRE and any other as well.

Grayscale Tracking

After the two point white balance, we moved to adjusting the grayscale tracking. Grayscale didn’t track very well, as you can see and was mentioned in the two point white balance section above. I tried 2 point, and multi-point adjustments to no avail. While I could seem to “stack them” by doing a 2 point and then multi-point, it just seemed to cause more issues than it solved.

This quick review was very limited so maybe with more time and experimentation I could’ve figured out a solution. For business reasons, I also wasn’t able to take this unit home with me for extended evaluation as I normally do with other projectors I’ve reviewed here. The EOTF followed the ST2084 curve fairly well, but has some dips throughout. I am thinking once you activate some of the dynamic features it pushes these closer and gives a good perception of HDR. I did try this, but colors seemed to take a hit for some reason and fell below their respective reference boxes.

Contrast

Next I measured the Native ON/OFF Contrast Ratio of every mode in both Bright and Dark Iris settings. It is better than the other 0.66” XPR DLPs, even the vaunted LSP9T at about 2300:1. These 0.66” DLPs are usually in the 1,000:1 range natively, so this is really good for the HU915QE, and the Black model coming up may even be better.

Considering the extreme brightness of 3700 lumens, this is impressive. Negative effects of low on/off contrast really only show up in very dark scenes that don’t have any other bright images in the scene to bias our eyes or engage any dynamic system within the projector. We no longer try to measure ANSI Contrast on USTs since the extreme angles of projection make getting consistent results near impossible, but the perceived inter-image contrast appears very deep with this UST. It appeared better than most USTs we reviewed.

Measurements were done using CalMAN calibration software with a SpectraCal C6 colorimeter and a SpectraCal VideoForge Pro test pattern generator.

Color Management System (CMS)

It was clear that the colors weren’t as saturated as the BT.2020 RGB Laser UST projectors we review. USTs like the Formovie Theater cover over 100% of the BT2020 color gamut and this unit struggled to hit the UHD Alliance’s minimum for UHDA-P3 at only 87% measured. Out of the box the 50% saturation points for BT.2020 were decent except for green and they took only small adjustments to get them nearly within their respective reference boxes. This was one of the toughest and least cooperative USTs to calibrate, which was surprising especially considering its extensive Color Management System (CMS) and Grayscale adjustment settings it offers.

BT.709 Saturation Sweeps inside BT.2020 Gamut

This next result was better but still not ideal. The BT.709 sweeps within a BT.2020 container were the best of them all, most likely due to the reduced gamut from green by using a blue laser with phosphor instead of a true green laser diode. I am not sure why LG is deciding to cheapen out by doing this. Maybe this is how they achieve such better contrast, by using a second blue laser, I don’t know and am just speculating.

DCI-P3 Saturation Sweeps inside BT.2020 Gamut

So even with wider color gamut material which we currently have on almost all UHD material, be it from streaming or UHD Bluray disc based content, we get the same type of coverage even in the DCI-P3 color gamut within the BT.2020 specifications. The DCI-P3 Saturation Sweeps track almost identical to the BT.709 sweeps but start giving out around the 60% mark on green and cyan, which follows the same northward path away from reference.

BT.2020 Saturation Sweeps

Now we transition to the widest gamut available today with BT.2020. They once again look very similar to the other sweeps, along with the same shortcomings in green and cyan. Only Blue is fairly close throughout while yellow twists and turns between red and green leaning.

Color Checker Analysis

This is a real torture test for dipslays, especially projectors, but the LG HU915QE actually performed even worse than usual as you can imagine given the color results above. Although many of the reference boxes are not being hit, the perceived results are pretty good when watching actual content!

Post-Calibration (Interim)

After this quick and interim calibration, you can see the results of everything mentioned in my prior comments as to the color and grayscale shortcomings this UST has, especially when compared to its similarly priced true RGB laser competition like the Samsung LSP9T and the Formovie Theater.

The EOTF Curve still doesn’t track well even after calibration, but in viewing you'd be hard pressed to know it. The best things we have to say on this unit would be the native on/off contrast, image depth and black floor. If the new lower lumen, higher contrast unit improves on this, then it would be the best contrast for a UST based .66” DLP projector in this regard!

We have shared our findings on this projector with the powers that be at LG. Hopefully things can improve via a firmware update, maybe one that also brings us Dolby Vision.

Summing Up The HU915QE

The LG HU915QE, despite its shortcomings noted here, presents a very dynamic, bright and colorful image. It leans very blue in all modes and couldn’t be calibrated out in my time with it. Maybe this is why it gives a perceptually pleasing image, as that is what very blue images are meant to impart on the viewer, even if far from accurate, as they present them in showrooms such as Best Buy and the like.

I didn’t have much if any experience with the prior generation HU85LA, but I wish I had so I could compare and contrast these two USTs from LG. I am not sure if that unit reacts the same way as this newer one does. If so, then I am surprised I haven’t read about it.

The first impressions you will have will be of its high brightness and image depth with good inter-image contrast. You will see how sharp and detailed the image appears to be as well with the more content you watch. While other USTs that feature true RGB lasers can get further out into the BT2020 color gamut, some don’t have good control over said lasers, resulting in overblown, cartoonish colors where even with thorough calibration can’t seem to meet their reference points throughout the gamut sweeps. If LG could do what the engineers from Formovie have done with their Theater true RGB laser UST, who unlike these other RGB laser manufacturers with no laser control, do it the right way with accurate colors and levels that are the closest to spot on as I have seen out of the box from any UST, let alone a true RGB laser based one!”

The big positive we love about the HU915QE, which affects single chip DLPs whether UST or standard throw, is the great (for this segment) Native contrast and black floor with a 0% full field black image. A direct competitor of the LG is the Samsung LSP9T, which is also able to combine high lumens (2,800) with good native contrast at about 2,300:1, and this beats it by about 15-20%. What makes up for the color and grayscale shortcoming is that it has this good inter-image and native contrast. Despite its issues, the LG HU915QE shows a very good picture, especially where there are shadow details or both bright and dark content on the screen simultaneously. These attributes, combined with its sharpness and detail from a great optical path and lens system, will make you happy that you chose this projector! If they can fix some of the shortcomings with color and grayscale and choose to use true RGB lasers on their next iteration, they will have the premier UST available.

Specifications