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Tom's Guide
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
TCL finally added this key feature to its 2025 TVs — here's why you should use it
If you're a stickler for preserving the creator's intent when watching movies and shows at home, this news is for you: TCL has finally added the popular FIlmmaker picture mode to its latest TV lineup. Previously, TCL had been one of the last remaining holdouts to incorporate Filmmaker mode among the biggest TV brands in the industry. For several years, Filmmaker mode has been a common feature among the best TVs on the market. Now, TCL is finally in the fold. As a TV expert, I not only use it everyday when evaluating TVs in my day-to-day duties at Tom's Guide, I also use it when watching flicks at home. In fact, I love Filmmaker mode so much that I recommend it to folks whenever I get the chance. Making its debut in 2019, Filmmaker mode is the brainchild of the UHD Alliance — a group of TV manufacturers and Hollywood studios — along with some of the biggest names in filmmaking, including Patty Jenkins and Christopher Nolan. The goal was (and still is) to bring the cinema experience into the living room by offering a TV picture mode that adheres as close as possible to the reference standards used by Hollywood in the production of shows and movies. In other words, Filmmaker mode ensures that your TV is delivering a picture that falls in line with the creators' intent as much as possible. It achieves this by fixing the TV's white point to the industry standard, disabling motion smoothing and reining in the TV's color saturation. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. As a TV-reviewer and a film buff, I've been an avid user of Filmmaker mode since its inception. As a TV-reviewer and a film buff, I've been an avid user of Filmmaker mode since its inception. Comparable picture modes — like Movie, Cinema, and Theater — often adhere quite close to Hollywood reference standards, but brands frequently enable various picture processing enhancements (like motion smoothing) for these modes, too. Filmmaker mode is stricter in its approach. Compared to over-processed, over-sharpened and oversaturated picture modes like Vivid (a picture mode you should avoid at all costs), Filmmaker mode is a breath of fresh air. In action, Filmmaker mode's impressiveness ultimately comes down to the overall performance of your TV. That said, regardless of the price and performance of your set, there's a good chance that Filmmaker mode will be the most accurate picture mode available to you. In fact, because it's so accurate, Tom's Guide runs several picture-related tests in Filmmaker mode for every TV review we publish. This ensures that we're reaching a valuable conclusion about a TV's ability to produce an accurate picture. At the time of publishing, Filmmaker mode is a confirmed feature across all of the models in TCL's 2025 main TV lineup. This includes the recently announced TCL QM8K, the brand's flagship Mini-LED TV this year (and a follow-up to the superb TCL QM8). The QM8K also arrives with a special Bang & Olufsen sound system and a new 'Precise Dimming' feature for better backlight control, so Filmmaker mode should add to an already-cinematic can also be found on the fantastic QM7K, a mid-range TV that just got way more affordable thanks to a recent discount. In our TCL QM7K review, Matthew Murray made note of how impressive 'Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning' and 'Deadpool & Wolverine' look on the QM7K in Filmmaker mode. Take Filmmaker mode out for a test drive on the all-new TCL QM7K, the brand's budget-friendly, mid-range Mini-LED TV for 2025. The QM7K cracks an impressive 1,700 nits of brightness in HDR, pairing these searing highlights with impressive backlight control. When you're done with movie night, switch over to the QM7K's dedicated game mode for smooth gameplay up to 4K/144Hz. Filmmaker mode can also be found on the brand's entry-level Mini-LED for 2025, the TCL QM6K. Given its performance profile, this set benefits greatly from Filmmaker mode's careful guidance. It doesn't offer the high-level brightness you'll find on the QM7K and the QM8K, but you're getting a lengthy list of features for the price, including Dolby Vision and a handful of gaming enhancements. The entry-level QM6K is on a crash-course with our round-up of the best affordable TVs of 2025. While not as bright, colorful and kitted out as higher-end TCL TVs, you're getting plenty of features for the price, including a 144Hz native refresh rate, quantum-dot color and Dolby Vision support. According to FlatpanelsHD, while TCL has not ruled out the addition of Filmmaker mode to models from 2024, there are currently no plans to add the picture mode to older models. If Filmmaker mode made its way to TVs like the 2024 TCL QM7 and last-year's TCL QM78, the feature would arrive in the form of a firmware update. For now, however, picture purists and all-around A/V enthusiasts will have to stick with the brand's latest offerings, should they want a taste of Filmmaker mode on a TCL-branded TV.
Forbes
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
BenQ Unveils Two New 4K HDR Home Cinema Projectors—Including One With 4K/120Hz Gaming Support
BenQ has unveiled a new pair of additions to its home projector range: The W5850, designed to deliver a premium home cinema performance for 'theatre-grade large screens', and the W4100i created to offer more versatility for more mixed use home entertainment rooms. The W5850 can deliver images capable of satisfying screens as big as 200 inches across from a flexible, shorter throw ratio than BenQ's previous W5 series models. It also features new solid state illumination technology; next-gen LED and laser light sources claimed to extend the projector's lifespan, deliver more consistent brightness than regular DLP-type projectors usually do, and run more efficiently. The AI Cinema system introduced on the previously announced W2720i BenQ projector a couple of months back also returns for the W5850, enabling the projector to analyse the composition of incoming images in real time and optimise colour saturation, sharpness and the way HDR is handled accordingly. The W5850's innovative optics support 4K and high dynamic range video playback in the HDR10, HLG and HDR10+ formats, the latter of which adds extra scene by scene picture information to help compatible displays deliver more accurate and punchy images. It can also cover a claimed 100% of both the DCI-P3 wide colour spectrum used for most home entertainment HDR mastering, and the Rec 709 standard dynamic range standard. In fact, as part of BenQ's CinematicColor technology, every W5850 will ship having been already factory calibrated to a DeltaE 2000 error level of less than two, meaning that right out of the box its colors will look so close to the HDR and SDR standards used when TV shows and films are mastered that your eye won't be able to detect the difference. In fact, BenQ's dedication to accuracy with the W5850 has earned it both THX and ISF certification, backed up by a Filmmaker Mode picture preset designed to satisfy the 'as the director intended' wishes of the independent UHD Alliance. The BenQ W5850 projector. Photo: BenQ BenQ claims that the W5850 can deliver an impressive (for a serious home theater projector) 2,600 lumens of brightness form its blue laser lighting system, while its powerful 1.6x motorized zoom makes it possible for the projector to produce a 180-inch image from a throw distance of just four meters, meaning you no longer need to have a cavern of a home theater room to enjoy a truly cinematic big screen experience. The W5850 also carries the fullest version of BenQ's HDR-Pro technology, which combines global contrast enhancer, local contrast enhancer and dynamic black image adjustments to deliver as punchy and dynamic an HDR experience as the projector's optical system can manage. The W5850's uncompromising home theater focus is apparent, too, in its lens design, which features no less than 16 different elements – including an aspheric lens coated with low dispersion materials – to help the projector deliver its 4K images with more clarity and uniformity. Connections on the W5850 include two HDMI ports, one with HDMI's audio return channel technology for passing audio out to AVRs or soundbars; a pair of powered USB ports; an RS-232 control port; an optical digital audio output; and a 3D sync out. This latter port, of course, indicates that the W5850 supports 3D playback. This is an increasingly niche market, with an ever dwindling amount of 3D content available. There's still a passionate 3D fanbase out there, though, and 3D always works more effectively at the sort of image scale a projector can deliver than it does on relatively small TV screens. The W5850's desire to help you enjoy a pristine home cinema experience extends to a four-way optical image shifting system so that you should be able to position the image perfectly on your screen without having to distort its presentation with any keystone correction. It also carries a multi-channel cooling system to keep its running noise down to a maximum 30dB that shouldn't disturb you too much during quiet movie moments. Turning to the W4100i, this shares a few key features with the W5850. It also uses a new Solid-State Illumination system, for instance, for a more consistent image, as well as AI Cinema technology to enhance picture quality, especially with streamed sources. The W4100i joins the W5850, too, in being factory calibrated for exceptional color accuracy out of the box, and can also cover 100% of the Rec 709 and DCI-P3 color gamuts. The W4100i can again play the HDR10, HLG and HDR10+ HDR formats, supported once more by BenQ's HDR-Pro system. The W4100i is actually brighter than the W5850, though, with a seriously punchy claimed light output from its LED light source of 3,200 lumens. As well as potentially helping deliver more of the bright end of HDR's extended light range, this extra brightness indicates that while the W4100i is still designed for a dedicated home entertainment room, it offers more flexibility for environments that might not be able to be as consistently fully blacked out as the rooms the W5850 is aimed at. The W4100i's more 'lifestyle' approach is also backed up by a built-in 5W audio speaker and built-in Android TV smarts, complete with all of the most popular global streaming services, Google Assistant voice control, and built-in Chromecast support. It carries plenty of 'lifestyle' set up flexibility, too – including another four-way optical image shifting system. It only supports a 1.3x level of optical zoom, though, versus the W5850's 1.6x. The W4100i's connections differ from those of the W5850 too – most notably in the addition on the W4100i of a third HDMI port that's impressively capable of handling 4K/120Hz feeds. This instantly marks the W4100i out as wanting to extend its appeal to gamers rather than being more laser-focused on a premium home cinema experience like the W5850 is. The W5850 is available now for $4,999 in the U.S. and £4,599 in the U.K. The W4100i is only available now in the U.K., for £2,999, with its U.S. launch date and price yet to be confirmed. — Related reading Optoma Launches New 'Photon' Projector Series With Portable Triple Laser UST Model LG Unveils New Home Entertainment Projectors – Including The World's Smallest 4K UST Model BenQ Launches New 4K HDR Projector With Innovative AI Cinema Mode
