I bought the thing over a year ago and had it professionally installed. It took two boxes to get there as the first was buggy out of the carton and the install had to be rescheduled. That was the start of the problems.
I bought it for color correction in an HDMI wired JVC RS2 based system with simple sources - a Panny Bluray player, a Toshiba HD DVD player and a Fios box with audio via a Pioneer Elite receiver. Right out of the box my installer had huge problems getting an HDMI handshake with the Tosh. I was only able to make it work with long delays in turn on sequence and resetting the HDMI input on the Pioneer receiver every time I powered up. A hassle, but it limped along. Numerous troubleshooting calls to Lumagen netted me a position early on the XE upgrade list which would bring HDMI 1.3 capability that would enable high def audio codecs and supposedly fix the handshake issues. It should be noted that all of my HDMI connections are 2 meters or less and I have tried multiple cables (Better, Monster, etc) and everything is powered through a nice line conditioner all to no beneficial effect. And if I take the Lumagen out everything shakes hands via HDMI first time every time without any problem whatsoever.
Imagine my surprise when the replacement board finally arrived and immediately trashed my toshiba HD DVD HDMI connection completely resulting in no video or audio for that source no matter what I did. A few weeks of urgent work by Lumagen and a replacement XE board later to remove a resistor in question netted me an HDMI connection with my Toshiba on a reliable basis for the first time in almost a year. (All for a $1,000 upgrade cost). But all is not wonderful in Radiance land. I still have ongoing HDMI handshake issues that result in failure to sync requiring unplugging components from power, rebooting the Radiance, etc. And now the latest firmware update. When I got the board it came with no instructions of unpdating firmware. I finally got those tonight and did the update and boom - no Bluray video or audio via HDMI (now a Sony 5000ES) and green flashes on my Fios screen during programming. I'm flashing firmware backwards as I type, but I have to wonder - is this typical of Lumagen products?
Are they all just works in progress for hobbyists who overlook these kinds of foibles and happily spend their money doing a manufacturers troubleshooting and field testing for them at their own expense? Or does anything they ship actually work on a reliable day to day basis?
I'm not asking it to be a jerk, but after $5,000 and a year of never being able to turn my system on a single day with more than a 20% chance everything will actually handshake via HDMI and give me both sound and picture I honestly have to ask.
Joe
I bought it for color correction in an HDMI wired JVC RS2 based system with simple sources - a Panny Bluray player, a Toshiba HD DVD player and a Fios box with audio via a Pioneer Elite receiver. Right out of the box my installer had huge problems getting an HDMI handshake with the Tosh. I was only able to make it work with long delays in turn on sequence and resetting the HDMI input on the Pioneer receiver every time I powered up. A hassle, but it limped along. Numerous troubleshooting calls to Lumagen netted me a position early on the XE upgrade list which would bring HDMI 1.3 capability that would enable high def audio codecs and supposedly fix the handshake issues. It should be noted that all of my HDMI connections are 2 meters or less and I have tried multiple cables (Better, Monster, etc) and everything is powered through a nice line conditioner all to no beneficial effect. And if I take the Lumagen out everything shakes hands via HDMI first time every time without any problem whatsoever.
Imagine my surprise when the replacement board finally arrived and immediately trashed my toshiba HD DVD HDMI connection completely resulting in no video or audio for that source no matter what I did. A few weeks of urgent work by Lumagen and a replacement XE board later to remove a resistor in question netted me an HDMI connection with my Toshiba on a reliable basis for the first time in almost a year. (All for a $1,000 upgrade cost). But all is not wonderful in Radiance land. I still have ongoing HDMI handshake issues that result in failure to sync requiring unplugging components from power, rebooting the Radiance, etc. And now the latest firmware update. When I got the board it came with no instructions of unpdating firmware. I finally got those tonight and did the update and boom - no Bluray video or audio via HDMI (now a Sony 5000ES) and green flashes on my Fios screen during programming. I'm flashing firmware backwards as I type, but I have to wonder - is this typical of Lumagen products?
Are they all just works in progress for hobbyists who overlook these kinds of foibles and happily spend their money doing a manufacturers troubleshooting and field testing for them at their own expense? Or does anything they ship actually work on a reliable day to day basis?
I'm not asking it to be a jerk, but after $5,000 and a year of never being able to turn my system on a single day with more than a 20% chance everything will actually handshake via HDMI and give me both sound and picture I honestly have to ask.
Joe















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