Video processor these days, worth it?

I use a JVC HD350 (identical to your HD250 apart from the gloss case finish mine has), an Oppo 93 and a Lumagen Mini3D: The image with the Mini3D is so much better than I could achieve using only the JVC controls. The JVC gamma control is particularly fiddly and interacts with the adjacent settings. With the Mini3D I can calibrate from scratch in aboout 1 hour these days (including the CMS). I mostly use my HD350 for watching BluRays which are mostly 1080/24p films, but the occasional 1080/60i disc for concerts confirms that the deinterlacing is better than the JVC as the image just looks clearer (not very scientific, but just my opinion).

I use very small amounts of the sharpness and detail controls in the Mini3D (all 6 of them) as I prefer to put my HD350's controls at 0 as I find that there is a negative effect on motion particularly on higher settings. The scaling and vertical stretch (for A lens users) is better than the HD350's own as well having compared them at length: You don't get ringing on upscaling (unless already there in the source) that the JVC and other VPs tend to.

I don't use the NR controls, so can't comment on those: I prefer to retain maximum sharpness.

It's very easy to create other calibration memories so you could copy your calibrated memory (for example 'MemA') to another and then you could reduce gamma using the gamma factor control, so it would remain flat (after your calibration of 'MemA') but lowering it would make the image seem brighter. Of course you could use a different colour temperature setting too so that it might appear brighter. It would be easy to switch between the two settings for a brighter mode.

Hope that's some help.

EDIT: I also have Chromapure Pro plus an i1D2 (getting a D3 at some point).

I think you can calibrate through the glasses for 3D but I'm not into 3D myself, so it's not something that I've looked into much. I guess this is for the VIP 3D Theatre (don't know what this is)?

For the most part Video Processors on going extinct. I know many will not like to read this but scaling is getting better and better in Blu ray players and also Receivers. Sure they won't let you adjust as much (yet) like a true video processor but between those sources and your display you should be able to dial in an excellent image.

Yeah I keep reading this, but I've got a pretty decent BluRay player (Oppo 93) and it doesn't do half the things the Lumagen does or as well. Likewise it looks like the latest JVC CMS still isn't sorted so as I plan to eventually buy a (used) X70/RS55 one day this means I'll still need my Mini3D for a good few years yet. So based on the most recent display technology a VP is still needed for those of us that want the best blacks anyway (I'm not so sure about how the 95ES works in CMS terms).

Until they put the kind of controls into players and displays (that can be accessed by a single button as well rather than going through multiple menus) then I'll stick with the VP. Once you have something as flexible as a Lumagen (that you use to the full extent as I do) it's very hard to back to just using display/player controls. I used an Edge for a while and found it severly lacking in controls that even my previous Lumagen HDQ had. For example there are aspect controls in many of the projectors I've owned (and demoed) but they rarely have a direct control to access them: This makes something as simple as changing from the 16:9 disc menu to the 2.40:1 feature be a fumbling sequence of menus and button pressing.

On the Mini3D I wait for the first fade to black as the disc menu disappears and hit the 'V stretch' button, when the picture appears it's already in 2.40:1 and no one but me knows this has happened. It's a minor point to some, but far slicker even if the scaling was no better (it is) then I'd want this kind of control. I couldn't live with the kind of faffing about that a lens memory does when changing AR (I used to have an AE3000 so I'm familiar with the process), or delving around in the menus that my (older) JVC requires to do the same job.

Personally I prefer not to mix my video processor with my audio processor too, I have an older Arcam processor that only switches HDMI 1.1, but it sounds so good I'd have to spend a small fortune to improve on it. Maybe I'm a dying breed, but I'll stick with the VP for a good while yet. Allowing another year before I pickup a used X70 and probably another 3 years of owning that, then I've got at least 4 years use out of the Mini3D. That's less than £250 a year (I've owned it a year already) so it's cost me far less than even one projector over that time and I presume it will have some used value even then, should I decide I don't need it for use with my JVC X9000 (or whatever it's called by 2014 ).