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Post by Hornsbykid on Jun 28, 2018 14:21:13 GMT
So I sat down to pull the trigger on a 4k dreamscreen kit for my setup. Which is a Sony 75' XBR75850F 4k TV, Pioneer Elite SC-LX502 receiver, and Klipsch pro series front, center, subs with Micca surround and height speakers in a Dolby Atmos configuration. I've had my eye on the DS since the 4k model first went up for pre-order. So I sat down today to purchase it and as I started looking at the forum, for set up tips and customization ideas, and I began to read all the comments about how many problems people are having with the unit. I can't do it now. There's just no way I can buy a device like this with this many issues. I'm curious to people who did buy it, why wouldn't you have returned it for a refund? I love the idea of the device but from what I've read, there isn't a single person who purchased a 4k DS that actually works?  No HDR has worked on any DS 4k unit properly and I've read 50 threads about it. So again, why not return it? Admins on the boards have been promising a software update in a few weeks since early February and it's almost July?? I guess I just don't understand why you wouldn't return a product that doesn't do what it's supposed to do. Help me understand |
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Post by hulkdad on Jun 28, 2018 16:23:27 GMT
As someone who had the original Dreamscreen Bluetooth unit, I've been with them since the beginning. Reviewing some of my posts on this forum, I can be vocal about my disapproval of a lot of what this company has been doing as of late. I currently own a DS4k and 2 sidekicks. True to your comment, they have not worked properly since day one. I've literally swapped out every HDMI cable, changed input methods from everything into the Dreamscreen and then into the receiver to everything into the receiver and then into the Dreamscreen, finally settling on everything into the receiver except for my 4K Blu Ray player which is video directly to DS4K and audio through seecondary HDMI into the receiver. I've gone through every video setting of every device, I've gone through every colorspace my devices will output. I've established an order in which I must power things on and with with which delays in such a way that even my Harmony Remote is now programmed with those patterns and timings. I've given up on 24Hz, I've accepted that I will never have Dolby Vision and at this point, I'm using the whole DS4K as essentially a white bias light while watching HDR content. As you can see, I'm at the point of absolute frustration. I still haven't attempted to return it though. Why? Well, the initial unit that I had left such a good impression on me that I feel it's almost something I need at this point. During the early days, Dreamscreen was also very vocal on these forums and when a problem arose, they jumped on it and confronted the issue regardless of whether they could fix it, they would at least offer support. I support this company. It's new, it's unique, and originally I believed it to be run by a group of dedicated individuals. I like an underdog and I love an innovative spirit. It's only recently I've started to wane a bit on this opinion. Their response on this forum has been next to non-existent and when they do respond, it's usually an almost copy and paste response with the same solutions for every problem (power cycle, swap HDMI cords, it's your receiver.) As of late, it feels like they have given up, which is disheartening. They've also continued to advertise features that are known not to work (HDR/24hz) which is borderline unethical. So at this point, I can easily see not purchasing their product or refund in it. In fact, I have installed their original BT system in 5 other homes of people I recommended to. When I'm asked, "should I upgrade to the 4K set?" I whole heartedly respond, "No!" Ultimately, there are only a few reasons I'm sticking around. Call me a misguided optimist, but I still hold out that somewhere in the disaster this company has become, the original innovators are still locked behind a closed door somewhere fixing these issues vigorously (though the pessimist in me tells me their at a Starbucks somewhere spending our misguided money on Lattes and Chocolate croissants laughing around a table as they spend our ill spent dollars on designing another new piece of hardware to sell us that is half baked at best.) Secondly, I've dedicated so much time into getting basic functionality back I'm almost at the point of personal vendetta against this thing (it will not win.) Finally, I pre-ordered the 4K unit and I feel obligated to stick with it because of the length of time I've owned it. I will accept that I made the mistake of jumping in to this device and I should have acted earlier with my return, but now I feel as though I'm stuck because morally, I feel as though I've exceeded the return period (call it a trained response due to years of purchasing from electronic retailers.) In the end though, I hold out hope. When these things work, it is awesome! I've moved my sidekicks to the rear of the room and Star Wars movies feel like lazers are shooting around my room, Blue Planet feels like I'm in a submarine, and the music mode at parties is a blast. The immersiveness is wonderful, but don't buy it. Not now. Maybe not ever. If they finally release this next firmware and HDR works, then I will be right back on board and selling this thing like crazy. Still though, Dolby Vision... that's a big hurdle. Can you guys at least call Dolby labratories and see what it would take? Maybe throw up a poll here and see how many of us will be willing to pay the difference for the licensing fees.
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Post by Hornsbykid on Jun 28, 2018 17:31:35 GMT
OK so if you were me and you had a 4k HDR and loved the idea of the product, should I just buy the 1080p DS? Will it work better than the 4k one? Or should I just wait it out and see what happens?
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Post by hulkdad on Jun 28, 2018 17:46:16 GMT
Fed with a 1080p signal, the DS4K seems to work as it should. My regular PS4, Nintendo Switch and 1080p material fed from an Nvidia Shield are fine. So assuming the 4K unit does indeed get fixed, then it would be a better, more future proofed purchase... with one caveat. The DS team has announced a new product, the Dreamscreen TV Solo, I think that's what it's called, but it is a single input unit, akin to the original DS units and without the input selector, there's a chance the video processing will be less buggy. So, if you can wait, I would hold off and see what the firmware update brings (if it ever comes) or what the Solo outcome is like and what problems arise there. I can't really recommend the 1080p unit now considering your setup. You would be severely hampering your viewing experience. Coming from my setup which is a 4K set, 4K Blu Ray and an Atmos system, I've more frequently been content to use the DS as a bias light or turned off and enjoy the benefits of HDR than to dumb down my image for the sake of the lights. The thing to understand is that HDR is the real benefit to a 4K set, not the resolution. Most humans, especially us that wear glasses, don't see resolution well, we are much more acclimated to contrast and color variation (it's what gives us that sometimes 3D look on a 2D set that's properly calibrated and the source of the decades long search for a set with "good blacls".") Trace it back to the days when we had to look out for Smilodon hiding in the long grass, we had to see the difference so as not to be eaten. So at the least of it with the 4K unit, you have the option to still easily pass through the HDR data, even the Dolby Vision data passes through, without the use of another splitter and you can enjoy the 1080p material with full backlight capability.
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Post by Hornsbykid on Jun 28, 2018 20:16:47 GMT
Thanks for all your help. I sincerely appreciate it. I'd imagine that you are like me and when you saw the DS, you had to have it. I really don't have a problem shelling out the money for it, it's not really that expensive if it works as shown in the video. But when I began to read all the issues people were having...... Let's just say I was more than a little bummed. We just bought a new house in November of last year, and I have slowly but surely been assembling really nice media center. I picked up the Amazon Cube the other day and integrated it into my rig, and although not as beefy as the Nivida shield, the voice commands work much better than I expected. I had an empty space behind the wall my TV hangs on, so I had my builder cut into the wall and build me a custom rack inside the wall. Once he had the hole cut, which is about 3x3x3, he lined it all in stainless steel and installed glass shelves. Yeah I know, you see where I'm going with this. So I purposely had him build it so that the hole wouldn't interfere with DS display effects. So I kinda feel like I've made this great cake, but nobody has any candles? I'm so excited to show off this system that I've built piece by piece, but I wanna show it off in all its glory. You know, with your friends and family you only get the one shot at blowing they're minds. So I guess I'll just wait it out and see what happens.
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Post by hulkdad on Jun 28, 2018 20:50:47 GMT
That sounds like an awesome setup! Congrats on that and the house. Yeah, I love this thing when it works, but you're right about the reveal. Just wait a bit and it'll be worth it in the end. Good luck!
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Post by Rake on Jun 29, 2018 4:08:13 GMT
Hi Hulkdad, we are on the same boat. There's no need for me to express the same feeling just with different words.
However, I think you might be interested to know, that "selling a product which does not meet its description" is a misrepresentation. Under any modern countries, UK, EU, US, or Developed Asia Locations, selling a product with misrepresentation on a term (contractual term), is a breach of contract. Say for example, in UK, a product does not meet its description is an offence under Consumer Rights Act. Similar laws are in place in different countries.
The good is still subject to various remedies as the mismatch in product description has been revealed right after the product launch and DS has agreed to repair (fix) it. For now, we tends to accept the goods, IF AND ONLY IF, the problems can be fixed. If DS4K cannot be fixed within a reasonable time, we have the legal rights to 1) reject it (refund), 2) price reduction, or 3) replace (not meaningful at all). The 30 days return policy expires only if we did not raise the problem, but in fact, we have raised the problem immediately. So no worry about the expiry of 30 days return policy, we are still entitled with our legal rights.
This post is just to discuss on our legal rights. I am not suggesting any action as I really hope DS will fix the problem or replace with a functioning product soon.
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Post by wizaga on Jul 2, 2018 12:46:43 GMT
Just got my 4k Xtreme kit and i couldn´t be more pleased. This product is awesome!!.
I have both my pc and xbox one x connected to my 65¨ Sony XE9305 (XE93 in the US) Via the Dreamscreen 4k Hub and almost everything works (besides HDR).
Video mode works as expected and is just amazing (turn off colorboost),
Music mode like a charm and the different Ambient settings are beautiful.
I´ve had absolutely No connectivity issues during my setup and the fan on the hub is dead silent.
After a lot of great reviews on Kickstarter about the dreamscreen team i took the plunge and ordered me a 4K kit back in april.
Ever since then The Customer support has been great to me and answered all of my questions and the product came unharmed all the way from the US to Sweden where i live.
The only advise i can give you guys as consumers is give the team some time and i am sure all of the problems you have mentioned will be solved.
Not everybody has problems and the problems that are widespread like the HDR issue i reportedly worked on.
And as a consumer my experience all the way from ordering,to getting information,to shipping,and finally getting and setting up the kit has been really positive.
So please have a little faith and i am sure it will all be solved soon.
Sorry if my english isn´t the best, as i mentioned im from sweden:P
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wbronze
New Member
Let's make our toys play nicely together!
Posts: 40
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Post by wbronze on Jul 20, 2018 1:24:08 GMT
I'd like to chime in on this thread.
The DreamScreen is your best option right now, and it's still improving.
Why does my opinion matter? A couple of reasons you might want to believe me. I'll detail those reasons below.
I have used many video based ambient lighting systems over the last 10+ years:
- SCIMO (incl. dmx ch. for satellite leds)
- Lightpack (early version)
- Hyperion Based (a number of those)
- AmbiScreen 4K (gross)
- DreamScreen
- AptiLight
- And a few others from the early 2000's (forgotten the names)
I can tell that if your setup is working perfectly in terms of HDMI/HDCP/EDID compatability before you introduce any new hardware, you will have a very good experience with dreamscreen* (see note 1)
DreamScreen has been my favorite so far, with SCIMO coming in at a close 2nd place, although SCIMO is very hard to get. He's a busy guy.
I also have one I've been developing personally that is FPGA based.
I can warn you to Stay Away from Ambiscreen. Its crap. It's a sloppy job some hobbyist put together from commercial off the shelf tech with the worst soldering skills I have ever seen in a 15+ year career in electronics engineering.
HDMI is and always has been a mess of a video specification standard to design consumer electronics around. If every device out there had display port instead, we'd be better off. HDCP is a big part of that problem.
NOTE 1:
HDR, HDR10, etc. isn't consistent or reliable in across all sources (players/streamers) and sinks (displays) even when dealing with devices from the same manufacturer. Dolby hopes to leverage this market weakness with Dolby Vision. Let's pray that works and their standards and implementation guidelines find a home with our trusted manufacturers. If Dolby Vision follows suit with Dolby Atmos (which is currently questionable on any platform except xbox one and blu-ray) we shouldn't count on them to fix the problem.
Why am I bringing all this crap up? Because I want you all to see that the problem with 4K, HDR and not to mention bandwidth issues from substandard hdmi cable manufacturers, and behind the scenes EDID handshake issues.... makes this compability problem a lot bigger than DreamScreen's backyard.
For any of you patient folks who've read this far... Look up the HDFury Vertex 4K60 4:4:4. That baby will make all your 4K toys play so sweetly together. Worth the money. Always updating g their firmware too.
P.S. Also, there isn't a better alternative than DreamScreen. I've tried almost all of them and taken them apart to see how they work. DreamScreen is in it for the win, unless Philip's steps back in. They have deeper pockets, although not as deep as they used to be.
TLDR:
From an electronics engineering standpoint, these DreamScreen guys have done great! And they're improving.
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B Lep. San Antonio, TX.
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Post by B Lep. San Antonio, TX. on Feb 23, 2019 8:08:35 GMT
Dream screen sucks, AVOID THIS PRODUCT LIKE THE PLAGUE. Their customer service sucks,too. They sell an inferior product, and then advise you to buy more inferior products when it doesn't work. BAD BUISNESS. All I needed was a part to make this reveiw go the other way.Just a little help would have gone a long way. PLEASE for your own good do not do buisness with dream screen, their crap don't work, and they don't stand behind their product either. There are alot of companies making back light kit for televisions, and I'm sure they would have to have a far superior product, and I promise no one has worse customer service. Their Philosophy us buy our crappy product, and if it don't work, oh well buy some more of our crappy product. My opinion customer service is the key, because production errors happen, parts getting broken in shipping happen, but when this stuff happens, and customer service say
oh well, we have your money now, you can buy some more stuff that won't work, and when it doesn't we won't stand behind it. One thing Dream screen has going for them is consistancy, they are consistantly bad, crap product, and even worse customer service.
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Post by Potential Buyer on Mar 28, 2019 14:26:09 GMT
So I'm looking at the forums to see if I should buy the 4K DS. I'm going to play devil's advocate here.
How many people for whom the product works great will come back to this forum and post? The "only" people that come on the forums are the people with issues so forums are a bad place to judge a product.
You saw 50 threads about it not working. Did they sell only 50 units and they all don't work? What if they sold 10,000 units and only these 50 people are complaining?
It's posts like this that make me question if the product is really bad or people are just idiots.
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No HDR has worked on any DS 4k unit properly and I've read 50 threads about it. So again, why not return it? Admins on the boards have been promising a software update in a few weeks since early February and it's almost July?? I guess I just don't understand why you wouldn't return a product that doesn't do what it's supposed to do. Help me understand 
