Unlock your TV or videowall's full potential with the madVR Envy

Many people are aware of the power of the madVR platform to deliver impressive imaging improvements to a projector and screen combo. However, the agile technology in the maker’s products can also be applied equally effectively to other high-performance equipment.

The well-attested abilities of madVR to enhance projection imaging were underlined at an extremely successful outing for the company at the recent ISE 2025 show. You can catch a video interview conducted by SSUM Up TV with Richard Litofsky, company CEO, charting the company’s successful ISE experience here. A highly successful ISE was underlined by the madVR Envy Core being honoured with the 2025 CE Pro Top New Technology Award at the show.

madVR tech was featured in home cinema demonstrations supporting storied products such as the Barco Nerthus in the company’s own demo booth, the Barco Heimdall Plus CinemaScope and also the Sony GTZ-380 (in the Trinnov-led demo suite).

Significantly, this year, the Envy Extreme MK2 was showcased with a 167in Barco videowall, delivering dynamic tone mapping and applying MotionAI to reduce motion blur and judder - often an issue with large video walls - enhancing clarity and fluidity.

Also, on the madVR stand, the company featured two Sony A95L OLED TVs in a side-by-side comparison—one with the madVR Envy and one without. This was designed to underline the impressive impact of the Envy’s AI-based upscaling, dynamic tone mapping and MotionAI running at 4K120.

The same demo showed how the Non-Linear Stretch (NLS) functionality enhances immersion by reducing black bars when watching movies on flat-panel displays. The powers of madVR go beyond the world of projectors. Whether watching a blockbuster in 4K HDR or 1080p content, from broadcast TV or older Blu-rays, Envy ensures the user experiences the best performance possible for each display.

Best-in-class HDR dynamic tone mapping and why it matters

Tone mapping is crucial in displaying HDR content correctly. HDR enables a broader range of colours and brightness, but displays often struggle to show HDR content accurately, particularly when scenes have very dark and very bright elements at the same time. Without proper tone mapping, details get lost, resulting in a subpar viewing experience. This is where the madVR Envy steps in.

Envy's HDR frame-by-frame dynamic tone mapping (DTM) adjusts every frame to deliver ideal brightness and detail. While many high-end displays, like the latest OLED models, now offer some form of dynamic tone mapping, they are often limited in processing power and adaptability compared to what the madVR Envy delivers.

The Envy evaluates each frame dynamically, ensuring no detail is lost. The Envy DTM also uses proprietary algorithms like Contrast Recovery, Highlight Recovery and Shadow Detail Recovery to further enhance HDR, ensuring optimal contrast, vivid highlights and extreme shadow detail.

AI-powered upscaling for today's content

Even in a 4K-dominated world, there is still plenty of HD (1080p) content out there. Most displays do a decent job upscaling to match the native resolution of the display, but this often results in ‘soft’ and less detailed images. The madVR Envy employs AI upscaling to take HD content to the next level. By leveraging the power of its dedicated GPU, the Envy analyses and enhances each pixel, delivering an image that looks almost indistinguishable from native 4K content.

This AI upscaling ensures the viewer experiences crisper textures, finer details and an overall more refined image quality. It outperforms the built-in upscaling of even the best displays because it has far greater processing power and uses next-generation algorithms.

Non-linear stretch for a more immersive experience

One of the challenges when watching movies on 16:9 displays like TVs and many videowalls is the presence of black bars at the top and bottom. This happens because most movies are shown in a wider aspect ratio, such as 2.40, than the screen. You could zoom the content to fill the screen, but this crops away as much as 30% of the available image.

The madVR Envy offers a unique solution with its patent-pending bi-directional non-linear stretch. This feature expands the movie to fill part of the black bar area, reducing these significantly without noticeable distortion, even making them small enough to resemble the display’s bezel if preferred. Unlike cropping, Envy intelligently stretches less important areas while preserving the content, resulting in a more immersive experience.

Similarly, the industry is shifting toward wide-aspect flat panels and videowalls, such as the increasingly popular 21:9 displays. The Envy's NLS delivers significant advantages in these setups by making better use of the extra width, transforming sport and 16:9 movies into a more immersive viewing experience.

Calibration: Achieving the most accurate lifelike image

The madVR Envy enables professional calibrators to perform reference-level calibrations for the ultimate image accuracy. Envy integrates with calibration software like Calman and ColourSpace to achieve exceptional accuracy in grayscale, gamma and colour gamut calibration, ensuring precise colour representation and tonal detail. With support for the largest LUTs in the industry, including 1D LUTs with up to 4,096 points and 3D LUTs with up to 16.7 million interpolated points, the Envy enables true reference-level calibration unlike anything else. This technology allows integrators to offer full calibration across the full gamut of viewing experiences any client will require.

MotionAI: Lifelike motion and unmatched clarity when it counts

The madVR Envy Extreme offers MotionAI, the world's first AI-based motion interpolation in a dedicated video processor. Motion interpolation increases the frame rate to enhance image clarity and reduce judder, which becomes more noticeable the bigger and brighter the TV or videowall is.

Other motion interpolation methods often fall short, introducing artefacts like tearing, unstable frame rates and the 'soap opera effect' that makes movies look overly processed.

MotionAI provides the benefits of motion interpolation while maintaining the original cinematic feel while also allowing adjustment to suit each taste - from the original frame rate with minimal judder reduction to the ultra-realism and extreme clarity of high frame rates. MotionAI also brings lifelike detail and clarity to sport, documentaries and concerts at 4K120. MotionAI can also speed up HDMI handshakes, an important benefit that is often overlooked.

All the features covered in this article are available in the Envy Core, Pro and Extreme—except for MotionAI, which is exclusive to the Envy Extreme.

Get in touch, and let’s begin your journey towards delivering improved imaging no matter what the application with madVR.