PRODUCT REVIEW: DECEMBER 12, 2007
JVC DLA-RS2 1080P Home Theater Projector
Following on the heels of the reference-grade DLA-RS1, the RS2 has a pretty tough act to follow – and does it in style.
JVC isn’t a large projector manufacturer. In fact, it’s one of the smallest, and its product line these days is limited to three models — two for home theater, and one for digital cinema applications. All three use JVC’s proprietary Direct drive Image Light Amplifier (D-ILA), which is a fancy name for liquid-crystal on silicon (LCoS) technology.
Unlike some projector manufacturers, JVC “gets it” when it comes to image quality. Their projectors aren’t the brightest, but they do produce very film-like images with accurate color rendering, consistent gamma curves, and reasonably deep blacks. And they do all this with conventional mercury vapor lamps, not the more expensive xenon types.
Think of them as being a small winery with three top-notch vintages available in limited quantities, and you’ve got the picture. There are plenty of inexpensive, mass-produced wines out there with strong tastes. The JVC approach to focus on image quality is more subtle and satisfying in the long run.
The DLA-RS1 was the first JVC projector to use a wire grid dichroic filter design. This clever piece of engineering cuts down on stray light reflection and refraction, lowering black level and boosting contrast.
That same design carries through on the DLA-RS2, with a few modifications and enhancements. First off, the LCoS panels (.7” types) are newer designs with improved contrast. Next, the optical engine has been improved to boost contrast. There’s even a new lens from Fujinon.
Figure 1. JVC’s DLA-RS2 has the same monolithic black housing as its predecessor.
OUT OF THE BOX
Form outward appearances, the DLA-RS2 and its predecessor appear identical. Both have a “stealth” piano-black housing with exhaust grilles in front, to either side of the projection lens, and a small connector panel on the left rear of the projector. The RS2 has a gold trim ring around the lens, as opposed to the silver ring on the DLA-RS1.
The supplied power zoom/focus lens has 16 elements with a zoom ratio of 2:1 (focal length 1.4 – 2.8:1). A pair of knobs on the front panel provide vertical (± 80%) and horizontal (± 34%) lens shift. The projection lamp is a 200W UHP type, which may seem a bit on the bright side. But you won’t need all of those photons in a darkened room, as you’ll see shortly.
The connector complement is as sparse as before. You’ll find 1 each composite and S-video jacks, a component video input (RCA jacks), and a pair of HDMI 1.3 input jacks. The only other connector is a nine-pin RS232C port for serial control. That’s it!
Figure 2. The input connections are few but functional.
REMOTE AND MENUS
The top center of the projector’s housing has five buttons and a navigation disk for making menu selections and projector operation. You won’t be using those too much, as the supplied remote control has a more satisfying user interface.
With the remote, you’ll have direct access to all five video inputs, six image profiles (Cinema, Natural, Dynamic, plus three User modes), and four different gamma settings (Normal, Theater 1, Theater 2, and Dynamic).
There’s also a Custom gamma menu where you can apply corrections within the gamma range of 1.8 to 2.6, or tweak the gamma of individual colors. A unique x,y chart shows the actual curve changing as you adjust the coefficient and brightness levels for each color channel at each grayscale value.
When used judiciously with the standard contrast and brightness controls, these adjustments can provide some amazingly film-like images. But that’s only half of the equation! JVC also provides three factory color temperature settings (Low, Middle, and High), plus two user-configured memories. In this menu, you can set values for red, green, and blue from 0-255. There’s also an Offset menu for a similar range of settings.
Figure 3. The remote control is nicely designed and provides
direct access to almost every important menu item.
Additional menu tweaks include three different aspect ratios (4:3, 16:9, and Zoom) and a unique V-Stretch setting that expands CinemaScope (2.35:1) images to fill the height of a 16:9 screen. The purpose of V-Stretch becomes apparent when you add JVC’s optional RSAL1 anamorphic lens ($6,495), which expands Scope images back to their full width while using all available pixels in the LCoS devices.
Three different pixel maps are at your fingertips — Aspect (preserves original aspect ratio), Panel (expands image horizontally and vertically as needed to fill the 16:9 screen), and 1:1, which shows all signals at native resolution with pillarboxes or windowboxes.
Other useful settings include an HDMI input level selection (Normal and Enhanced), image edge masking (Off, 2.5%, or 5%), 4:3 image overscan (2.5% on all edges), and signal formats through the HDMI jacks (4:4:4 video, 4:2:2 video, or RGB weighting).
Video black can be set to 0 or 7.5 IRE, depending on how the source material was coded.
The 200W lamp has two operating modes, Normal (170W output) and High (200W output). I did all of my calibrations and measurements using Normal mode and found it more than adequate for my theater (26’ x 15’ with an 82” Stewart matte screen). The 200W setting would be helpful if projecting over longer distances, or onto a much larger screen.
ON THE TEST BENCH
Because JVC does such a good job of calibrating their projectors before they leave the factory, I took several performance measurements with the available settings, and then proceeded to calibrate the projector to suit my eyes. After all was said and done, I measured brightness at 385 ANSI lumens with the zoom lens set to its midpoint and the projector operating in User 1, Theater 2 mode.
Brightness ranged from a high of 475 lumens in Dynamic mode to 360 lumens in Natural mode. (Switching from Normal to High lamp mode raised brightness about 13%.) Brightness uniformity was very good 84% to the average corner, and 75% to the worst corner. Color temperature uniformity was outstanding, shifting only 184 degrees across the screen.
Contrast measurements were slightly improved over the DLA-RS1. Measurements in User 1, Theater 2 mode yielded readings of 263:1 ANSI (average) and 407:1 peak. Those readings varied by about 12% as I cycled through the various picture presets and gamma settings. Note that the best black level measurement was 2 lux, while the DLA-RS1’s lowest black reading (2.2 lux) was comparable at the same brightness level. (The DLA-RS2, like its predecessor, doesn’t use any kind of iris to enhance blacks.)
Figure 4. Here are the four gamma curves I plotted for the DLA-RS2.
Figure 5. You want a stable color temperature track, you got it!
Turning down a projector’s factory brightness and contrast settings to achieve decent gamma performance is something I do so often that it’s almost a reflex. However, in this case, I held back and ran some gamma curves using the factory settings I liked best. All of them except Normal gave me consistent gamma performance. Figure 4 shows four different curves with the Cinema plot calculating to 2.4, Theater 1 calculating to 2.49, and Theater 2 calculating to 2.31.
Even Dynamic gamma wasn’t too warped, calculating to 2.1. It wasn’t as consistent as any of the cinematic modes and I’d only use it for showing simple graphics and Powerpoints. But you’d be happy with any of the Cinema and Theater modes, which could be pushed out to the DCI standard of 2.6 with little effort.
When it comes to consistent color temperature, the DLA-RS2 does a bang-up job. I plotted four different sets of readings in Figure 5, using the factory Middle setting and my own calibrations in Normal, Theater 1, and Theater 2 modes. The plots are rock-steady from 20 IRE to 100 IRE, varying by no more than 308 degrees in Theater 1 mode and just 120 degrees in Normal mode.
Color has always gotten lots of attention from JVC and they’ve done an excellent job with color management on the DLA-RS2. Figure 6a shows the projector’s plotted color space against the BT709 HDTV color gamut, while Figure 6b shows that same space compared to the wider DCI gamut. Unfortunately, only the luminance values for each color can be fine-tuned in the service menu, not the phase (hue).
Figure 6a. The DLA-RS2’s plotted color gamut is wide enough
to take in all of the BT709 HDTV color space…
Figure 6b. …and essentially covers all of the DCI color specification, too.
VIDEO IMAGE QUALITY
As I said earlier, the DLA-RS1 produced beautiful, film-like images from HD content and HD DVD / Blu-ray players. While LCoS technology may not have the contrast performance of a DLP projector, its pixel structure is somehow compatible with film grain and the overall effect is pleasing to the eye.
I’ve been cycling through a handful of blue laser discs lately for projector and monitor tests. The first, Batman Begins (HD DVD) is a good test of high contrast performance with muted colors and pastels early on and black levels and shadow detail contrasting with flesh tones later in the movie.
Mission Impossible III (also HD DVD) presents an excellent test of low-light shading and color reproduction as the team prepares below the Vatican to kidnap Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character. And Ghost Rider (Blu-ray) has many scenes of high contrast with orange flames and hot whites against dark blues and blacks, with flesh tones mixed in.
First off, I didn’t see any difference between 1080p output from my test blue laser players and the DLA-RS2’s internal 1080i/1080p conversion on any films. The DLA-RS2 is equipped with Gennum’s VXP processor, which when set up correctly is a match for Silicon Optix’ Reon video engine.
MI III had great color saturation and smooth gamma curves. The flesh tones on both Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames were realistic, as was the spray-on flesh color used to prepare Hoffman’s life mask. And the “hot spots” as the two actors move in and out of overhead lights have excellent dynamic range.
Christian Bale’s travails in the Far East have the right desolate and overcast feeling, yet the hallucinogenic flowers used by the Legion of Shadows have a subtle shade of pastel blue. Contrast these scenes later with nighttime in Gotham City as Batman swoops down from tenement roofs. The blacks in his suit are textured, but his flesh tones are warm. The red lights on police cruisers have plenty of pop, too.
Nicolas Cage’s big motorcycle jump over idling helicopters really shows off reds, yellows, and oranges to great effect. Cage’s flesh tones also contrast nicely with Wes Bentley’s satanic gray pallor, not to mention the overall blue-black sheen to Cage’s leather biker jacket. In the crucial showdown between the Ghost Rider and the police, there’s plenty of high contrast (whites and hot oranges) that shows up just fine on screen.
Just for fun, I popped in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory to check out the candy apple reds and green grass. Both colors were saturated and looked good enough to eat. Red in particular can be a tricky color to reproduce in a projector, as the blue-green color cast from a UHP lamp often pulls it into the orange region.
Just a few quick tests with the Realta HQV blue laser DVDs remained, and those revealed that the DLA-RS2’s deinterlacing and 3:2 correction works well enough to pass all of the tests, including the film resolution test with no jitter or flicker. The rotating bars and video resolution tests were also stable and sharp.
The red laser version showed that the DLA-RS2’s 3:2 detection is just as fast with 480i content, and it also handled most of the oddball cadences correctly, including the Varispeed 3-2-3-2-2 timing used by TV networks to compress movies for broadcast. As an aside, the DLA-RS2 demonstrated excellent bandwidth performance with a 37.5 MHz 720p luminance multiburst, but some banding was seen at the same frequency with a 1080i pattern.
CONCLUSIONS
The DLA-RS2 produces outstanding images and represents another satisfying effort from JVC. Yet it’s hard to see at first glance how it justifies a $2,000 premium over the DLA-RS1. Yes, the contrast numbers are slightly higher, but brightness measurements are about the same, the gamma performance is similar, and the projector’s color gamut is essentially identical.
On the other hand, the lens is powered instead of manual — although that’s not much of an advantage once the projector is installed — and there is now an anamorphic lens attachment and a way to squeeze the image correctly for that lens, something the DLA-RS1 didn’t have. And of course the HDMI inputs are version 1.3, compatible with Deep Color palettes.
