PRODUCT REVIEW: APRIL 1, 2007
JVC DLA-RS1 D-ILA Front Projector
You know what they say about performance cars: Styling is nice, but it’s what’s under the hood that counts. And JVC’s new 1080p home theater projector has plenty under its hood.
Figure 1. JVC’s DLA-RS1 has a sleek, glossy-black stealth finish.
The DLA-RS1 caught more than one eye when it was demonstrated privately at last year’s Cedia Expo, and again in New York City this past December. Side-by-side with Sony’s VPL-VW50, the DLA-RS1 (also known as the DLA-HD1) appeared to have better contrast punch, more color saturation, and lower black levels.
The price was equally compelling: Just $6,295, or a slight premium over Sony’s $5,000 tag and only $1,800 more than Mitsubishi’s HC5000. Think of it — in little over 18 months, we’ve seen full-1920x1080p three-panel projector prices drop in half, and so far, little has been sacrificed in the way of performance.
I reviewed JVC’s DLA-HD10K last summer and found that to be an outstanding projector in terms of color and grayscale performance, with some help needed in reducing black levels. But its price tag of $14,995 (without external scaling) definitely qualified it as a Cedia-channel product.
The DLA-RS1 aims to succeed the DLA-10K eventually, but its price tag is definitely aimed more at the mass market. It retains the same sleek, minimalist appearance and functionality of the 10K while expanding its capabilities (and it’s lighter, too!). For example, the RS1 includes Gennum’s top-of-the-line GF9351VXP video processor, while the older 10K required an outboard video scaler (it supported 1080p input only).
Figure 2. The dual-axis lens offset controls have been moved under the lens.
Figure 3. There aren’t too many inputs, but an external HDMI switcher can fix that.
OUT OF THE BOX
If you liked the look of the DLA-HD10K, you’ll love the DLA-RS1. It’s housed in a similar cabinet with “stealth” control design and a simple, but functional rear input panel. The big difference is, silver is out for 2007 as the entire projector housing is now black, except for the top center control panel area.
The manual lens offset adjustment from the 10K has evolved into a dual-axis tweak, letting you shift the image vertically and horizontally. The two knobs are hidden along the bottom of the front cover, under the motorized zoom lens. Total horizontal shift is 68%, or one-third of the image in either direction, while total vertical shift is 160% — 80% of the image up, and down.
The rear panel connections are basic — a pair of HDMI inputs, a component YPbPr input via RCA jacks, a composite TCA input, and an S-Video jack, plus the usual 9-pin RS232C connector for remote control. There’s no screen trigger, VGA jack, or DVI connector.
The supplied remote control has an attractive silver finish, large buttons (and not too many of ‘em) and a backlight. It’s very easy to use in a darkened room, and includes direct access to each input, plus several common menu functions and image adjustments. I don’t see that kind of thought put into remotes very often, and wish more manufacturers paid attention to them.
As with the DLA-HD10K, there aren’t any internal speakers — not even a line level in/out, which some manufacturers have included. This is a projector, pure and simple.
Figure 4. This is one of the better remote controls I’ve used in some time.
MENUS AND ADJUSTMENTS
Whoever designed the DLA-RS1 must have spent some time calibrating display in a home theater, because all of the important adjustments are easily accessible without having to use a secret code or service access number. And you won’t find many superfluous controls to get in your way.
In addition to basic image settings, you’ll have four different gamma curves to pick from (Normal, 1-3), although there’s no indication in the menu or the literature to what those actual gamma settings are. (Don’t worry, I figured them out!) There are also three factory image presets labeled Cinema, Natural, and Dynamic, respectively. You’ll find three User memories to load up, too.
There are only three aspect ratio choices — Normal (native aspect ratios maintained), 16:9, and Zoom. The 16:9 setting is an anamorphic stretch for DVDs, while the Zoom setting is for cropping in on letterboxed SDTV programs. HDTV content automatically fills the 16:9 screen, and you can’t alter its shape.
JVC has also included a variable image mask setting (default is 0), which is convenient when viewing SDTV programs encoded at HD resolution. Typically, these programs are not overscanned, unlike their analog counterparts, so you may see vertical interval information just outside the top of the image frame, resembling dashed lines that are constantly moving and changing in length. The 2.5% and 5% overscan settings will hide ‘em away from view.
Want more? How about different settings for the color system (4:4:4, 4:2:2, RGB) that your video content was encoded in? Or two different black level references (0 and 7.5 IRE) through the HDMI input? In addition to RGB contrast, you can also tweak brightness (offset) for each color channel, just like a CRT projector. There’s even a multi-step digital noise reduction processor.
For those who really long for CRT projectors, JVC has you covered with individual red, green, and blue LCOS panel registration. Well, you don’t really move the panel so much as you remap the pixels to compensate for any color misconvergence problems. These typically show up as a red or blue along vertical or horizontal lines, and are easily fixed with these adjustments.
Best of all, there’s no digital zoom, digital keystone correction, or freezing-cold, 12,000-degree white balance settings. This is first and foremost a home theater projector, not a converted business projector, and all of the adjustments provided reflect that pretty clearly.
ON THE TEST BENCH
For my tests, the Realta HQV HD DVD put the Gennum processor through its paces, while my AccuPel test generator provided the color and grayscale patterns. Additional calibration patterns came from the Avia Pro DVD, up-converted to 1080p by OPPO’s DV-981HD player.
For home theater viewing, it’s all about photorealistic images, and that means adjusting the image for best grayscale. The DLA-RS1 isn’t staggeringly bright, but you don’t need a carbon-arc spotlight in a darkened room! I played with several low-level and high-level PLUGE and grayscale patterns before arriving at a setting I liked that didn’t clip whites and came out of black nicely.
Figure 5. All four gamma curves for the DLA-RS1 are plotted here.
Not much of a difference between them, is there?
Figure 6. The DLA-RS1 tracks a nice, tight grayscale from near black to 100% white.
After completing these adjustments in Gamma 3 mode, I measured brightness at 358 ANSI lumens in Cinema mode. Shifting to Dynamic mode raised that to 530 ANSI, and dropped a little to 441 ANSI lumens in Natural mode. Brightness uniformity across the screen measured 90%, with the worst corner at 89.2%
Contrast measured 257:1 average (ANSI) and 436:1 peak in Cinema mode using a 16-block checkerboard pattern, both numbers that are comparable to the best 9-inch CRT projectors I’ve tested. Full black/white contrast was logged at 812:1, so you will get plenty of dynamic range when viewing movies.
Now, about those gamma curves: JVC’s owner’s manual provides no information about what each selection is supposed to do, so I measured each one of them (Figure 5) and found surprisingly little difference from setting to setting. “Normal” gamma worked out to 2.62, which is very close to the Digital Cinema DC-1 standard (2.6).
Gamma “A” came in at 2.6, right on the nose (even better), while Gamma “B” measured out at 2.57. Gamma “C”, where I started my calibration, produced a curve of 2.39, which I found better for viewing HD and SD video. I normally use a gamma setting of 2.2 to 2.4 for watching HDTV programs, depending on whether the content is live or filmed.
How about white balance? You’d think with all the fiddlin’ you can do to the RGB levels that the DLA-RS1 would produce a pretty clean grayscale track — and it does, as seen in Figure 6. To be more precise, the maximum color temperature shift from 20 IRE to 100 IRE was just 130 degrees, and I consider a maximum shift of 250 degrees to be excellent in any display.
Extend out the grayscale to 10 IRE (very close to video black) and the color temperature only drops 600 degrees, which results in a total shift of 730 degrees. That is outstanding performance for a microdisplay projector using a metal halide lamp (nope, it’s not xenon!) Better yet, the total shift in color temperature across a 100% white image was just 247 degrees. That’s really tight.
Figure 7a-b: The raw measured color gamut for the DLA-RS1 (left) compared to the REC.709 color space, and the same gamut constrained (right) to that space.
The next step was to measure the color accuracy of the projector. Since the RS1 uses dichroic color, it should easily be able to exceed the REC.709 HDTV color gamut, and does, as shown in Figure 7a. Red is slightly undersaturated and blue slightly oversaturated. The green point shows a bit more cyan in the mix than yellow.
Figure 7b shows the gamut constrained to REC.709, and almost every color is hit right on the nose. The exception is green, which isn’t surprising due to that shift towards cyan. This projector can also be used to view digital cinema content encoded to the DCI standard with reasonable accuracy as Figure 8 shows, although there needs to be less blue and more red in the mix.
Figure 8. The DLA-RS1 color gamut compared to the DCI digital cinema color space.
IMAGE QUALITY
The color, grayscale, and gamma performance pretty much tells you all you need to know about image quality, which is outstanding. Black levels have dropped from the DLA-HD10K, and there’s no mechanical iris involved. The trick is a new wire grid polarizing plate at the output of each panel, and it serves to lower scattered (refracted) light — the enemy of high contrast.
Consider that the average contrast rating for this projector (257:1) is higher than the peak contrast reading I got from the DLA-HD10K (240:1) and you can appreciate just how much of an improvement has been made. So, how about image processing and scaling?
That’s where the projector fell down a bit. I fed the Realta HQV HD DVD in as a 1080i/30 signal, and saw noticeable flicker in the film resolution tests, even when 3:2 mode was enabled. If processed correctly, there should be little or no flicker on these two test patterns, so either the Gennum VXP processor wasn’t set correctly, or wasn’t active. I also observed a color shift to cyan and magenta in the smaller boxes as the pattern moved back and forth.
Tests with the HD video resolution chart were more encouraging. The rotating bar had clean edges and little flicker was apparent. From these two tests, I can only conclude the 3:2 detection was functioning correctly, but not weaving both fields together. However, with native 30 Hz content, interlaced artifacts were minimal.
Bandwidth performance could be improved. Through the component inputs, the RS1 appears to start rolling off high-frequency information around 18 MHz, although the frequency response is better through the HDMI connectors. Use them for your critical viewing as much has possible.
My first test film was Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe. It looked just the tiniest bit soft, but had excellent black levels and plenty of saturated colors. Flesh tones were terrific in all cases. This film has several scenes on snowbound planets, lots of high-contrast locales and a wide dynamic range. I saw all of it, plus good shadow detail, and some eye-popping primary colors, such as the Earth V2.0 construction crew’s hats.
The next film was Walk The Line; a bit more subdued, but equally challenging. Flesh tones, pastel colors, and grayscale shading were all outstanding and particularly flattering to Reese Witherspoon (June Carter).
Images were sharp and textured when they needed to be; the green grass and trees really popped. Even Joaquin Phoenix’ (Johnny Cash) black hats and shirts had a lush texture to them, something I didn’t expect to see on an electronic imaging system.
One characteristic of LCOS imaging systems for many years was their tendency to crush bright whites and make them bloom on the screen. I didn’t see any noticeable crushing, although in some high contrast scenes, really bright whites (like spotlights) were starting to flatten out. Even so, shadow detail was preserved.
Oddly, I found live 720p and 1080i HD images (such as the ongoing NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament) not as crisp and detailed as they displayed on the HC5000. I can’t offer any explanation for it, and it may just be something to do with the “grain” of the LCOS pixels vs. polysilicon LCD pixels. Filmed content transferred to HD video just looked — well, more film-like.
CONCLUSIONS
I tip my hat to JVC — they’ve produced an amazingly accurate projector in more ways than one, and they’ve managed to slash the price barrier to 1080p while doing it. After running my tests and digesting all of the results, I would be hard-pressed to recommend any higher-priced 1080p home theater projector, unless it has higher light output for a much larger screen. (My screen is an 82-inch Stewart design.) Why spend the extra money if you don’t need to?
There’s little to find fault with here, aside from the problems with 1080i-to-1080p processing I saw with the Realta HQV HD DVD. And I can’t be sure that wasn’t more of a bug than an intrinsic problem with the Gennum VXP processor, which I have seen demonstrated before and which does an excellent job converting from interlaced to progressive scan.
Note: For 24p fans, the DLA-RS1 is compatible according to its specifications, but I couldn’t verify that, as I don’t yet own a blue laser player capable of 24p output.
