PRODUCT REVIEW – JULY 12, 2006
JVC DLA-HD10K Projector
JVC’s DLA-HD10K home theater projector offers full l920x1080 progressive-scan imaging in a simple, but expensive, design.
Over the past few years, JVC has offered various models of tabletop projectors using its proprietary D-ILA (Direct-drive Image Light Amplifier) LCOS technology. None of these models have offered particularly high brightness, and some were hamstrung by expensive, short-lived xenon arc lamps.
Recently, the company seems to have shifted most of its focus to the home theater projection marketplace, and has adopted other, less-costly projection lamp technology. The DLA-HD2K was the first product of this new marketing philosophy, and it combined high-quality color imaging and external scaling with 1920x1080 pixel resolution.
Figure 1. Here’s a 3-4 view of JVC’s DLA-HD10K.
The DLA-HD10K takes that a step farther. It’s not a blazing light machine – the specifications claim maximum brightness to be 600 lumens – nor is it particularly small, measuring 20” W x 22” D x 7.6” H and weighing 38 pounds. What’s more, it has exactly one video input (DVI-D) and requires an external scaler/switcher to move and process signals.
Even so, this projector delivers images that resemble the best 9-inch CRT projectors in grayscale performance and color shading, while exceeding those same CRT projectors in native resolution and brightness. And let’s face it, 38 pounds is a lot lighter than 243 pounds, which is what Sony’s late, lamented VPH-G90U CRT projector weighed.
OUT OF THE BOX
There are two models offered for sale. The review unit was the DLA-HD10KU/E, which incorporates a 1.9x ratio, long-throw lens (2:1 – 3.8:1), while the DLA-HD10KSU/E has a shorter-throw, 1.4x lens (1:5 – 2.1:1). Both use power zoom and focus, and mechanical lens shift is available with a screwdriver adjustment (from –25% to +10%).
The housing is a sleek dark gray and silver design that somewhat resembles Sony’s Qualia 004 home theater projector. A rear side panel pops out to reveal manual control buttons for all projector functions, and the narrow input connector panel is just under the top rear of the projector.
Figure 2. Yep, there’s only one input connector!
There are no feet on the projector, only four threaded holes for mounting to a ceiling bracket. You could also use them for tabletop mounting. The projector can’t simply sit on a flat surface, as there is an extruded channel on the bottom rear of the projector where the AC power cord plugs in.
The input connector is a DVI-D interface and is the sole path for driving video signals. You won’t find any composite, S-video, RGB, or component signal inputs, nor will you find an HDMI connector (potentially a problem, as you’ll read later). The only other interfaces are a standard 9-pin RS-232C port for remote control and a 12v screen trigger (1/8” mini jack). An additional mini jack is used for service only.
Right off the bat, you’ll need a video scaler to use with this projector. Conveniently, I had an NEC TheaterSync sitting in my office, so I put it to the task, setting its output to 1920x1080 progressive with 60 Hz refresh. That’s because the DLA-HD10K only accepts three HD video scan rates – 56.25 kHz (1080p/50), 67.43 kHz (1080p/59.94), and 67.5 kHz (1080p/60). (It does, however, accept a bunch of PC-standard scan rates from 800x600 to 1024x768, 1280x768, 1600x1200, and even 2048x1536!)
The decision to eliminate all of the video processing from this projector might sound strange at first. But it’s really a concession to the home theater market and the reality that there are numerous high-performance video scalers already offered for sale. JVC probably figured, why reinvent the wheel?
REMOTE AND MENUS
Again, simplicity is the keyword here. The supplied remote is an innocuous-looking design that sits comfortably in the palm of your hand. It’s not a long baton, nor is it loaded up with too many tiny buttons. Thoughtfully, JVC included a backlight, but with only 18 large buttons to deal with, you can probably operate this remote purely by feel after some practice.
Given that most of the signal processing happens outside the projector, there’s not a lot of menu selections to worry about. You might be surprised to find that there are no brightness and contrast adjustments, nor will you be able to tweak color saturation and hue. All of those jobs are reserved for your video scaler, believe it or not!
What you can adjust is the picture gamma. There are three settings, NORMAL, A, and B, although the menu doesn’t tell you specifically what they correspond to. (From my tests, they appear to be in the range of 1.6, 2.2, and 2.6, respectively.) There’s also a USER gamma setting, which requires software from JVC and a connection to the projector’s service port.
You can also select one of three color temperature settings. The factory default is D6500, but two USER options are available. Sliders are provided for red, green, and blue drive (no bias or cut). Additional menu options bring up a full suite of test patterns, including color bars, smooth and stepped split grayscale ramps, and a grid pattern for focus and geometry. There is no digital keystone correction; mechanical lens shift should take care of distortion problems.
You can fine-tune horizontal and vertical registration, essentially shifting the image on each of the three LCOS panels if need be. (By the way, those are .82” 1920x1080 panels, not larger 2048x1080 panels as reported on some Web sites.) Image inversion and mirror controls, picture shift, and adjustable masking (OFF, 2.5%, 5%) round out the menu settings. There’s also a lamp power saving mode that reduces brightness about 10%.
ON THE TEST BENCH
It took some time to get used to making image adjustments through the NEC TheaterSync scaler, but I finally got the hang of it. I calibrated the DLA-HD10K for best grayscale image using a combination of PLUGE and grayscale ramp patterns. I also set up the TheaterSync scaler for 2.2 and 2.6 gammas. The first is my preference for viewing HD video, while the latter is part of the new Digital Cinema standard.
After calibration, I set the zoom lens to its mid-point (2.9:1) and measured brightness at 384 ANSI lumens. That’s not blindingly bright, but sufficient for a darkened theater with a throw of 12 feet to a 92-inch diagonal front screen, and it’s better than what I measured from the VPH-G90U seven years ago (365 ANSI lumens) – and that used nine inch tubes. If you want a faster climb out of black in your grayscale, you can easily get over 400 lumens from the DLA-HD10K.
Contrast has always been a tough hurdle for LCOS projectors, and the DLA-HD10K worked hard to produce an average (ANSI) contrast ratio of 133:1 and peak contrast ratio of 240:1. The reason? Higher quiescent black levels than other microdisplay technologies, such as Digital Light Processing. However, the VPH-G90U I tested way back in 1999 produced 120:1 average and 170:1 peak contrast, and I don’t remember too many complaints about its image quality.
One thing I did notice with the JVC projector was evenly spaced faint, super-thin light gray vertical bands across a dark (no signal present) image. I assume these are part of the LCOS panel structure, as they are only visible when standing close to the screen while projecting dark or low-gray images. I didn’t see notice them when projecting movie clips and HD content from my hard drive recorders, Toshiba’s HD-A1 HD DVD player, and Samsung’s BD-P1000 Blu-ray player.
Figure 3. The DLA-HD10K tracks a clean grayscale, better than most microdisplay projectors.
Figure 4. Gamma curves as set at the factory and by me, somewhere in the 2.2 – 2.4 range.
What really impressed me was the color quality I saw on the DLA-HD10K. A preliminary grayscale test using IRE patters from 20 to 100 revealed the factory D6500 setting was running a bit on the warm side, around 6000 degrees K. So, I opened the User 2 menu and readjusted the RGB drive, using ColorFacts 6.0 and a Minolta CL-200 light meter.
The result? A grayscale that tracked within ± 121 degrees K of D6500 from 20 IRE to 100 IRE. That’s very impressive performance from any microdisplay technology – usually, I’m happy if the total shift is no more than ±250 degrees.
I was even more impressed with the actual color gamut, which hits the red and blue REC.709 color points right on, comes within a few percent of the magenta and yellow coordinates, and is slightly off the cyan and green coordinates. In essence, the DLA-HD10K covers about 98% of the REC-709 color space.
One possible factor for the outstanding grayscale performance is the high brightness uniformity measurement. On average, the corners were 96.4% as bright as the center. Even the worst corner was within 95% of the center brightness reading, performance you usually see on flat-panel LCD or plasma monitors – not projectors.
Figure 5. The DLA-HD10K can display over 98% of the REC.709 color gamut.
VIDEO SIGNAL QUALITY
I have to clarify that in this section, I am judging both the TheaterSync scaler and the DLA-HD10K. Obviously, all of the signal de-interlacing, 3:2 correction, and scaling (where needed) is happening before the signal gets to the projector.
The good news is that both the scaler and projector were able to pass all of the high-frequency (37.5 MHz) luminance multiburst information from my AccuPel HDG2000, set into 1080i/29.97 output mode. So if your HD source has lots of detail, it won’t be strangled before it gets to the screen, as is the case with many other expensive home theater projectors.
Toshiba’s HD-A1 HD DVD player only sends out 1080i/29.97 video, so the TheaterSync had to convert that back to successive frames of 1080p video while eliminating all scan line artifacts (I did see a few here and there) and motion artifacts (didn’t notice any of those).
This processing is easier to look for with live HD video than with filmed content transferred to video, and Toshiba thoughtfully provided a series of 1080i clips shot in the HDCAM format with moving cars and trucks, a few boats, and people riding by on bicycles. All of them converted nicely to 1080p, with only slight scan line twitter seen on the sequence of cars and trucks.
In terms of color and grayscale, the DLA-HD10K was up to the task, and then some. Flesh tones were beautiful, subtle shades of color were easily reproduced, and the dynamic range didn’t looked forced with crushed whites or blacks. Very film-like!
Two potential drawbacks to this projector are the lack of an HDMI input connector and the all-progressive scan input format. That meant I had to run analog component 1080i from the HD-A1 through the TheaterSync scaler and convert it to a 1080p DVI signal, stepping from digital to analog and back to digital. (The TheaterSync will not work with an HDMI connection from the HD-A1 – the Toshiba player simply stops and displays “HDMI ERROR”.
Samsung’s new BD-P1000 Blu-ray player won’t work with the DLA-HD10K in HDMI output mode, either. For some reason, the HDMI-to-DVI-D connection results in the Samsung player setting its output resolution to 720p, which is not a supported mode for JVC. Either that signal or the analog component HD (720p, 1080i) connection must first be scaled and/or deinterlaced back to 1080p/60 if you want to see anything on the screen.
CONCLUSIONS
As I watched the film trailers and clips from HD DVD, I couldn’t help but think of how much the images resembled what I saw seven years ago from the VPH-G90U - except in this case, there was simply more detail to be seen on the screen, along with higher image contrast. JVC could solve the black level problem by incorporating a dynamic iris circuit, much as Sanyo’s PLV-Z4 and Panasonic’s PT-AE900U LCD projectors do.
Aside from that, color and grayscale reproduction are exceptional on the DLA-HD10K, considering the lamp is not a xenon type but a short-arc mercury UHP design, traditionally hard to balance out spectrally. Once tuned up, the DLA-HD10K makes some beautiful pictures. With a few more tweaks, it could be even better.
Power consumption note: The DLA-HD10K consumed, on average, 320 watts when running in normal lamp mode, and 290 watts when operating in economy mode. That works out to 2.56 kW-Hr and 2.32 kW-Hr respectively over an eight-hour period.
