JVC DLA-HD1 1920x1080 Home Theater Projector Measurements

Measurements

With a component 1080i input, the JVC's black and white (luminance) response to the multiburst patterns on my AccuPel HDG-3000 test-pattern generator held up well to 37.1MHz with no unevenness, though the output there was clearly down in level compared to the 18.5MHz burst. There was also some very slight edge enhancement that could not be defeated by reducing the Sharpness control without excessively softening the image. At 720p, component, the response was also still visible at 37.1MHz, though more reduced in level and with a bit more edge-enhancement. Both 480i and 480p looked good to their specified limits (6.75MHz and 13.5MHz, respectively), though there was clearly visible, non-defeatable edge enhancement.

With an HDMI input at 1080i or 720p, both the color and black and white response were still visible and clean at 37.1MHz, though subtly down in level—just a hair short of the best I have seen from a projector (the Marantz VP-11S1). There was no visible edge enhancement at all at 1080i, and the Sharpness pattern was crisp and clean. The same for 720p, though at that resolution a bit of edge enhancement was added. The 480i/p responses were essentially the same as component.

With the Mask control off, the overscan was zero on all sides in 720p or 1080i, HDMI or component. In 480i/p it ranged between 2% and 3%.

The JVC's color points were typical of most new digital projectors and short of ideal. Red and blue were a little oversaturated, green was very oversaturated. While the subjective color of the projector was good, I wish manufacturers would at least give us the option to select accurate colors.

Before calibration, the JVC produced its best grayscale in the Middle setting. The Low setting dropped down to about 6000K across the full brightness range, and the high setting was over 10,000K. The Before and After results of the calibration I performed are shown in the chart (using the Normal lamp setting). The After results don't differ all that much in their Kelvin temperatures, so the Before and After results appear to be very similar. But, as usual, the accuracy of the points themselves came closer to the D6500 standard after calibration (6500K is a line on the color chart, but the D6500 standard is the exact point on that line we're aiming for). The single adjustments for red, green, and blue proved sufficient to get a good result. This is not true of all displays, which often need high and low adjustments, but don't always provide them.

I measured the JVC's contrast ratio by placing the projector very close to a screen, producing an image less than 2-feet wide. This not only raised both the black and white levels to a point where the black level could be read by my Minolta LS-100 light meter with greater accuracy, but also limited the light reflected around my non-black room so that I could determine a modified ANSI contrast (measuring just the four center squares of the 16 squares on the standard ANSI checkerboard pattern). I measured a peak contrast ratio of 8752:1 and a modified ANSI contrast of 139:1, both with the Lamp on Normal. (I also ran these measurements on the Sony Pearl under the same conditions, in Auto Iris 2, Low lamp, and obtained readings of 5949:1 and 133:1, respectively.)

In the Normal Gamma setting (which I used for all of my testing and viewing) I measured a gamma of very close to 2.2 across most of the brightness range from dark to bright, increasing to 2.5 at 20IRE (the lowest point measured) and decreasing slightly to 2.1 at 90IRE at the top end.

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