CEDIA 2007 - Day 3: Marantz, JVC and Samsung Projector Wrap-up

Color Accuracy and Adjustment

With the RS2/HD100, JVC has added a number of color and gamma adjustment options that weren't there in the RS1.

The OSD menu offers RGB adjustment at several points along the gamma curve as you can see from the picture below:

You can also now individually select gamma correction values instead of having to rely on factory presets.

Improvements: RS1 vs. RS2

The JVC DLA-RS1 was widely regarded as an excellent LCoS projector at its price point, so we wanted to know what had truly changed between it and the new RS2 resulting in better specs and a higher price.

The RS2 primarily uses improved LCoS panels, reducing stray light within the panels themselves, and thus improving contrast ratio. Much like CPU and GPU manufacturing, when producing LCoS devices, JVC can learn a lot about tweaking its production to result in improvements to the chips. In the case of the RS2, JVC was able to improve the surface uniformity of the LCoS panels and reduce the space between pixels.

The less uniform the LCoS surface is, the more variance there will be between phase angles of the liquid crystals on the chip, resulting in stray light especially if they are all supposed to be angled the same for example in a totally black portion of a scene. Flatter pixel surfaces and smaller pixel gaps allow the liquid crystals to all stay in the same line and keep the same phase angles, giving you improved contrast ratio.

Other improvements to the display engine included changes to the color filters; by narrowing up some of the color filters in the RS2, JVC was able to reduce stray light which also contributed to the increase in contrast ratio.

Although the lens is different from the RS1 to RS2, it appears that there are no visual benefits to the new lens. JVC simply went from a manually operated lens to a motorized lens.

JVC on 2.35:1

JVC is one of many companies offering the Panamorph UH380 as an option for 2.35:1 setups, we asked Mr. Klasmeier why JVC didn't simply produce its own 2.35:1 lenses, ideally at more affordable price points to better service the needs of the consumers.

From JVC's perspective, the fact that it is even offering the UH380 as an option is a huge step forward. The success of the UH380 option will really determine what JVC decides to do in the future, but as 2.35:1 setups become more popular you can expect manufacturers like JVC to begin considering marketing and selling their own anamorphic lenses.

JVC RS2 Gallery

If you want a closer look at some of the pics we took, click on any of the thumbnails below to get a sample from the RS2 demo:

Sony VW60 Gallery

We went back to Sony for some better pics of the VW60 for comparison. You know the drill, click the thumbnails to enlarge: