First impressions of the new JVC thin (Slim D-ILA) RP sets

Everywhere else that I've seen web reports on the new "Slim D-ILA" sets from JVC, they were just rehashes of the JVC press release. Peter Putnam at HDTV experts actually saw the new sets, and shares his observations, albeit brief. Takeaways from the mini-review are:

• The display uniformity looks pretty good; I was nervous about this. His specific comments: "The 10.7 depth was achieved by using a concave mirror in the projection engine. Its not a new idea, but concave mirrors bring their own problems to the table, such as brightness falloff and uneven focus both of which could hamper sales of an RPTV. The sample I saw had neither problem the test HD images were acceptably crisp and detailed in the corners of the image, and image brightness appeared to be within one f-stop (50%) from the center to the corners."

• The lamp is UHP and its power is 120 watts, which seems a bit lower than I expected. This might require a higher gain screen. He didn't comment on viewing angle, particularly vertically.

• The bezel around the display is a VERY narrow 0.4". This sounds very cool from a visual perspective. It will also make the width of these sets about as small as is physically possible.

• JVC has used an aluminum frame in the new sets to provide the highest strength and rigidity while keeping the weight low. Putnam comments that this might dent, and is concerned about it "over temperature extremes". Aluminum has a lower thermal expansion coefficient and a much higher softening point than plastic, and I have to believe that JVC designed within the elastic limit. Sounds good to me.

• He states that the thin sets "use the latest 0.7" D-ILA panels". They clearly don't have the wire grid polarizers found in the just released DLA-HD1 front projector with 15,000:1 native contrast. But there could be some evolutionary tweaks between the thin set LCoS panels and the 2006 models. Jury's out on this one.

• He comments on a "new, 5th generation Genessa image processor", but this is the same language as is used for the 2006 models.

• He also comments on a "10,000:1 contrast ratio by using a new optical iris system". The 2006 models also used an optical iris, but I haven't seen any contrast ratio claims for these. It is conceivable that the 10,000:1 represents an improvement.
  

Here is a link to the mini-review:
http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages_b/jvc_dila_rptv.html

Here is a link to the JVC announcement:
http://jvc.com/press/index.jsp?urlid...m=530&pageID=1

The attached file has details on the design of the new thin sets. By slashing RP set depth essentially in half, I think that this is a major advance in RP technology, and will make these sets more competitive against LCD and plasma. I will carefully check out the new 58" as soon as I can find one (they are due to ship "in January"), but will probably hold out for the 65" in March.

 

Slim D-ILA.pdf 387.6318359375k . file

I agree with you that these may prove to be the best RP sets of the first half of 2007, but the iris is, alas, dynamic; that's how they get the 10,000:1. JVC is launching their latest advances for their FP unit, and will trickle it down to the RP models at a time of their choosing. We may see some non-polarizer advances in the Slim D-ILA sets, but it's a crap shoot at this point. Your point on the bulb is a good one; I would hope that the 65" has a higher power bulb.

Second you on the computer input question. I have no idea why they crippled this on 2006 models. Of course, any subsequent desktops or laptops I buy are likely to have an HDMI connector, but it would still make sense to up the PC connector resolution a lot.

In the posting that started this thread, I thought the bulb on the new sets seemed a bit underpowered. I remembered wrong. All three of the current JVC sets (56", 61", and 70") use a 110 watt bulb, and have a total power of 215 watts. The new 58" and 65" Slim HD-ILA sets have a 120 watt bulb, so lamp power has actually gone up. I looked around at plasma sets for comparison; most brochures conspicuously don't mention the power, but checking the Panasonic 65" owners manual it comes in at a smoking 795 watts! Great for summertime viewing! That difference of 570 watts, assuming 5 hours of viewing a day in a household (1825 hours a year), and 10 cents per kilowatt hour, comes to $104 per year. If the current bulb technology lasts 5000 hours, then the savings in electricity over that period is $285, essentially neutralizing the cost of replacing the bulb.

Thanks for the suggestion, but on examining the manual for the current 56, 61, and 70" sets, I noticed this in the specifications:

HDMI Jack x 2
The HDMI terminal is not compatible with picture signals of a personal computer.

A link to the current sets manuals is here:

http://books.jvcservice.com/download...9322/40437.pdf

Assuming that the HDMI - PC incompatibility is true, and the PC connector is limited to 1024 x 768, PC connections look a little bleak. In fairness, I haven't trolled the current sets users thread, and the new Slim HD-ILA models may have improvements.

Some more product information from Gizmodo:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/ces2007/...rrow-227597.php

Notes of interest:

* HD-ILA 3D Television: "this TV was really just a modified version of what they had on the market now"
* Cinemawide Television: "it was not built in the 16x9 (1:78:1) format, but the 1:85:1 film standard"
* LED HD-ILA: "This was by far the showstopper."

Melakai: Thanks, great find! The link has some amazing news! LED LCoS RP with 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio?! That's more than SEDS ever claimed. 3D LCoS?! Bring it on! Dedicated 1.85:1 wide displays?! JVC is really pushing the innovation button. Given the miniature size of the displays, we might even see a 2.35:1 version, for both FP and RP (the incremental costs to do this are a LOT lower than for full-sized flat panel sets). I have been holding off jumping into HD for too long already, and so will probably buy the bulb based, 65" Slim HD-DLA when it goes on sale in March, even though hotter stuff is apparently in the wings. At this rate of progress, though, I may keep it a lot less time than my current seven year old old 56" Toshiba SD CRT rear projection TV.

I have taken the liberty of pasting the full text from your link below:

I visited JVC's technical demo room corner, where I couldn't bring a camera, but I thought you might suffer through my bad humor/grammar for a little vicarious "future of JVC" action.

Microprojector
They had a microprojector about the size of a biggish pocket, with smooth detailing and one button. I couldn't see any inputs and this was not running.

Mini-DV to MPEG2 Converters
Directly beside the projector were two similarly rounded boxes, the first of which was about the size of the projector. I read the sign to see what this was. Mini-DV converter. The technical rep anticipated my surprise, explaining that Mini-DV is a technology that will soon be phased out, but many consumers would still have a large library of home movies they didn't want to lose. This box converts them to MPEG2, which can be burned to a DVD. A model about triple its size was close by, which had a built in DVD burner.

HD-ILA 3D Television
You need to wear shutter glasses to see the otherwise blurry image in 3D. I put them on and watched a jeep driving through some sort of wooded area. While certain parts of the image felt very pop-up book, with multiple 2D layers, the road and its patches of grass were quite immersive. The image fluttered to black at a constant, and once again anticipating my question, the rep explained that this demo could only run at (30HZ?) per eye, but he was confident that they could reach the necessary 60 for a seamless image. Then he added that this TV was really just a modified version of what they had on the market now, streaming a 3D-encoded DVD.

Cinemawide Television...err...HD-ILA Technology?
I should have taken better notes. I couldn't figure out what drew me so much to this large, 60" or so TV. Then I was told, it was not built in the 16x9 (1:78:1) format, but the 1:85:1 film standard. It just felt more like a movie. {Edit: 1.85 is only 2% per side wider than 16:9. If it felt that different, might his lack of notes suggest that what he actually saw WAS 2.35:1??? Did anyone else see this demo???] Edit 2: I was right. It has been confirmed as 2.35:1!

LED HD-ILA
This was by far the showstopper. It was displaying The Corpse Bride with blacks that looked like Black. I asked the tech rep about the contrast ratio. He smiled, "It's 1,000,000:1."

The picture was beautiful. I wish I could have seen a clip with more color and wider tonal range to really test what it really could do. - Mark Wilson

Your question is a good one. Ignoring the possible duty cycle penalty of wobulation, DLP and LCoS should benefit equally from LED illumination. If full 1080P DLP devices are in fact here, even that issue may soon be history. JVC may be the first to exploit a novel LED modulation or drive method, who knows? If the quote by a JVC rep by "Mark Wilson" of Gizmodo is correct, perhaps both LCoS and DLP will show large contrast improvements soon.