RS2/ PRO-FPJ1 Owners: Setup Discussion Thread - Page 7

For those who asked, its the true definition of black

The absence of Light - no light at all.

A 9" CRT can still produce much better images than any Fixed Pixel display, but the margin keeps getting smaller every year.

Excuse me, but I have to call BS on that statement.

CRT's can only do ONE thing better than the best fixed panel displays and that is produce blacker blacks.

CRT's cannot produce as wide a color gamut, do not have anywhere near the the ANSI CR, have about a 12-15% MTF at 1920x1080 vs 65% plus for the better FPD's, have corner brightness down 50% from center values and exhibit a better than 50% brightness compression when going from a low APL to a full field white...and lets not even talk about light output or stability over time.

I have setup, calibrated and sold CRT projectors from their inception and I know all their strengths and weakness as well as anyone (and better than most) in the industry. If their one redeeming quality floats your bote, so be it...go put your favorite LP on your turntable and enjoy the kool-aid.

Have a great weekend!

Tom has made some great points there.

There are a lot of things you need to do to get your CRT working perfectly. The tubes age/wear at uneven rates.

Another really big thing that was suprising to me with this RS2 is that it seems to be resolving shadow detail better than the CRT projectors that I have seen. That is a really cool thing. My previous JVC digital projectors really struggled in this area (although it helped to have a Phelps calibration.)

Several other things of note...

The 9" CRTs are huge and are not flexible at all for their mounting.
Some of them have really noisy fans.
With the best that I saw, it was tack sharp right in the center of the screen, but out on the edges, the image was quite soft.
With the RS2, you have more brightness so you can go to a bigger screen or a screen without as much gain.

I do look forward to the time that digital projectors have the same black level as CRTs without an iris as a helper. It is cool to see how JVC is progressing on that front.

Thanks for the replies

I'd love the projector with or without the comparison but I like to have a frame of reference when reading these posts 'till the wee hours of the morning.

I'm pretty close to pulling the trigger on buying one of these monsters. Thing is, I can't find anyone who [i]sells[i] this baby. The big advertisers supporting this forum don't carry it. I don't want to give any one place an unfair plug, so if those of who who've welcomed an RS2 into your homes -- could you share from where you've purchased, and if they're a reputable establishment? Would you recommend them and buy from them again? Any info will help, thanks!

PM'd you Krelmbot

CCLAY, just wanted to echo the sentiments of others and say that your ceiling is awesome. Very impressive! And from what I can see of your HT from that pic, you are going to have something of which you will be very proud.

Sorry for going OT!

I can share my impressions comparing a well calibrated G90 with the RS2, which I recently replaced it with.

On the HD material, the quality of the picture on RS2 is extremely close to the G90. The BLACKs are quite impressive. The picture is quite film like. I do still believe that the colors on G90s especially RED is more accurate, but the difference would be probably seen by trained eye only.

On non HD material, the G90 will definitely outperform the RS2. I only watch HD on the RS2 so to me this is non issue.

Call the guys at AV science. They own this AVS forum and have excellent prices and service.

What video processor did you use with your G90? There is something about how a CRT with a good processor can look better with SD content. I think with some of the current latest video processors, they now narrow that gap significantly.

I did not use the processor. It was either HTPC running at 1440x960p or CABLE 1080i via component.

Guys,

I frequently read post about the RS2 that go right over my head. I am not a cinema guru like most of you. I just know a good picture when I see one.

I must say that the JVC is the best picture I have ever seen. I upgraded from the Sharp DT500 that served me well for about 1.5 years. I knew it was time to upgrade once I would find reasons to watch my old Sony KD-34xbr970 tube HD TV. The colors were never right with the DT500. Nothing was bold, just washed out. There must be a huge difference between 4000:1 contrast ratio vs a 30,000:1 contrast ratio. I found myself watching parts of film just to see the colors and detail. I must say that Ratatouille and Apocolypto on the RS2 is unreal!!!

Black is Back and I am loving it. The picture quality on my 150" screen is unreal (from 16 feet). Blu-ray movies are insane on this projector. I can't wait to see the superbowl tomorrow.

I am very happy so far with my purchase!! I would like to thank everyone on this sight that help me chose this projector over the Sony VW200, JVC RS1, and the Sharp XV-Z20000. I am confident I made the right choice.

I can truely say my home theater experience is better than going to the movie theater.

Kraig

Congrats on the new pj dude! I am glad that it is working out for you. It truly is a great projector and will serve you well.

Thanks for posting your happy thoughts. 150" is an impressive size!

Has anyone measured the Foot Lambert's on a 120 inch 2.35 screen (SutdioTec 1.3 gain) from an RS2 (say 16 to 20 feet from the screen)?

While I suspect it will be bright enoguh, I have yet to purchase the screen and sure don't want to purchase something so large that the brightness sucks. My comparison was my Electrohome 9500LC 9 inch CRT using the same screen material but on a 54 x 96 screen.

When you say 120" is that diagonal? Are you going to use an anamorphic lens?

How many foot lamberts did you get with your CRT on the 54x96?
How many lumens did your CRT put out anyway?

I am planning on using an anamorphic lens and the 120 inches is width (so that would be 130 diagonal I think). I don't remember the output of my CRT.... it was OK but there were some dark films were extra brightness would have been very helpful.

The RS2 sounds very impressive! I had the VW60 and have an RS1 on order but this one is really luring me in. I'd like to hear some comparisons or thoughts from those who have replaced their RS1 with the RS2.

I have a similar setup. My screen is slightly different as it is an Ultramatte 1.5 gain that is microperfed. It is 1.35 theoretical actual gain so it should be similar. It is 120" wide and I use a Panamorph lens with it.

Right now I can't make measurements, but I will post ft lamberts as soon as I can. I had to move my risers and recliners (9 of them) into my test area while I paint the new HT.

I have calculated what the theoretical FT lamberts would be for my screen and it would be quite close.

First of all I use the RS2 on high lamp mode. Using Greg's measurements, with my throw distance, I calculated that my lumens would be: 567

OK so first with this screen in 16:9 mode, CIH the height is 51" the width would be about 91" making a 104" diagonal image. This would be the default mode sans panamorph. The calculated Ft Lamberts would be 23.8.

Now taking that and using VStretch (or actually my radiance to do the stretch) and putting the panamorph in place, the ft lamberts are going to drop about 32% due to stretching the image across the extra square feet. Add another theoretical 3% loss for adding the panamorph. The final calculated ft Lamberts would be about 15.5.

So I recall reading recently that a good bright 9" CRT would be around 300 lumens. (I could be wrong on this so take this calculation worth a grain of salt). If this is the case with your 1.3 gain 54x96 screen, you would be getting 10.8 ft Lamberts.

Anyone please feel free to correct me if any of my numbers are off.

Oh one last thing. These numbers would certainly decrease with bulb age.

I just got my RS2 set-up yesterday in my demo room. I'm in the NY Metro area if anyone is interested to swing by and check it out. I just replaced the RS1 (which had replaced the Sim 300E). From the set-up, looks like a got a good one but I haven't watched anything yet to draw comparisons. I have a bunch of 1080i material on my cable box hard drive that I use for demos so that's where I'll start.

Awesome! I'm sure you will love it!
What screen and size are you using?

Over at ProjectorReviews Art Feierman states that:
There is a very slight bit of crushing of the darkest shadow details, out of the box. From playing around, it seems perhaps to possibly relate to the gamma control. I found that Theater 1 gamma, or better, manually setting gamma to 2.1 (default is 2.2), helps.

But, Greg Rogers said:
The extraordinary full-field contrast ratio allows one of the higher gamma values to be used without obscuring near-black shadow detail. I used the 2.4 and 2.5 gamma curves, which produced images that are more CRT-like than other lamp-based projectors. The higher gamma values substantially increase the perception of image depth in most films.

So, Greg is running his gamma at 2.4-2.5 and Art said he was getting black crushing at anything higher than 2.1. What is everyone here running at? And, if you're running closer to 2.4 how are you avoiding black crush?

I know Art personally but I would go with Greg on this one. The RS-2 in my room with 2.5 Gamma is unbelieveable. I do not think it crushes blacks at all and just make sure your brightness is set correctly and you will be fine.

I just calibrated an RS-2 last night and it has the best Gamma curves I have seen from any digital PJ. It comes out of black almost perfectly in the low IREs which is where most PJs have trouble. To give you an example, most DLPs I work with I have to set at a 2.2 Gamma. Even so, they have trouble at the low IREs and are usually coming in at the 2.4-2.7 range down there. Because of the limited controls in most of these PJs, there is not a way to fix this properly. Raise the Gamma down low and you get 1.7-1.8 up in the middle and high IREs. The JVC is almost perfect out of the box (measured 2.51 on the 2.5 setting) and the low IREs were just about dead on with a bit more variation in the middle and near perfect again in the higher reaches.

Rob,
This is just my opinion but I hope it helps. I was a Sony dealer and played extensively with the Ruby and Pearl. I have not played with a 60 but I have seen them in action so take my opinion FWIW. I really liked the RS-1 but was never blown away by it. It did have the best full field CR and the stats said it was by a wide margin. In testing and real world viewing, I just never saw huge differences between it and a good DLP. Also with DLPs higher ANSI/intrascene, I always thought it was a better choice (not to mention the color gamut issues). I have now spent a few days with the RS-2 and even calibrated one (although it was really good before I touched it). I must say this is a big step forward. Just a Greg says, it is in the Gamma. JVC got it right. Even though we are still dealing with color gamut issues, I can overlook them for now for this type performance. I will eventually get the processor to correct them. Ultimately, it is a tough call. The RS-1 at today's prices, is a great deal. I would still default to my DLP though over it. With the RS-2, I am very happy and will not go back to the DLP for a while (although never say never).

Screen is Stewart 114" 16:9.

Right now the screen uses Firehawk material, but I'm swapping that out for the new Studiotek 130 material which should really pop the image given my pretty dark room. I just hope that it doesn't suffer where the Firehawk excels above all other screens that I've seen and thats with rejecting stray light reflecting back onto the screen.

Thanks for the opinion Eric. The VW60 is pretty satisfying but it is also not something that gave me a "WOW" feeling. I'm imagining the RS1 will be similar. I'm thinking that the RS2 will be something that will stick around for a while and the constant upgrading will end. Considering the price of the RS1 demos (AVS) it's more of a decision of bang for the buck vs. top notch performance. If double the price only gives me a 5-10% performance improvement, I'd go with the RS1. If it truly performs in a category approaching a G90, I'm sold.

Some of the concerns I have with the RS2 are bright corners (stood out on the VW50 but not present with the VW60), color uniformity (could not watch B&W films such as Raging Bull on the Pearl d/t the severity of it), and sharpness. I'm not too concerned with the light output because I'm using a 119" HP. The lack of motorized lens shift is a bummer.

Somebody convince me either way!

Eric,

What DLP were you comparing it to?

BenQ W10000.

Anyone read the entire REVIEW from htprojectors (Andrea Manuti) ? Here's the conclusion translated from Italian to English:

My exact thoughts. Plauso and a ducking to the JVC!!!!

Maybe they meant duckling. "You did so well, here is a duckling for you!"