Preliminary results of my mini RS1 VW60 shootout - Page 3

Congrats! I'm sure you will love it!

Thank you.
This was my gut as I am deciding between the 2.

I have a 110" Stewart Studiotek 130, almost perfect light contol, and the PJ is mounted 13 feet away, and I am sitting 13 feet away.

I hope the rs1 is the winner for me...

Steve - what lens are you using? I still have my ISCO II from the LT150 days - I think you had the same set up way back when.

Kelly

What do you mean by elevated blacks??

That's the first time I've ever heard of the RS1 as having elevated blacks. Having owned both the RS1 and VW60 I can't see how the VW60 could be considered to have better blacks. Don't get me wrong, blacks are fine on the VW60. Possibly equal even though it is with lower light output that the RS1 when both are in low lamp mode. Of course it may come down to the possibility of varying CRs from unit to unit.

This one still baffles me regardless of projector variance when comparing to the vw60.. CRT yes... vw60 no..

I'm curious how is your RS1 configured

1. What bulb setting? Normal or High?
2. HDMI Input level? Standard or Enhanced?

I understand what you are saying..... just having a hard time believing it. It seems like your RS1 is way way off compared to most or it has some settings wrong.

Which is why I'm curious of these settings.

I know having the HDMI input level set wrong will elevate the blacks incorrectly.

Granted the sample size of vw60's I've seen is not huge.... but every one I've seen didn't have the black level of the rs1 regardless of lamp or iris settings

On a 0 IRE field I'd agree that the VW60 has equal or possibly even better black level. The obvious argument is that the VW60 needs to use the iris to get there. I'm not arguing that the VW60 is not a better machine, in some ways, than the RS1. For many, it may be the preferred machine. I think most would argue that black level performance is better on the RS1 with actual film content, with the exception of a fade to black, due to it's high native contrast. For me, watching Underworld or specific scenes in Star Wars gave me a better appreciation for the native contrast of the RS1. The RS1 maintains a deep black (for a digital) while maintaining more brightness than the VW60. Sony did a great job with the VW60 and it's iris is much better than any I've personally seen but it is still an iris system. Regardless of the specs, etc. both are fantastic machines. I've seen AVSers prefer the VW60 over the RS1 and vice versa.

Hopefully the next JVC has either an adjustable auto iris or a fixed iris combined with even better CR than the RS2.

The VW60's brightness compression never bothered me. I did notice a slightly bluish black though. What I did prefer is the smoothness of the image when fed 1080p24. Not to mention the lens control.

Well, they comment that the light ouput in the 0 IRE setting was below the measurement range of their light meter for RS2 and probably also for the RS1. If you have a black level below the detection limit then the light output in 100 IRE will give the measured contrast ratio. Thus, the brighter RS1 will yield a better result, but it doesn't say anything about the real contrast ratio.

By the way, stating CR with four significant digits, as the authors has done (e.g. 12,790:1 for RS2), is very misleading and totally ridiculous when they hardly have one significant digit in the 0 IRE measurement (<0.01 ft-L). This implies they have high measurement accuracy, which is obviously not the case. Correctly stated it should be >10,000:1.

Edit: (the CR should actually be >10,000:1 for all three projectors, RS1, RS2, VW60). Hence, the measurements were not good enough for any comparison of the on/off CR of the projectors. Since the reviewers didn't seem to know what they were doing measuring on/off I'm not sure I would trust their ANSI CR either...

A bit OT, but I get annoyed when suppose to be professionals working with scientific instrumentation lack elementary science and mathematical training...

Maybe you should just get a RS2.

how about a counselor?

did you ever settle on a screen that will work for you?

If the sensor is close to the lens one can obtain more significant digits in the low end. I'm not sure that that was what was done but ...

Art

So I saw your VW60 up for sale in the classifieds there. You mention that you will be going to a HD100? So I guess you are going the RS2 route then.

You will have to let us know how you like it!

I'm particularly sensitive to sharpness (or the lack thereof, which I find fatiguing -- like trying to focus on something that can't be focused on), so I'd like to ask if anyone has had the opportunity to compare a VW60 to an RS1 in the way I'm about to describe (which I did for a 1080UB, a VW50, and an RS1):

I obtained 1080p images containing alternating R/G/B single-pixel-width line segments from http://www.pbase.com/jackcnd/1080p_tests (I used the "original" versions to obtain 1080p images). Images were stored on a PS3 and fed to the projectors via HDMI.

Looking at a 1080UB near the center of the screen, there were two significant problems: (1) the red, green, and blue pixels couldn't be focused simultaneously (see attached black and white pic, paying particular attention to the blue pixels); and (2) even with the best obtainable focus, the pixels were smeared -- and sometimes the lines were even doubled (!) (see attached colored pic).

Problem #1, I assume, results from panel misalignment (but it's depth misalignment, rather than lateral misalignment); problem #2, I believe, results from inferior lens quality.

I saw the same problems (both the line doubling and the lack of simultaneous panel focus) on the VW50, at the center of the screen

[As an OT aside, I will mention that, on the 1080UB threads, there are frequent complaints of panel misalignment, as evidenced by significant color fringing seen on white lines. But the attached color pic suggests than some of those individuals complaining about panel misalignment many instead simply have bad lenses. The only way to tell is to put up patterns that have separate R/G/B line segments.]

By contrast, the RS1 at the center of the screen was remarkably sharp -- the line segments of all three colors looked as sharp, simultaneously, as they do on my computer's very high quality (Samsung SyncMaster 213T) 21" LCD screen; there was no visible blurring or fringing. Up to this point, I’d thought that LCoS pixels were “soft-looking.” Now I realize that the pixels themselves are sharply defined, but you need a PJ with good enough optics to see this (and, of course, very tight focus on the three panels to be able to have them be sharp simultaneously). There was a direct translation between the sharpness of the patterns on the RS1 and how it looked with movies, which appeared significantly sharper on the RS1 than on the VW50 or on the 1080UB (I used the Spider Man 3 Blu-Ray for this comparison).

Vertically and horizontally, lateral registration of the red and green panels on the RS1 was within 1/3 to 1/2 pixel. The only problem was blue, which was displaced horizontally by almost two pixels (vertically it was fine). But for image sharpness, this seems to matter less (at least for the blue; if the red and green were off by 2 pixels, that would likely be a different story) than having good optics and tight panel focus.

Not that one wouldn't also want to have the blue be where it's supposed to be. In fact, the RS1’s internal panel alignment compensation may fix this. The VW60’s, which shifts in fractions of a pixel, does so by dimming/brightening adjoining pixels -- it doesn't actually correct the alignment of the panels. So it can’t give you back the resolution you lose by misalignment (in fact, I understand that use of this feature actually reduces sharpness). But since the JVC’s panel alignment feature, by contrast, only allows for whole-pixel increments it could, at least in principle, electronically re-map the entire blue panel EXACTLY (by just shifting the blue panel pixel addresses by +2 vertically, for instance). Anyone know if this is true?

For me, the major benefit of this exercise was two-fold. First, it clarified just how important sharpness is to me -- the increased sharpness of this RS1 made watching movies less fatiguing (and yes, I still want a 3-chip for other reasons; I just want a 3-chip that's sharp!). Second, it changes the conversation -- instead of having to ask people, subjectively, how sharp a projector is, I now understand that this can be easily assessed: you just have to put up one of these single-pixel-width patterns, and look for the same crispness you see on a flat-panel LCD. If you've got this, you know that the video image will be sharp.

So I'm wondering whether anyone has done a test like this to compare the relative sharpness of the RS1 and the VW60.

You are one very astute individual who is good at exposing marketing ******** and inferior designs. Its usually the hype that matters, not the true performance.
The JVC can correct to within one pixel in the central area of the screen. If the physical alignment or optical aberration errors are constant then it will apply to the entire screen. These limitations hold true for all three panel digital projectors.
The humorous irony is that this inferior 1:1 pixel map destroying design claimed to be better. In reality it saved manufacturing costs as the factories quality control standards could be relaxed. It fooled most everyone, even the experts here.
For the RS1, I minimize the vertical and horizontal offsets and adjust the manual focus until the vertical and horizontal screen door pattern is equally sharp. Then take a tack sharp Sony PS3 blu-ray player and you are good to go.

I have never seen the RS1/2 and the only JVC proj. I ever owned was the G1000. When watching Nardia on my VW60 using a Panasonic 30 blu-ray through the Yamaha RX-Z11 receiver and using a Dalite HP 133" screen(no anam. lens-just masking), I was completely blown away by the picture and just wonder can it get much better than this? Could an anamorphic lens make an improvement? just some observations, Ron

The RS1 can have miss-aligned panels too, and the amount can vary between machines, some will be better aligned than others. Here is Mark Peterson's explanation on how to get the sharpest focus on the RS1.