[mdrums]

I was invited to a small professioanl show in St. Petersburgh FL today by the JVC rep to take a quick view of the D-ILA technology. This was mostly a small show hosted by a muilt media dealer for professional media people. I viewed a JVC SX21 in probably not the best of settings or screen choice but THE PICTURE BLEW AWAY EVERY DLP PROJECTOR I SAW! Even my wife noticed!!!


We watched samples of standard DVD and HD Tapes. WOW! For a list price of $8900 for the SX21 the Sim2, DWIN or Runco $16,000 units with a single HD2+ chip can not even come close to JVC!


I can only imagine what the SX21 or HX1 could look like in a perfectly set up dark home theater! JVC has some winning technology and after discovering this I wonder why no home theater stores have caught on to this yet.


My mind is made up I will own either a SX21 or HX1 maye HD2K in the next month.

 

[Michael Grant]

MDrums, I am an LCOS lover myself. The HD2K is most definitely on my short list.


HOWEVER, as you may already be aware, one weakness of LCOS is its poor on/off CR. I could be wrong, I would be very surprised if the JVC rep showed you any movie clips that demonstrated this weakness---no self-respecting rep would do so, it would not be in his best business interest.


Now honestly, some people really don't care about that, and that's fine. It only comes up in a few scenes anyway. And some people don't care about the rainbows and screen door on 1-chip DLPs, either But before you make sure to buy one of these projectors, please make sure to demo some dark movie scenes from some of your favorite movies. You know, the ones that are in the shadows, or at night... And I don't mean scenes that have mixtures of black and bright, I mean where everything is dark.


If you don't mind the result, then you will be a very happy man. If not, you might want to do a bit more auditioning. At the very least, wait for the HD2K to come out and try that, because it purportedly has better blacks than the HX1 and SX21.


Oh, and one more thing. If deciding between the HX1 and SX21, I would highly recommend the HX1 for one reason: HDCP compatability. Your projector will be compatible with more DVI source devices that way.


Anyway, like I said, I like LCOS a lot, so I don't want to harp on it too much. But I just think you should know fully what you're getting into, so you'll enjoy it that much more.


Have fun!

Michael

 

[mdrums]

Hey Michael, thanks for the reply and tip. Actually the JVC rep showed me some under water scene's from the U-571 submarine movie dvd. He even let me play with the contrast, brightness and color of the unit while looking at a test signal (pluge).


I found the D-ILA showed less artifacts on standard DVD than single chip DLP units. I would say the blacks were smoother and the whole picture was less harsh than the Sim2 and Runco single chip DLP's and the color seems better too...this again was in less than perfect conditions.


I mostly watch sports, especially football, concert DVD's and a few movies. When I get into my new house in a month I will have a HD DSS sat unit plus local HD channels.

 

[J.Mike Ferrara]

The HD2K was my favorite at the NYC HT show.

 

[mdrums]

Is the JVC HD2K for sale yet? Has a list price been established?

 

[TheFerret]

Quote:

Originally posted by Michael Grant MDrums, I am an LCOS lover myself. The HD2K is most definitely on my short list. HOWEVER, as you may already be aware, one weakness of LCOS is its poor on/off CR. I could be wrong, I would be very surprised if the JVC rep showed you any movie clips that demonstrated this weakness---no self-respecting rep would do so, it would not be in his best business interest.

I would be interested in you listing all of the weaknesses you feel LCoS has, and then those specific, maybe, to JVC current products. Also, I thought it was the intentions of JVC to replace the SX21 with the HX1U with masked panel to assist in light scatter?

 

[Dizzman]

But according to many... the HD2K is not nearly bright enough for ANY home theatre.


**THis is a Jab at a forum member who stated after my observations about this machine that it was unacceptable for HT due to its low brightness**

(i thought it kicked ass)

 

[Thomas Marshall]

Pardon me, but I can't resist making a comment, please take this as an informed different opinion.


After extensive side by sides with several other AVS's present, we compared the SX21 to Marantz and Infocus units, the result was the SX-21 couldn't hold a candle to either unit.


It was extremely disappointing to see the results we got because I was a big JVC SX-21 fan after seeing it stand alone in JVC's custom theater in Hollywood. But once I saw it in a side by side with the DLP units it paled in comparison. Even the JVC sales rep who was in attendance remained silent.


I love the smooth picture the SX-21 produces, but the color and contrast of this unit needs help.


I would be the first one to switch over to D-ILA once they resolve these issues, but this remains to be seen


Also, I paid less than $8000.00 for a new TV3, anyone who pays retail isn't doing there due diligence.


Thanks for reading

 

[Jon_Patrick]

Maybe JVC should have a high brightness button that readjusts all the the settings, taking it away from D65 so everyone will be happy with the lums, after all is this not what most manufactures get away with anyways.


I love the contrast numbers and lum numbers put on everyones spec sheet, we all know the contrast is best case with low lum and the lum number is best case lum or lower contrast and no where near D65. I believe JVC is printing real numbers, 600 lum, d65, 2000:1, i would love to see everyone else do the same thing.

 

[raoul]

Quote:

Originally posted by Thomas Marshall I love the smooth picture the SX-21 produces, but the color and contrast of this unit needs help. I would be the first one to switch over to D-ILA once they resolve these issues, but this remains to be seen Also, I paid less than $8000.00 for a new TV3, anyone who pays retail isn't doing there due diligence. Thanks for reading

Was the SX21 calibrated? I know stuff should work out of the box but to be fair to the DILA (but not JVC) the DILA units look markedly better after calibration. I'll hazzard saying that stock DILA units from JVC have a huge margin of improvement.


Having said that, the SX21 is NOT an HT unit like the Marantz is. The HX1 is supposed to be a lot better out of the box.


I set up a DWIN TV3 for a friend. Very nice picture. Sadly 3/4 people in the family saw rainbows instantly.

 

[Jason Turk]

I was just going to say, calibrating an SX21 or HX1 unit is definitely worth looking into. William works wonders on these and I have yet for anyone who has seen the before and after results of a calibration been disappointed.


The HD2K pricing has not been anounced officially althought there is a lot of speculation. I am waiting on that but anyone who is interested I would encourage to email me and I'll get you onto my contact list. Once more info is known I will be in touch with everyone.

 

[Morbius]

Quote:

Originally posted by Thomas Marshall After extensive side by sides with several other AVS's present, we compared the SX21 to Marantz and Infocus units, the result was the SX-21 couldn't hold a candle to either unit.

Tom,


I would bet that the SX-21 was not calibrated.


A William Phelps calibrated SX-21 not only could "hold a candle", but would be

a blowtorch.

 

[raoul]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jason Turk The HD2K pricing has not been anounced officially althought there is a lot of speculation. I am waiting on that but anyone who is interested I would encourage to email me and I'll get you onto my contact list. Once more info is known I will be in touch with everyone.

Now if only the 2K in the name was the price....

 

[glenned]

Quote:

Originally posted by Morbius Tom, I would bet that the SX-21 was not calibrated. A William Phelps calibrated SX-21 not only could "hold a candle", but would be a blowtorch.

Neither the SP7200, the S2, nor the SX21 was gray scale calibrated. They all had the basic parameters set with Avia. This was a pre-production SX21. The SX21 had not yet been released. The colors on the preproduction were equally accurate as compared to the DLPs. As you pointed out this is not the case with the shipping model. The colors on the preproduction model looked better to me than they did on the shipping model.


Where the SX21 paled in comparison to the DLPs was in the level of its Black, as is explained well by Michael Grant above. William Phelps improves the DILA's greatly. Both Tom and I still prefer the DLPs, and by a significant margin.


The DILAs and DLPs have different strengths and weaknesses compared to each other. Neither one is better than the other in every way. People legitimately prefer one over the other. It depends on which PQ parameters are the most important to you, and where you are most willing to overlook deficiencies.


Glenn

 

[Thomas Marshall]

The SX-21 in Hollywood was setup by JVC, but I doubt it was calibrated, the one in my HT was not, we did extensive tweaking on all the units in my side by side, but no calibrations had been done on any of the PJ's we reviewed.


I saw Williams calibrated units in a side by side this past year, one with calibration and one without, both being displayed simultaneously on two screens. No question his calibration makes a big difference, but I still feel the color quality and contrast are lacking compared to a well tuned DLP (no calibration needed).


As I said, I love the smoothness of the SX-21, but it just doesn't have the punch in colors and contrast that the DLP's have to my eye.


I will say that after the side by side was over, JVC left the SX-21 with me for the weekend and I played with it for several hours tweaking the picture, and as the weekend progressed I began to look past the short coming in color and really enjoyed the silky smooth picture with almost no noise.


One thing to understand though is my screen is very large (133" Diagonal Firehawk), which IMO gives the DLP's an advantage.


However, we did switch screens at one point and went to a 96" Diagonal Da-Lite white screen. But we still came to the same conclusion.


This is simply my opinion and these type of things are very subjective and depend on each persons preferences in what they like.


For folks who suffer from the rainbow problem D-ILA is a great solution.


I'm still waiting for the perfect digital PJ, dynamite color saturation, silky smooth picture, with CRT black levels, hopefully I won't have to wait more than a couple of years.

 

[Wolfie]

Quote:

Originally posted by J.Mike Ferrara The HD2K was my favorite at the NYC HT show.

AMEN TO THAT, BROTHER. Now if I can only get $30,000 and change together.


Wolfie

 

[mdrums]

I feel the colors of the D-ILA were as good if not better than every single chip DLP I have seen. I flat out know what I saw and even my wife agreed the JVC picture was more life like, no artifacts (dithering) no flashing rainbows. I have looked at calibrated Sim2 Ht300 extra and no calibrated Sim2 HT 300 Extra and Link, DWIN TV3+, Runso 1000ci, Marantz, Yamaha all were good but nothing like the JVC to my eyes. D-ILA to me is smooth, sharp and very clean amd colors are real and not over saturated of fake looking.

 

[Daniel Hutnicki]

If Dila technology had contrast close to what DLP has and it was not only in the hands of JVC (yes I know Sony has it too), it would probably be the dominant digital technology out there.

 

[dstroot]

"If a frog had wings it wouldn't bump it's ass on the ground."


I love that quote.


Maybe with Intel's venture into LCOS it's possible in few years there will be a chip supplier that can compete with TI with better technology than DLP. I'm all for competition. In the meantime we have what's available today - some people drive Honda and some Toyota (substitute your favorite brands) and both are good cars for the money - same with projectors.

 

[Robert Whitehead]

Somewhere on the web, I saw a MSRP for the HD2K of $22.5k. It didn't say if that included the lens. I found it by a Google search.