JVC DLA-NZ800 Projector Review

Aesthetics

JVC maintains its chassis design from the prior models. It is a boxy design with curved and rounded corners. It is a very nice charcoal gray matte finish with a darker, shinier, metallic black panel running front to back on the top of the chassis with the JVC, DiLA and 8K eShiftX logos embossed in silver. This design is very nice and gives it a classy, professional look.

It has large louvered vents for intake and output on the front and rear of the chassis to provide excellent cooling capabilities if used in a properly climate controlled room.

The NZ800’s various connectors are in a recessed area in the back of the NZ800. The most important projection control buttons needed for basic operation without the remote are located on the top right rear of the chassis, along with a power button and a rear IR sensor for the remote signals.

The chassis features four adjustable screw-in feet for leveling when shelf mounted. It also features standard screw holes to attach the proper ceiling mount designed for this projector, such as from manufacturers like Chief. It also has mounting holes designed for the plate to use with an anamorphic lens from Panamorph.

Installation/Lens Info

Laser Light Source

The JVC DLA-NZ800 incorporates a blue laser phosphor array light engine that JVC calls BLU-Escent, in its new Gen 2 configuration. It is paired with a static yellow phosphor element and has a life expectancy of at least 20,000 hours to half life. This is of course dependent on the laser power selected by the user and the various modes being used throughout its lifetime.

Brightness

The NZ800 from JVC features a specified brightness of 2,700 lumens, up 200 lumens from its predecessor the DLA-NZ8. You can see the increase and the image feels similar to the prior NZ9 rather than the similar NZ8. This is probably due to the improved processing and new DiLA panels as the image just seems to have more pop throughout its range.The amount of light output this throws can make it good for rooms with some ambient light, such as a living room, media room or den. Where it shines best (pun intended!) is in a dedicated and light controlled Home Theater or Cinema room, given its high brightness and excellent native contrast.

If you are installing this in a room with ambient light, then it is best to pair this with a proper Ambient Light Rejecting (ALR) screen. If you do so, you should be able to get a respectable image on screen even with some ambient light from light fixtures and windows, like typical living room environments possess. When it is paired with an ALR cinema screen, there is enough lumens to punch through any normal ambient light conditions.

I tested the NZ800 on a white, 0.8 gain Seymour AT screen in a darkened environment. As expected, with the lights off on this screen in a dark environment, the projected image on screen is very dynamic, sharp and clear and a visible step up from the prior NZ8 model. It takes on a new dimension of colors, sharpness and depth in comparison. This projector is the best performer in its class and price range and even performs well when compared to the class above.

With its powerful BLU Escent laser light source reflecting off its three high contrast DiLA panels, it provides beautiful images near 85% of the UHDA-P3 color gamut while maintaining its full calibrated brightness. If you choose to use the DCI Color FIlter you will get very close to a DCI-P3 color gamut at the expense of about 32% of the peak calibrated brightness. I measured a peak white of 12,520 nits without the filter vs 8,579 nits with it, measured facing the projector 1 meter away from the lens while using the color meter’s diffuser.

Even so, using the NZ800 without the filter renders 4K HDR Blu Rays and Streaming Videos with very rich and saturated colors that would be hard to tell are only about 85-90% of the full UHDA P3 color gamut. When compared with an RGB Laser projector, the JVC NZ800 certainly fares well and holds its own in comparison when you see the colors it produces in the nominal range below diffuse white for HDR sources. This projector has a very cinematic image with great contrast while maintaining a nice sharp and detailed image with pop surpassing the old NZ8.

A standard white screen is your best choice if you plan to install this in a dedicated, light controlled environment. There is no need for an ALR or gray screen in this scenario like you may want to use with low contrast, single chip DLP or LCD projectors.

Colors

SDR Mode Measurements, Pre-Calibration (Out of the Box)

SDR Natural Mode Measurements, Post-Calibration

HDR Mode Measurements, Pre-Calibration
(Out of the Box)

HDR Measurements, Post-Calibration (HDR10, Frame Adapt 1, BT2020, HDR10 6500K, No filter)

HDR BT2020 Color Checker Post Calibration

HDR BT2020 CMS Post Calibration

HDR BT2020 CMS Post Calibration

HDR BT2020 Gamut Coverage with Color Filter

HDR UHDA-P3 Gamut Coverage with Color Filter

The blue laser phosphor light source on the JVC DiLA projectors, known as BLU Escent, can reproduce a wider color gamut than traditional Laser Phosphor projectors like those from Sony, but it needs a color filter that ends up robbing nearly a third of your available light. The wide color gamut filter rolls into place to produce very near UHDA(~DCI)-P3 Colors on screen, but these colors are still much smaller than what true RGB Laser projectors can reproduce. There are projectors which feature dual laser designs using Blue and Red Laser Diodes or LEDs which can get to a DCI-P3 gamut without a filter.

In real world viewing, it is very hard to tell any differences between with the filter on and off, except in the rare scenes where colors closer to BT2020 emerge, such as when viewing neon signs or true “Coca-Cola Reds”. Most content resides in the Rec709 space, with peaks pushing into P3 on most all UHD Blu-Rays. It is reported that many newer discs are starting to peak well into BT2020 now though, so the sooner manufacturers can increase color gamut coverage in their projectors, and even flat panels for that matter, the better. True RGB Laser projectors as the norm can’t come soon enough in my book!

Contrast

As with all JVC DiLA projectors in the recent past, this new NZ800 continues to come with an incredible, class leading contrast ratio. They report a Contrast Ratio of 100,000:1 in their specs. The black levels and contrast this projector produces are better than any other projector in its price range and class by a wide margin.

I had a JVC NZ9 here not too long ago and ran it through its paces extensively. This new model NZ800, an upgraded product line but one step lower in the line than the NZ9 and refreshed NZ900, is as good and in many ways better than that NZ9! The contrast, detail and sharpness of this NZ800 are superior to the image I recall getting from the NZ9. I can easily say this is the first JVC I would choose to keep over others such as the Sonys and a few other top end brands and models, when taken as an overall image on screen. There never was any doubt that JVC always had and has the best native contrast of any home theater projector below $100K, but now it adds detail, sharpness, pop and colors to the mix for the win. With that said, I can’t wait to get my eyes and meters on the new DLA-NZ900!

Measurements were done using CalMAN calibration software with a SpectraCal C6 HDR2000 colorimeter and a SpectraCal VideoForge Pro test pattern generator, taken 1 meter from the lens using the Diffuser on the meter and Iris open. For improved contrast, you can clamp down the iris at the expense of overall brightness. Each iris setting and position will be system and personal preference and should be decided upon during install, preferably with the help of a professional.

Sequential Contrast

• HIGH BRIGHT Image Mode: 40,900:1
• White Luminance: 6919.4 cd/m2
• Black Luminance: 0.169 cd/m2

Intra-Frame (ANSI) Contrast

• HIGH BRIGHT Image Mode: 305:1
• Average White Luminance: 4789.7 cd/m2
• Average Black Luminance: 16.582 cd/m2

Sharpness, Detail, Clarity

The new JVC DLA-NZ800 not only improves on sharpness, clarity and detail in its image over its older sibling the DLA-NZ8, it takes it to a whole new level! It features the same manual focusing of the electronic focus controls and can eek out quite a bit more sharpness and detail from the image, most likely from the new DiLA panels, resulting in a more clean and detailed image on screen than the prior NZ8 and even the NZ9 I had here not long ago. It can be hard to believe that it comes from a smaller 65mm lens than the NZ9’s 100mm one, so again I can’t wait to see these new DiLA panels on the NZ900 and its larger lens.

We immediately noticed how sharp and detailed it was, along with the added depth of the image and contrast, as soon as we opened the box and got it fired up on our 110” 16:9 Stewart screen in our demo lab room. After some time and letting the new image sink in, we did notice a green tinge outlining very fine details, most easily seen in the Spears and Munsil UHD Test Disc’s demo scenes such as the peacock feather scene and others (*below for reference, but not the actual image showing this anomaly).

After trying many things, such as doing a panel alignment, both coarse and fine, and turning off all “enhancement features” we could, the green outline tinge was still there. We eventually landed on Filmmaker mode with MPC Graphic Mode at Hi-Res 2, which pretty much completely alleviated this issue, especially in real world video content. JVC needs to address this out of box issue in our opinion, while still maintaining the added sharpness and detail we see over the NZ8 and NZ9. This anomaly reminds me of what I saw with the Sony VPL-XW5000ES where they use too much sharpening and processing to overcome what is in my opinion an inferior lens being used. JVC should not have this problem with their all glass lenses of the quality they are.

I think they were aiming to attain all the best attributes of the JVCs (contrast), Sonys (image sharpness and processing) and quality DLPs (image detail, depth, clarity and inter-image contrast), and they have certainly achieved that, in spades! In their effort to do so, they copied Sony too much, haha. All that needs done now is a little refinement and then they’d have nearly the end game projector in this class. All that would need to be added then would be RGB lasers!

Motion handling

There is a Motion Interpolation and Compensation adjustment in the menu of the NZ800 called Clear Motion Drive, or C.M.D for short. It has four settings, OFF, LOW, HIGH and Inverse Telecine (for 60i/p video images only). The manual shows a nice graphic showing what this adjustment does:

This adjustment to motion is carried over from previous generations and has iterative performance increases with each version year over year. My first suggestion is to always use it in the OFF position at first to see how you like the projector’s native motion handling. If this bothers you with its stutter and judder as objects pan across the screen, then I suggest to judiciously use this setting, starting with the LOW setting first. This setting helps movies at 24p (23.976 Hz) to look more like a smoother 60p. It does so thankfully without adding the dreaded “Soap Opera Effect” (SOE) at the LOW setting. This is the highest I personally recommend you go, as moving up to HIGH will start to show some SOE.

These and other JVC DiLAs also feature a Motion Enhance feature which works in conjunction with CMD to reduce blurring as the objects move across the screen horizontally. This is called “Motion Blur”. The settings are as follows:

These features function very well, with no perceptual trails behind the objects in motion, also known as “ghosting”, showing minimal effects of blurring and ghosting. When too high of a setting does cause some of the “Soap Opera Effect” (SOE), the movie can take on a less than cinematic feel with motion. It will look more like a scene from General Hospital or Days of Our Lives than your favorite movie cinema. Movies have historically been shot at 24 frames per second and displayed by flashing each frame of film twice in the cinema projector at your favorite theater megaplex. This gives us a “cinematic” look that many prefer when watching movies.

Chipset/Imaging Panel Technology

The new DLA-NZ800, as with the other new model this year, the NZ900, uses all new third generation 0.69” DiLA LCoS imaging panels. As is their norm, they’re using three 4096 x 2160 17:9 DCI spec’d panels inside their chassis, one each for Red, Green and Blue, which are then aligned internally to overlap on screen as best as possible from the factory, with the ability to manually converge them in the menu system if needed.

The new panels are reported to offer improved alignment and control of the Liquid Crystals as well as increased flatness, as JVC calls it, to give viewers about 1.25 (NZ800) or 1.50 (NZ900) times the native contrast of their Gen 2 panels. They have also reported better screen uniformity and image quality with the new manufacturing process of these panels.

Uniformity is improved across the screen as well. So much so that it is visible to the eye when full field patterns are displayed. This is in comparison to my most recent NZ9 experience. This NZ800 sample I have here for review has much improved “bright corners”, which has been a thorn in the side of JVC for some time.

Please note that these panels are still in the 17:9 DCI format, not the standard UHD’s 16:9 Aspect Ratio. So if you are using a 16:9 screen, you may see slight blank overspill on the left and right of your screen. Also, if using an anamorphic lens setup, you’ll need one of the 1.25:1 variety such as the Panamorph Paladin DCR if you wish to use the entire width of the panels, gaining what you may need as far as light output depending on screen size and/or throw distance.

Video gaming

I am not a gamer, but as I recall reading on the NZ7/8/9 series in various reviews and forums, there was a lot of lag and motion blur if any processing or features were turned on. Now with the increase in image detail, motion and sharpness, and improved processing, the gaming experience should be better than the NZ8’s. According to the Simple Home Cinema Review, this is reported to be the case.

As I always do with projectors for gaming, I had my son play a first person shooter game on it using his XBox Series X. He said that the lag wasn’t too bad and he could be competitive, although it wasn’t as good as the Hisense Flat panel he normally uses for gaming.

Unfortunately we don’t have a Leo Bodner tester to report actual input lag, but we do work with professionals that do, so we will update this section of the review when we have more to report in this area.

Built in sound

This projector does not feature any built in sound or speaker capabilities, so you will have to pair this with a home theater sound system, or at minimum a decent sound bar.

Remote

The included remote for the NZ800 is the same one used in the prior generation NZ line. It has a nice gray color around the top, bottom and rear while the button area is black with white lettering on the buttons themselves. It is made of a decent plastic so as to not feel cheap and flimsy in the hand. It is thankfully still a backlit remote.

It has all the buttons you’ll need for control without going into the menu system every time to do what should be a quick and easy adjustment, such as picture mode, Lens Controls (Focus/Zoom/Shift), Memories, etc.. The buttons that are, from top left down to bottom right:

User interface menus

Connectivity and ports

The JVC DLA-NZ800 features the same suite of connectivity jacks and ports as the prior version NZ8, with the same capabilities.

The installed ports on the rear of the chassis include, from left to right:

It would be nice to have more HDMI ports or eARC, but it is understandable considering the use case of this projector and to keep its costs as low as possible. You shouldn't be needing more HDMI inputs because if you own a projector of this level, you’re most likely using this in a dedicated theater room, so you will be switching all your HDMI sources through an AV Processor or Receiver which will have many more HDMI inputs to utilize.

The Standard grounded IEC AC power input port is also located on the rear of the chassis.

Picture Modes

Auto

What is it for?

To automatically select the Picture Mode based on the incoming signal being detected.

What does it do?

It detects what the native input signal is based on the incoming signal’s metadata. You can manually override the selection if desired, such as when sending LLDV Dolby Vision from a capable source connected to an HDFury or EZCoo which spoofs the EDID to allow Dolby Vision. In this case you would need to select the HDR10 Picture Mode so the projector applies its PQ “gamma” curve and BT2020 color gamut.

How does it look?

This is dependent on the mode that’s automatically selected. See each individual picture mode below for individual details

SDR

What is it for?

Picture mode suitable for viewing SDR content with a detected Power Law Gamma (2.2, 2.4, 2.6, etc.). SDR content includes 2D and 3D content.

What does it do?

It switches to SDR Mode in the projector and offers 7 variable image modes to choose from for different image characteristics on screen:

Natural

Image quality that focuses on a more natural color palette and image reproduction. Closest out of the box mode for SDR to the industry standard. This is the mode I chose to do my SDR ISF Calibration.

Cinema

Reproduces a cinematic look to the image with a little more saturated colors which works well for all movies being played.

Film

Faithfully reproduces the look of film stock and gives the grain, texture and looks of films and movies.

Filmmaker Mode

Automatically supports the UHD Alliance’s FILMMAKER MODE and engages when this signal is detected. This mode disables all enhancements in the projector and sets it to the purest possible state, as is needed to meet the UHDA’s standards and guidelines.

User Modes 1-3

These are modes that the user can adjust and save based on their preferences and can be retrieved when wanted to be activated.

How do these modes look?

HDR10+

What is it for?

Picture mode suitable for viewing HDR10+ mastered content with appropriate dynamic metadata.

What does it do?

It is a picture mode suitable for viewing HDR10+ dynamic content. Tone mapping is optimally performed for each scene according to the dynamic metadata to faithfully reproduce HDR video images according to the intentions of the video producer.

This mode defeats most all picture processing modes from the normal HDR10 menu selections because the metadata will define what should be shown on screen.

How does it look?

The HDR10+ mode will look like the director intended is variable based on the content being viewed and how it was mastered. This mode is similar to the advantages of what Dolby Vision provides on flat panel displays.

HDR10

What is it for?

Picture mode suitable for viewing HDR10 mastered content with static metadata.

What does it do?

This mode gives you 5 options to choose from for your choice of image characteristics. The prior “Panasonic Player” Mode has been deleted.

Frame Adapt HDR 1 - 3

Picture mode that analyzes and automatically adjusts the HDR Tone Mapping of each frame of the HDR10 content. It employs a JVC original algorithm that analyzes the HDR signal and allows users to enjoy HDR10 content with different levels of PQ brightness for optimal HDR picture quality on a lower nit projection display than the professional mastering monitor the signal was mastered on.

HDR10

Makies use of the BT2020 wide color gamut, PQ Transfer Function and high contrast images. This mode is suited for viewing HDR10 content mastered at lower than 1,000 nits of brightness due to its use of static curves for HDR PQ which needs manual adjustments per source, such as those from HDR Ultra HD Blu-rays and HDR streaming services.

FILMMAKER

Automatically supports the UHD Alliance’s HDR FILMMAKER MODE and engages when this signal is detected. This mode disables all enhancements in the projector and sets it to the purest possible state, as is needed to meet the UHDA’s standards and guidelines.

HLG

What is it for?

This is a picture mode suitable for viewing HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma) mastered content.

What does it do?

This is usually an HDR format for broadcasting because it is essentially a hybrid of SDR and HDR and uses a form of power gamma with extended highlight capabilities similar to HDR PQ to achieve similar specular highlights and high dynamic range imaging characteristics on screen.

This mode is not used as often in the USA as it is in Europe and Asia where 4K HLG Broadcasts are more prevalent, namely with Satellite Transmission Services such as Sky Sports in 4K HLG HDR.

HDR/HLG User Modes 4 - 6

What is it for?

The User Mode is a mode that is there for optimizing the image to one’s personal preference, or to a reference such as with an ISF Calibration to the specifications set forth by the appropriate governing bodies.

What does it do?

These are modes that the user can adjust and save based on their preferences and can be retrieved when wanted to be activated.

My Before and After Calibration thoughts and chosen Modes

HDR (High Dynamic Range)

Out of the box: HDR10 Frame Adapt 1 Mode

When measuring the OOTB performance in HDR10/FA1 Mode, you don’t see the normal bluish green, cool looking push that most all manufacturers choose to set it to in order to get maximum brightness with a pleasing image. The colors are balanced to about 50% and then slowly separate the colors as it moves across the range towards the high end, with the blue dipping low and dropping off at the end of the range. The green remains near reference as the red peaks high on the top end after the “knee” of the HDR curve.

There was a small dip in the EOTF after 10%, then tracking below the reference PQ curve line for the remainder of the range. This will cause a dimmer appearance in the midranges of an HDR signal, lacking what is known as “pop” by many enthusiasts.

The Color gamut tracking is spot on at the 50% measured point, as seen in the pre-cal chart below.

After Calibration (no filter)

After performing a needed and thorough grayscale and color calibration, the image takes on a much more accurate and pleasing quality image. The greyscale falls in line with dE’s well below the visual threshold. RGB Balance is very flat and consistent where it should be in the lower end before rolloff happens and the upper range remains within tolerance. The first thing to do is to adjust the grayscale using the Color temp menu according to the appropriate Picture Mode. The mode used on the NZ800 was the HDR10/6500K mode where the RG and B Gains and Offsets were adjusted until a near perfect 6500 kelvin white balance was attained.

The PQ EOTF follows the HDR curve very well throughout the range now, with a nice rolloff at the upper range to gently tame the peak white highlights without clipping.

Colors continue to track their proper gamut points at 50% and throughout the color sweeps up until either P3 if the color filter is engaged, or slightly beyond full BT709 nearing 85% of P3 without the filter. The first color to start giving up gamut saturation is Green, which is most typical for these blue laser phosphor projectors without any further color filtering, which as stated robs a lot of light from the output. I agree with this choice by JVC since in its native state, it reaches about 85% of the UHDA/DCI-P3 gamut, which is usually a good tradeoff to get a more punchy and vibrant, contrasty image, unless of course your screen size isn’t so big and the added lumens aren’t needed as much to achieve the same level of image pop.

Once calibrated, we turn on the Frame Adapt 1 Mode to maintain tone mapping automatically and to maintain HDR Brightness as the material changes mastering levels such as from 1,000 to 4,000 nits. This affects the ST2084 HDR curve dynamically based on their proprietary algorithms.

When using Dynamic Tone Mapping rendered on high nit, very tough scenes like The Meg Chapter 8 where the boat flips and you see extremely bright clouds in the sky, it results in perfect mapping and cloud rendition without dimming all the other aspects of the image like Jonas (Jason Statham) and his other shipmates hunting the Meg.

The JVC DLA-NZ800 is a true step up from its predecessor, especially in its HDR rendition on screen. It is immediately noticeable from the first time this extraordinary machine is fired up! It rendered HDR test images coming from the Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark Disc used as the source incredibly well after this calibration. When showing test scenes from this disc, the HDR rendition this produces has a very nice, bright, sharp and detailed image with a pop and depth that shows on all HDR scenes we experienced. This is showing that the processing of these scenes using their new secret sauce is a real upgrade from the prior generation. With the built in dynamic tone mapping of the JVCs, you get near the quality of the likes of a Lumagen Radiance Pro (which I have on hand to compare it to) or the MadVR Envy video processors. Those superior devices do give a little more than what these JVCs can give, but it is so close and hardly noticeable in comparison. So much so that it may be hard to justify such an extreme expense any longer.

If you are a DLP or Sony lover and an HDR movie buff, you will really appreciate what this projector now provides. It now has an extremely clean, detailed, deep and sharp image, as you’d see with a high end 4K DLP with a good lens, or as you’d see with Sony’s Reality Creation. You actually start to feel like you’re viewing a Sony SXRD or a DLP now, but with the great black levels and contrast these JVCs provide!

SDR (Standard Dynamic Range)

Out of the box: Natural Mode

The NZ800’s SDR Pre-Cal results surprised me, as it performed similarly to HDR out of the box with the blue being very low as compared to red and green, opposite to what is normally seen with very blue, cool images. This must be intentional from JVC to give a warmer out of box experience.

To start, I always do the same process before calibration. I run a quick, pre-calibration analysis on all of the Picture modes in SDR. The first of which is a staple JVC mode named “Natural”. This mode is usually the closest to a reference image without any cool, blue casts or over-saturated colors. The image from other modes and projectors are usually a greenish-blue, with garish colors but which usually provides the most brightness on projectors to please the eye on first glance. It is not a surprising thing that this was the best out of the box mode available out of all modes, because this has been the case for JVC DiLAs for quite some time, so I was hoping it would be the same result with this new iteration of JVCs, and it was.

Natural Mode is the mode I ended up using for my SDR Calibrations.

As you can see in the CalMAN SDR Calibration Workflow Charts below, the blue runs in a downwards trend as you move across the RGB balance workflow until you hit about 95%. The red and green pretty much track nicely and consistently.

You’ll also see that the luminance tracks the reference yellow curve pretty faithfully and the colors are near bang on and not excessive and over-saturated as you see with cheaper models trying to win the eyes of the ill informed viewer. Color gamut points are very close to reference right out of the box.

After Calibration: Natural Mode

I pretty much knew before I ever cut the tape on the box that this was the mode to use for my SDR Calibrations on a new JVC model like the NZ800. As seen in the Pre-Cal section above, the calibration aspects were very close to reference in all categories such as grayscale, gamma, color gamut, etc. This proved to be true again so it made the calibration process very easy in the SDR Natural Picture Mode, where the color gamut, gamma and grayscale fell right into their respective reference points with ease and grace, as you can see in the Post-Calibration Chart below.

Gamma

The gamma tracks pretty flat around 2.4 as its calibrated target. This results in very nicely rendered SDR images in a dark room calibrated at a gamma of 2.4. Typically you’d use different gamma levels from 2.0 to 2.4 depending on your room and viewing conditions. This end result seems to take on an image similar to a DLP with high ANSI Inter-Image Contrast depth and details, but with the much better blacks and contrast of a JVC.

Color Gamut and Sweeps

There isn’t much I can say about the post calibration image and results that you can’t see for yourself with the Workflow Post Calibration charts below! This was easily one of if not the single best and easiest projector I’ve had the pleasure of calibrating. The gamut at 50% saturation points and the Color Sweeps fall directly into line with aplomb and the results on screen back this up ten fold!

The only thing that could improve these results would be running a combo 1D and 3D LUT using something like a Lumagen Radiance Pro or madVR Envy video processor to create and store them in, I am sure. I hope to get another sample of the NZ800 or better yet an NZ900 so I can do this very thing with my Lumagen. Maybe this is something I can do and report on with a JVC NZ900 review at some time in the near future?

Summing it up

The images this new model produces are of such a new reference that they’re finally everything I have been wanting from JVC from my first viewing of one of their DiLAs many, many years ago, in a CEDIA far, far away.

This new entry in the JVC lineup which replaces the already great NZ8, is groundbreaking territory in my humble opinion. As stated earlier in this review, it now perfectly combines all the pluses of all the other technologies I love, each of which is missing one thing or the other that would put it over the edge and into a clear first place finish. From the Sonys and their Reality Creation Video Processing that results in an extremely sharp and detailed image with great accurate colors that are the industry standard, to high end DLPs from the likes of BenQ and it’s LK970/990 models which feature razor sharp images, great inter image contrast and HDR performance that really comes off the screen and renders specular highlights perceived to near OLED like levels when in a darkened room. Gone is the chalky flat image I felt plagued the JVCs when compared directly to those other great options. The only thing Sony and those DLPs can do now would be to increase native contrast and add dynamic tone mapping if they want to keep up with these new JVCs.

If you’re looking for a bright, colorful, punchy and detailed image like you get with a top end Sony with the ANSI contrast of DLPs, then I highly suggest you take a look at this awesome new projector line from JVC. It is the first JVC that I would have no issues or regrets thinking of those other options, and I would do so happily!