The Perfect Vision
JVC DLA-HD1 Additional Notes and Technical Ratings
Under the Hood | Adjustment Notes | Test Discs | Technical Ratings
Under the Hood
Unlike most 1080p projectors, the JVC DLA-HD1 has no overscan control. In fact, it does not overscan at all and offers a masking control that crops 2.5% or 5% off all four sides of the image. (Of course, you can select no masking, too.) This is an interesting and creative approach to the problem of eliminating digital hash at the top of some cable and satellite images without introducing potentially degrading overscan scaling.
There are two user color-temperature memories, but you only get one control each for red, green, and blue. This is not sufficient for a complete grayscale calibration. Also available are red, green, and blue "offset" controls, which seem to do the same thing as the color-temp controls—that is, adjust the level of each primary color.
One of the most interesting tech features is a set of pixel-adjust controls that shift the red, green, and blue pixels horizontally and vertically in 1-pixel increments. Presumably, this feature is intended to compensate for any misalignment problems, but most such problems are much less than one pixel off, so I don't see how these controls can be very useful.
There is no iris control because there is no iris in the projector. Given the stupendous blacks and respectable peak white level, I think JVC made the right choice here—there's no need for an iris, dynamic or not.
Adjustment Notes
The picture controls are tied to the picture modes (JVC calls them image profiles), not inputs. There are three preset image profiles and three user profiles; all can be adjusted in any way. Settings for any user profile must be actively saved or they will be lost when you change profiles or turn the projector off; adjustments to the preset profiles are retained without having to save them. I set up the Cinema profile so I didn't have to remember to save any changes, but the same settings can be entered into any preset or user profile.
The selected picture control drops to the bottom of the screen and the rest of the menu disappears as it should. However, the menu times out after only 15 seconds of inactivity, even if you have a control selected for adjustment, in which case you must re-enter the menu system from the top level.
Unlike most video displays, the color-temp preset closest to D65 is Middle, not Low. The Tint control is not available for HDMI sources. As with most of the projectors in this survey, the Color control does nothing above a value of 0. ANSI contrast measurements indicated relatively poor uniformity; this was also evident on solid black fields, which had slightly lighter areas in the corners, though this wasn't bad enough to significantly affect normal viewing.
Test Discs
The detail tests on the HQV Benchmark DVD looked great, and jaggies were mild, including the waving flag. The projector provides only one noise-reduction control, but it has 30 steps! It did reduce random noise, but above 10 or so, it also softened the picture. The projector's processor picked up 3:2 pulldown nearly instantaneously.
On the HQV Benchmark HD DVD, the video resolution loss test had no problems at all, but the film resolution loss test did exhibit some flickering in the high-frequency vertical burst. Also, the low-frequency horizontal burst took on a reddish tint when moving to the right and a greenish cast when moving to the left. The pan across the bleachers looked fine.
Microsoft engineer Stacey Spears' test HD DVD revealed that the processor picked up 3:2 pulldown at 1080i almost instantly. Both the horizontal and vertical high-frequency bursts were visible but significantly rolled off. There was mild shimmering in the gently curved yellow trim on the sailboat, but the montage of images looked great, with no jaggies in moving diagonal edges and only a hint of moiré in the screen door.
Technical Ratings
Customer Service
Advertisement
