JVC DLA-RS25 Physical Tour - 1

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Art Feierman

JVC DLA-RS25 Menus

JVC has a very well designed menu structure. And that's coming from someone who's been living with it for a couple of years. In the past, though, using the menus was a pain, because the remote control had such poor range.

With JVC solving the remote control issue (see below), life is now good, and it's easy to find the logically laid out controls in the menus.

Most of the image goodies are found on the Picture menu, which is the first main menu in the top right when the main menu is open.

Besides the usual Brightness, Contrast, Color Saturation, etc., the Picture menu has a Gamma sub menu, and and Advanced sub-menu which has sharpness, and the all important CMS (color management system).

This year we have the addition of CFI - creative frame interpolation, which JVC calls Clear Motion Drive, as shown on the Picture Adjust, Advanced menu on the right. JVC has placed those choices in the Advanced menu, off of the Picture menu. That's a good place for it.

The Pixel Adjust menu allows the JVC to digitally shift the red, green, or blue, data by one pixel up/down/left/right. This means that if a JVC projector has any pixel misalignment greater than 1/2 pixel diameter (it can be corrected to less than that).

This menu is the Color Temp menu for doing the basic grayscale adjustments. Sorry, I have no image to show you of the CMS, although it's fairly typical in capability.

Our final menu is the gamma control menu, which is extremely flexible.

Not only can you adjust the gamma of white, but also you can do each primary color separately. Further, the JVC RS25 comes with Normal, and 4 additional gamma presets, plus it allows you to save three of your own custom settings. Note also, that when doing so you can adjust each IRE point separately.

I also like the grayscale provided on the screen, which gives you a good idea if you are crushing blacks or whites too much, or expanding them the way you want. A great Gamma control.

menus

Brightness

Pixel Adjust menu

Color Temp menu

gamma control menu

JVC DLA-RS25 Remote Control

JVC has a new remote control for this year's models. Outstanding! Not that it's new (but Outstanding!), in that I really disliked the one that came with my RS-20. Layout was fine. Buttons were decent (not the very best "feel" but fine), but the range was abysmal.

I could rarely get a bounce off of my screen with the remote. Even turning around and pointing to the projector up on its rear shelf about 12 feet away wasn't bulletproof.

By comparison the RS25 has tons of range. I had just set the RS25 up on the table in my large theater (with my own RS20 up on a shelf), and I grabbed the remote, and pointed toward the front screen, barely paying attention, and bingo. Both projectors fired up. So I grabbed the old remote, and decided I'd see what it took to turn the two projectors off from the same spot, with the old remote. 10 minutes later, they were both on. So I picked up the new remote, pressed Off twice, and they both shut down.

Outstanding - great range. The layout is just fine, although it is re-arranged from last year's remote control. The backlight does a nice job - not too bright, not too dark.

JVC's decision to replace the old remote may be the biggest single improvement that everyone can appreciate.

Click Image to Enlarge

DLA-RS25 Lens Throw

The JVC RS25's 2:1 aspect ratio zoom lens provides plenty of placement flexibility to either ceiling or shelf mount. To fill a 100 inch diagonal, 16:9 aspect ratio screen, the front of the projector can be as close as 9 feet, 11 inches, or as far back as 20 feet, 2 inches. Using these measurements for 100 inches, you can figure out the range for any other screen size. These are the same as with last year's JVC projectors.

DLA-RS25 Lens Shift

The RS25 has lots of lens shift too, and it's motorized. For that same 100 inch screen, the projector can be placed anywhere between 15 inches above the top of your screen surface, to 15 inches below the bottom of the screen surface. Those are approximates, JVC doesn't have exact numbers in its manual, but likely it's 14 inches and change above and below.

There are some projectors with a bit more lens shift, but that's pretty good flexibility. The horizontal lens shift allows a maximum of about 30 inches to the left or right of the center point.

Remember, that the two "work together" the more vertical you use, the less horizontal is available, and vice versa. If you have maximum vertical, there is no horizontal lens shift, and so on.

Anamorphic Lens

JVC offers an anamorphic lens and motorized sled for the JVC DLA-RS25, and HD950. JVC uses a Panamorph lens, and sled. If you buy it from JVC, instead of Panamorph (through your dealer, either way), you'll get a custom mounting plate for the sled, instead of a "universal" one with lots of different holes to support many projectors. It's your call. It's possible you can save money using the generic. If you are going through a local dealer, you'll spend less money on the mounting, with the JVC custom version, which might offset the higher cost. If you are doing it yourself, well, a custom plate is easier, obviously, but if you have talent with such things, I'm sure the generic plate will serve you just as well, even if it takes a bit longer.