JVC DLA-RS4910 Projector Review - Picture Quality

Out of the Box Picture Quality

The DLA-RS4910 and its siblings look very good without any calibration.  Oh, there's room for improvement, as the picture in the best modes - notably Cinema, tends to be a little on the warm side (just a touch too much red, relative to blue).  Most won't notice on movies, but many of us prefer a slightly cooler image for things like sports viewing, especially with some ambient light present.

In most home theater projector reviews we really don't roll out for you any uncalibrated images, but in the case of the RS4910, because Mike, our calibrator (a contractor) heads out of town for 4-5 weeks this time of year, the JVC didn't get calibrated until the last 72 hours I had it.

Since the color was pretty good, I did shoot all the HDTV images without calibration.  Most were taken in Stage mode, which has a lot of pop, rather than the slightly more natural Cinema mode.  Darn, they all look good!  You'll  note that even skin tones are pretty nice, considering no calibration!

So, for this JVC projector, here are some "out of the box" images to consider.   (One note, I did do basic contrast and brightness adjustments so as not to have crushed dark shadow detail or crushed near white highlights.)  Color controls went untouched for this batch of photos.

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JVC DLA-RS4910 Skin Tones - Post Calibration

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All of these photos above, were taken off of the projected image were shot after the projector was calibrated.  Above our photo player is serving up a "baker's dozen" (13)  different images with skin tones shot in a variety of lighting.

For example the Harrison Ford image from Ender's Game has a bluish caste, which well represents how most of the scenes on the space station looked.  As usual, four different Daniel Craig images as James Bond, under sunlight, fluorescent lighting, night lights and filtered sunlight, give you an idea of how much variation there might be and everything still being right!

Very nicely done.  Colors were well saturated.  E-shift3 was engaged for all images.

All considered the images with a variety of faces looked great.  More pop, but a touch less natural compared to the two Sony projectors that straddle it in price.   This is definitely time for me to toss in my "I can live with this" statement, when it comes to the JVC's color, both for skin tones and in general.

JVC DLA-RS4910 Picture Quality on Sports, General HDTV Content

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Note please that the last image in the player above - of a FIFA soccer game, was inputted as  true 4K source material, which the JVC can accept, and process, despite not being a true 4K projector.  Today's mix of images includes some US football including the usual Game Mix which allows watching up to 8 NFL games simultaneously, some Sochi Olympic Skiing, photos from Victoria Secret's Fashion Show (and their commercials), and a couple of concert images recorded off of DirecTV.

If sports and partying are your thing, you probably don't want to watch the next game with 5 of your friends in a fully darkened room, so having some respectable lumen count is a real plus for sport, or any other material viewed with more than a little ambient light present.

The JVC's 1200 lumens and change meets that requirement.  Over the years, we've typically referred to projectors that could top 1500 watchable lumens as "light canons" so this JVC comes up a little short in that regard. Still, it's the brightest JVC we've ever measured.

For comparison purposes, the JVC is brighter than the less expensive Sony VPL-HW55ES by almost 300 lumens calibrated, but it's not quite as bright uncalibrated - in other words, in its brightest good looking mode.  The popular lower cost Epson Pro Cinema 6030UB (and 5030UB), may be no match for calibrated brightness, but can put over 2000 lumens on the screen, and with good color is still about 25% brighter.

So, while there are some brighter quality projectors in the general price range, when it comes to a bright image for viewing with ambient light present, notably sports, this JVC RS4910 is at least very close in brightness to all but just a handful of other dedicated home theater projectors, and brighter than most!   In a dedicated theater or cave - where most of the RS49/RS4910/X55R's will likely end up, there should be no problem!