JVC DLA-RS4910 Projector Review - Special Features 2

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Art Feierman

DLA-RS4910 PROJECTOR - SPECIAL FEATURES Page 2: CFI (Clear Motion Drive), Panel Convergence, LAN Control and Smart Phone App, Environmental Controls, MPC

RS4910 Projector - Smooth Motion - CFI - JVC Clear Motion Drive

CFI or Creative Frame Interpolation is often referred to as "smooth motion". It's a dynamic system that looks forward (typically) one frame. It discovers objects that have moved significantly between the two frames and creates at least one intermediate frame, moving the object to where it would have been, if the sequence had been shot at twice as many frames per second. It works great for sports, most folks find it fine for most other content - this is a personal preference thing. We old schoolers, though generally avoid CFI for movie viewing because it "changes the director's intent, adding a soap opera or live digital video type of look to what was "film-like!"

Like most CFI configurations the JVC offers multiple modes. Low works nicely without too much "effect", but high I find to be over the top except for some sports. Please note that the High setting sometimes has noticeable video artifacts around the "fast moving object."

All considered a good CFI functionality. Watching movies isn't "over the top" with it on, but there's still enough change to the picture that I personally wouldn't use it with movies. By comparison, my daughter and wife wouldn't care, one way or another. JVC calls their creative frame interpolation: Clear Motion Drive. (Fancy!)

LCoS (D-iLA) Panel Convergence

Many 3 panel (3 chip) projectors launched in the last 2-3 years that sell upward of $2000 now sport a panel alignment feature. While a few years back some projectors literally shifted the pixel mapping in 1 pixel increments, that mostly has been replaced by digital shifting. In theory, digitally shifting in one pixel increments was a broad sword, not a delicate tool, it worked great for projectors where horizontally one or two of the colors was inherently more than a 1/2 pixel off.

Today though, it's all done in fractions - in this case 1/16 of a pixel, which means we're not really moving the pixels in line (digitally or physically), but rather, using software not too different than keystone correction, to bend one color. It works well enough, better to have, and to use, than not to.

The JVC converged well enough using the adjustment system. It took about 5 minutes to go through the process and recheck the results. If you are fanatical, you can spend more time on it. Best solution? Have a projector that's almost perfectly aligned physically! Still, this system can be very beneficial. Ultimately though, you are sacrificing true pixel mapping, which like implementing keystone correction (but not near as serious), is generally best avoided. I get a headache just trying to think about how panel alignment used in conjunction with Eshift affects the picture at the pixel level.

Bottom Line - Use it. Take your time, it's easy. Then you can compare to the unadjusted by turning it on/off. All considered, the call is yours whether to use it. If the projector is very close to ideal right out of the box, (so you don't notice any color fringing from say half your normal seating distance from the screen), then you may very well prefer not to use this feature. Most will though. It's your call.

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LAN Control, RS232 and Smart Phone Control

This JVC can be hardwired into a local area network for command and control via the RJ45 ethernet connector. Or you can go the more traditional analog route, interfacing to home control systems using the serial RS232 port.

But if you are an iPhone/iPad user, there's an app to control the projector. Although I didn't really use it much - I didn't have the projector that long, and didn't download the app until the last two days - all the basic functions worked. I assume there's an Android app as well, but I can't swear to it.

Bottom line: You've got five options for controlling the JVC: The provided remote control, the control panel on the back of the projector, digitally over a LAN, analog through RS232, or digitally through an app. Note, however, there is no Wifi built into the JVC projectors so you do need to be hardwired into your LAN for the app to work. Technically, there's even a sixth way, in that the JVC supports HDMI-Link which would allow the remote of another HDMI device hooked up to control some of the projector's functions.

Bottom line - in this day and age, not everyone has a router or switch close enough to the projector to conveniently hardwire in, which also means no app usage unless you do. Years ago, your integrator/installer/dealer would run CAT5 wire to wherever in your house the router/network was located. But in this day and age, having wifi negates that headache and extra cost. Let's see Wifi standard in the next generation JVC, or at least a plug in Wifi option.

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Environmental Controls

Per JVC, using the Environmental Control menu, you complete the info and the JVC will automatically compensate for your environment, but consider that all they ask for is screen size, seating distance from screen and the color of your walls. When it comes to walls the choices are light or dark. That's pretty coarse control. There's mention of an optional optical sensor and software in the manual, but no info.

The other item is the Screen code, which for more information requires a trip to their website. It sounds like they have a code specific for many different screens. Now if that adjusts the projector for the slight color differences between different screen surfaces, that could be interesting. I didn't investigate further.

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MPC Controls

It is under MPC that you find 4K Eshift3 and other features. While the 4K Eshift3 definitely works, and works well, some sub-controls have been reported as not working. JVC seems to be aware of this, and is working to resolve.

A reason I was unable to obtain review units in January February time frame (as normally happens with JVC), was due, I was told by someone at JVC, to a firmware fix coming, although they didn't tell me what it was that needed fix in'. Sounds like this is it. Sadly, I can't confirm or deny. The only time I cranked up the Enhance feature to the high levels 60, was when I went to compare to the Sony VW600ES. At that point, I adjusted to 60, took pictures, then reset it back to the lower 25 setting. I never took images to compare the differences between 25 and 60, as that wasn't my goal.