JVC DLA-X700R cinema projector test: how I got high with real Hi End

It’s nice to see Barcelona playing and beating everyone. It is not less pleasant to watch the little son score the first goal in the real goal… It’s nice when it all shows on the big screen projector Hi End – such as JVC DLA-X700R. But it’s even more pleasant to test such level of devices and to savor each result slowly, pondering over the subtle nuances. Join in, treat yourselves to captured charts and graphs: they’re the best by far.

As the diagrams show, the projector’s color gamut is impressive. Obviously divided into profiles with standard and extended coverage.

Profiles with standard color coverage, viz: “Animation”, “Natural”, “Estrada”, “TNH”, “Custom” are very similar to each other in terms of color gamut. Except that the “TNH” mode displays a little less color, especially in green tones.

And the “Variety” mode is wider than the others in red and blue tones. But in general, all of them are almost identical to sRGB, that is, they correspond to the standard color gamut.

The extended color gamut is implemented in the “Old Cinema”, “Cinema” and “Photo” modes. For the frequency of the experiment, we have changed the “Custom” mode, setting it to the Adobe RGB color palette. Really, the color gamut has widened, as we will often make sure of during the review.

No complaints to the color coverage, so let’s move on to the analysis of the grayscale points.

“Animation” – the dots are lined up in a snaking pattern and shifted to the cooler area. Color temperature should be a little cooler than 6500K and not very stable. A good portion of the spots are out of the confidence interval, but the offset from the curve is not so large, so no serious shading should be observed.

“Bandstand” – the situation is similar to “Animation” mode, only the dots are more crowded and closer to the curve, which further minimizes the appearance of extraneous tones.

“Cinema” – on the one hand, all points are very close to the reference point of 6500K, on the other hand good part of them is far from the reference curve. This will most likely result in a tint at one of the luminance levels. On which one, we can see this in the RGB level diagrams. The color shade will be close to light magenta.Photo” and “Natural” mode – everything is fine here, all points are located between the confidence intervals of dE=3 and dE=10. Color temperature is normal, no extraneous colors.

“Old movies” – it’s not so smooth here anymore. Some of the points are in the confidence interval, and some are outside of it. And there are no transitional points. This probably means that the change in color temperature as a function of brightness will be sharp. Moreover, at some level of brightness the image will fall into a rather nasty greenish-yellow hue.

“THX” – probably the best result of all the modes. All points are in the confidence interval, many were even within dE=3. Bravo!

“Custom” – not bad overall. Most of the dots are on the edge of the dE=10 confidence interval, gravitating towards magenta tones. I underline gravitating, visually they shouldn’t be noticeable.

“Custom ” AdobeRGB – turning on the expanded color gamut had a small but negative effect on the gray wedge points. The dots remained in the confidence interval, but they are scattered over it. You can tell that the color temperature will be slightly cooler than 6500K, but in the standard custom mode it is very close to 6500K.

So the color gamut of the projector can be compared to a very good monitor on IPS matrix. No serious differences in color gamut between profiles taking into account normal and extended gamut . Color temperatures of the modes are very close to the required 6500K. No serious stray tones observed either.

All modes quite logically correspond to their names. True, I’m confused by the normal color gamut of the “Animation” mode. Cartoons, especially computer cartoons, are very colorful, in my opinion an expanded color gamut would be more appropriate here.

Color temperature

Let’s look at the color temperature of each mode in more detail. The presented charts allow you to estimate the color temperature when you change luminosity, but unlike the previous charts do not give any indication of the presence of tints.

The JVC DLA-X700R projector showed striking results. No complaints about most of the preset modes. All show very stable color temperatures with a deviation of +/- 500K. It is very little. There are nuances only in “Animation” and “Variety” modes, which are probably set to 7000K color temperature. This means that the picture will be a little bit cooler than it should be.

The modes “Natural” and “Custom” showed the best results, fully justifying their name. Variations in these modes do not exceed +/- 250K. Such deviations are invisible to the eye, if there is no reference card or balanced image .

The projector didn’t do so well when the 8500K temperature was turned on in user mode. The color temperature is quite unstable, although it does average 8500K. It’s a good thing that the temperature gets higher towards the lighter tones, not the other way around.

So we conclude: on a quality screen, in the absence of external lighting and with color-neutral walls will be absolutely no problem with the color temperature of the image.

Gamma Curves

And once again JVC engineers leave me without work – I have nothing to criticize their miracle-technics for.

The first thing that catches your eye is that in all modes the curves are elevated above the reference curve, especially in the middle section. I guess the calculation is made for the fact that users will not always have an expensive screen like we had in our testing process. Quality screens return a lot more light than average screens. That’s why we see the situation when the image in the midtones is a bit lighter than it should be.

Excess of light is not a problem at all and can be corrected in a couple of keystrokes of the remote control in the gamma settings. Most importantly, there’s no serious stratification between the channels on these graphs.

Take a look at what sometimes happens with other projectors that I have had the chance to measure. Terrible, terrible!

I believe that the manufacturer has chosen the S gamut for the “Old Movie” mode. Nothing against it, we have repeatedly made sure that in some situations, the S-form works decently. But whether it is applicable for watching old movies is an open question, and not obvious in advance. However, not having a mode with S gamma is bad, too.

Note that you probably won’t see a significant difference on the screen between the reference curve and the curves of, for example, user mode. But in the “Old Cinema” and “Animation” modes the image will be noticeably different from the reference.

Taking into account the precise calibration of other modes, I venture to guess that this is how the “Old Cinema” and “Animation” modes were meant to be set up. In fact, not all modes can be equally perfect!

Perhaps the S gamma is drawn to the “Animation” mode, but it’s still hard to attribute it to the curved gamma.

In “Variety” mode the curves go the highest relative to the reference of all the modes with normal gamma. The most accurate gamma curves have the “TNH” mode.

Description

Channel-by-channel gamma curves

Now let’s see how the channel gamma curves merge. The graphs show the gamma value depending on the level of lightness of the image. Let me remind you that the reference value is 2.2.

Things are more interesting when it comes to gamma values. Obviously, the “Old Cinema” mode has a gamma that is not gamma at all. And understandably, an artistic picture requires frequent deviations in color and light rendition to more clearly show the author’s intent in this or that scene.

The gamma value for the “Animation” mode shows that the gamma curves were closer to the S-form. Notice how the gamma value goes down to the lighter tones and reaches 1.6. I guess the idea of the engineers was that cartoons should be light, kind. In our visual test we watched a piece of the Alice in Wonderland movie animation in this mode. It looked quite organic.

The modes “Cinema”, “Natural” and “User” have approximately the same gamma value, equal to about 2.0.

The “Photo” and “THX” modes have a higher gamma value, in the order of 2.1-2.2. The gamma value is quite stable along the whole luminance range. True, the “TNH” value decreases with increasing brightness. The magnification is not great, but the light areas of the image are lighter than they should be, and the dark areas are a bit darker. Since the deviations are small, this effect can add extra drama to a scene, especially in a sci-fi movie.

The “Estrada” mode has very interesting gamma values. Normal shadows, matching the reference, light, very light midtones and again almost reference values in the light area. I don’t like this mode very much. It kills the contrast in the right light half of the histogram a bit. It turns out not S shape and not standard. Although, of course, for taste and color..

LevelsRGB

RGB levels are one of the main tools for color calibration. Ideally, the values of the channels should be identical and at 100 percent. In this case the grayscale will be neutral and the color calibration will be fine. By the deviation of the graphs from 100 percent, you can judge the presence of a particular shade in grayscale.

For modes with gamma curves different from the reference one would expect a large stratification of the channel level and a high value of dE. But in practice, all is not so bad.

In the “Old Cinema” mode, which has the most exotic gamma curves dE pink curve does not exceed dE=8 – this is a very good result. This deviation appears due to the lack of blue component in the light areas of the image. So the warmer color temperatures we have already identified in the charts of the same name.

The “Cinema” mode shows quite serious stratification of RGB levels, especially in the darker parts of the image. This phenomenon illustrates the reality of the magenta shades we talked about in the CIE chart. The maximum deviations are +/- 20%, which is a lot, but still within the limits of a good picture.

Description

Modes “Variety” and “Animation” are very similar to each other. The maximum dE=6 and is achieved in medium tones. Since these two modes imply a somewhat cooler color temperature, we see a higher level of blue component.

The “Natural” and “Custom” modes are clones of each other. There may be some differences in RGB levels, but the dE plots are almost identical and do not exceed dE=4.

The mode “TNH” is very good, the maximum dE=3. There is practically no level separation, but only the slightest noticeable difference in the dark tones. They are to blame for the overly warm color temperature of this mode in the shadows.

The “Photo” mode is the undisputed leader, with minimal level stratification and very low dE. The mode fully lives up to its name. For photo mode, accurate color reproduction is very important. Particularly important for keeping the grayscale neutral.

Additional characteristics and averages

Next was supposed to go into contrast analysis, but that’s not going to happen. When the program showed me solid question marks “?????When I saw the “Natural” contrast value, I thought I must have gotten it wrong and tried it again, but it was the same.

Why did this happen?? The answer is simple – you can’t divide by zero. Contrast is the ratio of the brightness of the white point to the brightness of the black point. And the brightness of the black point was 0.00cd/m2, that is, the light did not come out of the lens at all and black was absolute, as in a black hole.

That’s why it’s impossible to determine the contrast. At least, the sensitivity of our device is not enough for this.

In terms of gamma averaging, all modes can be divided into several categories:

– Gamma 2.1-2.2 – “TNH” is the only mode that corresponds to the value you’re looking for.But if we take not the average value, we remember that this mode does not have everything so perfect. The Photo mode also falls into this group. There is practically no significant difference visually between 2.1 i 2.2 there is practically no visual difference.

– Gamma around 2.0 are the modes “Cinema”, “Natural”, “Variety” and “Custom”. In these modes, the image will be slightly lighter than it should be. On the one hand it will make the shadows lighter and therefore more distinguishable, on the other hand it can cause some minor dips in the bright areas of the image.

– Gamma 1.9 and less – all modes with the curves. It is to be expected, because you have to pay for all “effects” with color rendering accuracy. We have written more than once about the gamma curves of this kind. On the one hand we get more contrast in the middle tones, but in the light areas the details are almost indistinguishable.

Average deviation in primary and secondary colors is minimal in the “TNX” mode. This is the mode that produces the least color variations.

Once again, the projector delivers excellent neutral tones. The largest deviation is observed in the “Old Cinema” mode. And that’s with a very unreferenced gamma curve. The gray scale of the THX and Photo modes is only 2! This is less than the confidence interval for professional monitors.

Not everything is so rosy with the deviation of primary and secondary colors. Minimal deviations are observed in the “tnh” mode.

Deviations of the modes “Natural”, “Photo”, “Variety”, “Animation”, “Cinema” and “Custom” are also quite small. All of these modes allow you to fully enjoy a movie or other content. But the color deviations of the “Old Cinema” mode are quite large. You should not expect accurate color reproduction. As we have already found out, the picture will be too light, a little bit cold and the colors will differ from the reference. Apparently, these settings are optimal for hackneyed video or old black-and-white movies..

How to improve a projector image without instrumentation?

Let’s move on to the promising characteristic of each mode, the recommendations for its use.Our graph shows the characteristics of each mode. As axes this time we have chosen: color temperature, gamma value and color gamut.

“Old Cinema” – a light, bright picture, extended color gamut, low color fidelity, and warm color temperature. This mode is for amateurs. I personally prefer a more accurate color rendering. But since this mode has a gamma shape, it’s perfect for presentations. If someone is going to use a Hi End projector for this purpose of course.

“Cinema” – normal color temperature, extended color gamut. Not a bad gamut. Again, these gamma values are probably due to the high quality of our screen and its high reflectivity. On a medium quality screen, the gamma will be close to 2.2. – this mode is really very suitable for watching movies.

“Animation” – a light image that is probably appropriate for children’s cartoons. As for the rest of the settings, I somewhat disagree. In my opinion, the cool color temperature is better to make it warmer and use an expanded color gamut, which would be very suitable for colorful cartoons. As an alternative, it is now better to watch the animation in “Movie” mode.

“Natural” – with the exception of gamma, fully lives up to its name. But this is just very easy to fix – make a correction to the gamma, or set it not to 2.2, but somewhere at 2.4. For everything else, the color temperature, the accuracy of color rendering is unquestionable. I personally would use this mode if I didn’t like the extended color gamut. And since the projector handles it just fine, I don’t see the point in limiting its capabilities.

“Photo” – slightly cool tones, expanded color gamut, no stray tones. Very good gamma. This mode is very suitable, as it is easy to guess, for viewing photographs.

“Variety” mode is very similar to “Animation”. Only the midtones will be slightly darker and closer to the reference. Like the “Animation” mode, I can’t find a serious use for it either.

“TNH” is the name of a set of requirements for high quality home theater systems. And that says it all. This mode has a very contrasting dramatic picture, with the right color temperature and color rendering. The only thing that might get in the way is the normal color gamut. But to be fair, movies are usually shown in movies with a gamut that’s close to xRGB.

“Custom” is the constructor mode. This is originally a clone of the “Natural” mode. Given the ability to configure different parameters of the image, this mode is truly a claymation from which you can mold anything. And it’s not just possible to change individual settings, but exactly to do something.

I may well get on the basis of a custom mode “Old Cinema”. You just need to set the extended color gamut, change the color temperature to 7000K and in the gamma settings slightly raise the overall curve, and raise the light tones. Voila! Something similar to the “Old Cinema” mode is ready.

If you have a colorimeter or spectrophotometer, I wouldn’t use the built-in modes at all. The projector offers four memory slots to record the user settings. I would use them to make a mode for movies, everyday work, photos, and the one you personally need, such as for presentations.

Conclusions

As I guessed before, Hi End projectors take the job away from me. It was truly predictable to test the JVCDLA-X700R projector. Because you know all the answers to any questions in advance. It has virtually no flaws. And if someone has a spoiled taste and finds them, everything is easily enough corrected by the vast adjustment options inherent in the menu.

This is the best projector I have ever tested. This is the real Hi End.