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November 5th, 2009 Art Feierman
Greetings all,
Well, it seems, as usual, despite the best laid plans, the JVC RS25 review is not going to go live tonight. Look for it tomorrow, probably late afternoon. I’ve hit two snags, which is delaying the review one more day:
1. My daughter Lisa, who handles all my cropping, resizing, etc. of the images that go into a review, got slammed with both homework, and the high school play she’s in (which opens next week). As such, she still has about 3/4 of the images to do, but should have them done shortly after school tomorrow (Friday).
2. Sorry, taking the night off: I’ve got a concert tonight (had tickets since the spring) Ian Anderson. For those not familiar, he’s that first class flutist and star of Jethro Tull. (Rock trivia tells us that there was never a band member named Jethro Tull.) Small venue, should be great!
Meantime, I finally got a handle on the black levels compared to the older RS20. So, since I’m behind on the review, I’ll share that with you now.
Black level performance is improved. It’s not improved by a lot, but the blacks are blacker. Stubborn as I am, I hate breaking out the tall ladder and bringing down my RS20 from its shelf. As a result, I didn’t, and that means I couldn’t do a side by side shoot between the RS20 and RS5.
What I did, instead was use the lens shift to raise the RS20’s image up, so the bottom of the bottom letterbox was just above the center of the screen. Then, with the RS25 on its table, I lowered it’s image so the top of the top letterbox was ust below the center of the screen. With full 16:9, the two images almost touch (but for a about 6 inches), but more importantly, with a letterboxed movie, I can see how black the RS20’s letterbox is, how black the RS25’s letterbox is, and I have a relatively thin (6 inch area) of true black, not being hit by either projector. To get the brightness the same, I closed down the iris of the RS25 rather significantly. I was able to get them almost identical. I set the gamma of both projectors to Normal.
The drop in blacks from the RS20 to the RS25, is slight. I would say it’s definitely, significantly less change than going from the RS10 to the RS20.
Still, the improvement is there. Considering I’m not aware of any projector, from any manufacturer, at any price (ok, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist), that can match or beat the older RS20, and that the closest thing to the RS20 was the RS10, even a small improvement, is a well appreciated one. We’re still a ways from the true blacks of a CRT projector, but nothing else comes close to the RS25, except the older RS20 it replaces.
There! Happy? Gotta get back to writing up the review. So, to paraphrase the well known song: ”Tomorrow, tomorrow….” You’ll have your RS25 review… tomorrow!” -art
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October 15th, 2009 Art Feierman
OK everyone, this is just a quick heads up, As usual it’s crunch time in the projector review world as most new home theater projectors tend to ship each year, between September and January.
It’s getting exciting. Here’s what’s up:
Although I barely got started on my review of the new Optoma HD8600, I’m going to delay that one a bit, and finish it as I can.
The Epson Pro Cinema 9500UB has arrived, and it top priority. The full Epson projector review should post Read the rest of this entry »
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October 15th, 2009 Art Feierman
Greetings all,
The Epson Pro Cinema 9500UB - should be impressive!
No, this isn’t a first look blog. Just a quick announcement, to let you all know that I just received, last night, a Pro Cinema 9500UB projector - an engineering sample, fresh from Japan.
It came in yesterday afternoon. I got Mike to do a quick “rush job”, picking up the projector, calibrating it and getting it back to me later in the evening. I’m just about to fire it up for the first time. I took off last night to go hear Bob Dylan (and his band) perform in a nice, relatively small venue in LA (the Palladium for you locals). Awesome concert, btw! I would highly recommend catching him. Great music, great musicians (including Charlie Sexton on guitar). Don’t miss.
But, back to the Epson home theater projectors. I expect the full review to post on Read the rest of this entry »
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October 8th, 2009 Art Feierman
Greetings all,
Well, the speculation is over, the US will get the PT-AE4000.
Panasonic's New PT-AE4000 only $1999
Most of the conjecture about why The Panasonic PT-AE4000 wasn’t announced at CEDIA is now meaningless. Apparently some dealers have run out of the older PT-AE3000 already, so the thought that Panasonic had too many of those in warehouses proved to not be the case. Panasonic says a change in strategy was involved. No matter, it’s good finally know for sure, that the PT-AE4000 is coming to US.
As seems to be the trend this fall, the Panasonic PT-AE4000 is Read the rest of this entry »
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September 17th, 2009 Art Feierman
Greetings!
OK, here’s the lastest. Lots of new home theater projectors to review, the next couple of months!
BenQ W6000: Almost done! While I still may post this weekend, the review will not be fully finished. To properly finish the W6000 (an otherwise excellent projector, but with a dynamic iris that definitely can stand some reworking). I’m waiting for some real feedback from BenQ (hopefully Monday, they tell me). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in New Projector Reviews, News, Products | 24 Comments »
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September 17th, 2009 Art Feierman
OK, it’s Sept. 17, 2009, and someone has just announced a new 720p projector. That’s the first one in quite a while, and the pricing is rather nice. MAP pricing is $749.
The new model, of course, is the Epson Home Cinema 705HD home theater projector.
OK, it’s inexpensive, but perhaps more importantly, it really is designed as a low cost multi-use room projector. Read the rest of this entry »
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September 16th, 2009 Art Feierman
I’m back with Part 2. Sorry for the delay, had to run to the Apple store due to my MacBook overheating. Life is good again. And I had to finalize and post two biz projector reviews.
Below: (note, I’ve already blogged on a couple of these, having seen them before the CEDIA show).
Epson Home Cinema 8100, Home Cinema 8500UB, Pro Cinema 9100, Pro Cinema 9500UB projectors
Mitsubishi HC3800 and HC6800 Projectors
Sharp XV-Z15000 Projector
Optoma HD20 and HD8600 Projectors
Sony VPL-VW85
JVC DLA-RS15, DLA-RS25, DLA-RS35, DLA-HD550, DLA-HD950, and DLA-HD990 Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in New Projector Reviews, News, Products | 3 Comments »
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September 15th, 2009 Art Feierman
Greetings all,
Well, I survived CEDIA, once again. I hate east coast trade shows (ok, I know the east coast people probably think the same about west coast shows). It means an extra day, and while Atlanta was just fine, Denver was more fun, and, geez, what would it take to get the CEDIA folks to do Las Vegas, where hotel rooms would be dirt cheap (in Sept), and the partying, even better.
But, to business - or should I say home theater projectors:
T’was an interesting CEDIA show in terms of home theater projectors. Not so much because of all the new projectors Read the rest of this entry »
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September 13th, 2009 Art Feierman
The BenQ W6000 is one of 3 new 1080p projector offerings from BenQ.
Front view of the $2799 BenQ W6000 DLP projector
There’s a lower cost - $999 - W1000, which should also be shipping shortly, and a very expensive LED lightsource top of the line, due out in January/February ‘10 timeframe. (Should be most interesting!!!)
But let me try to keep my focus - this blog is about the BenQ W6000 projector.
What’s the scoop?
The BenQ W6000 s a DLP home theater projector, with 1080p native resolution, and a street price that should be based on MAP pricing, of $2799. Since the BenQ is one of the first fall projectors to ship this year, it likely will hold pretty close to that price for the immediate future.
The most notable “spec” is the W6000’s brightness. Even in the W6000’s best mode we measured over Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in New Projector Reviews, News, Opinion, Products | 19 Comments »
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September 4th, 2009 Art Feierman
I’m back. Should have included this in the last blog.
While BenQ, Sony, Optoma, and others have sent me projectors for my birthday (yeah, I have to give them back), here are a couple of folks who won’t be enriching the celebration: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in New Projector Reviews, News, Opinion | 3 Comments »
