A Slight Delay: RS25 Review

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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Next Up A First Look at the JVC DLA-RS25, PT-AE4000 Update… Video

Greetings people!

Ok, as usual, I’m a bit behind the curve.  I’m in the midst of the competitors page for the Epson review, and have some additional images showing the Epson tackling a pretty decent amount of ambient light, for sports viewing. Read the rest of this entry »

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Epson Home Cinema 8500UB and Pro Cinema 9500UB Finally Posted

Hi folks,  Well, I had intended to get the Epson review up for you all by about 7 or 8pm here on the west coast, but, just too much to do, to complete it, so finally, it made it live just after midnight.  Enjoy.

As usual, this is first pass, there may be some “artifacts” left over from the review I used as a template, Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in New Projector Reviews, Products | 25 Comments »

October and November Home Theater Projector Reviews Scheduled

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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The Epson Home Cinema 8500UB and Pro Cinema 9500UB Projectors - The Eagle has Landed

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 »