JVC DLA-RS20 Physical Tour
1/26/2009 - Art Feierman
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JVC DLA-RS20 Physical Appearance
Clean lines, black piano finish and a little gold trim make for a physically very attractive projector. The motorized lens is recessed, and mounted slightly offset to the left of center. An infra-red sensor is just to the left of the lens. The control panel is on the top toward the rear (toward the right side if looking from the front), and the inputs are located low on the right side (looking from the front). 
Watch out! The IR sensors on the front and back are covered by some almost clear plastic. It's almost impossible to notice the plastic. If you don't remember to remove it, it definitely harms the range of the remote control.
The projector can be shelf or ceiling mounted.
The total depth is just under nineteen inches and it is about fourteen and a half wide. Its height is just over six and a half inches. A motorized door keeps dust off the lens, by closing when the JVC RS20 is powered off. There are adjustable front and rear feet.
The inputs are located on the right side (viewing from the front), just above the bottom. This is a plus for many who shelf mount as they don't need a few extra inches for connectors and cabling coming out of the back. For those ceiling mounting, well, I guess it depends which side of the projector faces people with the lights on.
The lamp gets replaced from a removable panel in the center of the back of the projector. So there is no need to unmount the RS20, if is is ceiling mounted (unlike a number of projectors who have their lamp doors on the bottom, which would be covered by a ceiling mount).
Control Panel
The RS20's control panel is located on the top. In the image on the right, you are viewing the panel from the back of the projector. The three indicator lamps are closest to the front of the projector. They are: Warning, Lamp, and Standby/On.
Further back is the first button, the Power switch. It's the usual press once for on, press twice for off. Next is the Input button, followed by a Hide button to black out the image.
Then comes the four arrow buttons in a diamond shaped arrangement, with a larger Enter button in the center.
Lastly, side by side, are the Menu, and (menu) Back button. Pretty standard stuff. Of course, we all primarily rely on the remote control, and probably only use the control panel during initial setup, if at all.
Input/Output
Located on the side, from front to back, first there are two HDMI 1.3b compatible inputs. Next comes an analog PC input (standard HD15 connector), which, I must note was sorely missing from the RS1 and RS2.
Next up, are three RCA connectors for the component video input, followed by another RCA connector for basic composite video. Next is the S-Video input, followed by the RS-232 connector for controlling the projector directly from a computer or room controller. Finally, there is a 12 volt screen trigger for controlling a motorized screen or masking system.
All considered, that's a fairly standard complement of inputs and outputs, no surprises.
JVC DLA-RS20 Menus
While I really like the menu layout, using it drove me a bit crazy. As you can imagine, I am constantly making adjustments and comparisons, and the remote control is the culprit, not the menus.
Most of the image goodies are found on the Picture menu, which is the first main menu in the top right when the main menu is open. Besides the usual Brightness, Contrast, Color Saturation, etc., the Picture menu has a Gamma sub menu, and and Advanced sub-menu (which has sharpness, and the all important CMS (color management system). More to follow. I've got images to add, and with them some descriptions. Stay tuned.
JVC DLA-RS20 Remote Control
I'm not fond of this remote control. I prefer the older one that came with my JVC RS1. That remote felt better, in that the buttons had better action. I find myself pressing, not hard enough, or down at the wrong angle, requiring me having to press again. The range is a bit limited, or at least if you are bouncing the signal off of your screen, you'll have to have the angle about right on.
The backlight is good, with a a brownish yellow color (which doesn't sound inviting, but does look good), with the black labels on the buttons, making it easy to read.
Quicktip: Watch out! The IR sensors on the front and back of the RS20 are covered by some almost clear plastic. It's almost impossible to notice the plastic. If you don't remember to remove it, it definitely harms the range of the remote control. Even once removed, the range and angle could be better, but it's a near disaster with them covered.
Overall, the buttons are well organized and fairly well spaced. The buttons are of decent size. At the top are two power buttons. On the right is Power On, and on the left, is Standby (power off). You press Standby twice to power down.
The next pair are Lens (brings up the Lens focus, zoom, and shift controls), and Input.
Below those two are the Info button, Lens AP (aperture) for the manual iris, and on the right, Aspect ratio selection.
Next come eight image controls, including: Gamma, Color Temp, Color saturation, Tint, N.R. (noise reduction), Brightness, Contrast, and Sharpness.
Right above the four arrow keys in a round arrangement, are a Test button (toggles between test patterns) and a Hide button to black out the image.
In the center of the four arrow keys is a very large enter button. Below the arrow keys are the Menu button on the left, and Back button on the right.
There are 8 buttons for the modes, toward the bottom, Cinema 1, 2, Dynamic, etc. Three of the buttons are for your user defined modes User 1,2,3.
The strangest thing, is there is no button for the THX mode. What were they thinking?
Finally! the last button, a wide thin one is the backlight button. It's in a good place. Since the remote itself is very dark, it's nice that the Light button glows slightly in the dark.
JVC's remote control has a very good layout, but overall, it's not bad, but not great, either!
DLA-RS20 Lens Throw
The JVC RS20's 2:1 aspect ratio zoom lens provides plenty of placement flexibility to either ceiling or shelf mount. To fill a 100 inch diagonal, 16:9 aspect ratio screen, the front of the projector can be as close as 9 feet, 11 inches, or as far back as 20 feet, 2 inches. Using these measurements for 100 inches, you can figure out the range for any other screen size.
DLA-RS20 Lens Shift
The RS20 has lots of lens shift too, and it's motorized. For that same 100 inch screen, the projector can be placed anywhere between 15 inches above the top of your screen surface, to 15 inches below the bottom of the screen surface. Those are approximates, JVC doesn't have exact numbers in its manual, but likely it's 14 inches and change above and below.
There are some projectors with a bit more lens shift, but that's pretty good flexibility. The horizontal lens shift allows a maximum of about 30 inches to the left or right of the center point.
Remember, that the two "work together" the more vertical you use, the less horizontal is available, and vice versa. If you have maximum vertical, there is no horizontal lens shift, and so on.
Anamorphic Lens
JVC is now offering an anamorphic lens and motorized sled for the JVC DLA-RS20, and HD750. Their part number is RSAL-1. It uses the Panamorph anamorphic lens and sled, and comes with a custom mounting plate with holes drilled only for the JVC projectors. That's as opposed to buying the "generic" Panamorph setup, which would come with a mounting plate with multiple holes drilled to accommodate a wide range of projectors. Using the RSAL-1 should make for an easier installation than the generic version.