JVC RS1 and Sharp XV-Z20000 1080p Projector Comparison Review - General Performance

Posted on July 22, 2007 by Art Feierman

JVC DLA-RS1 and Sharp XV-Z20000 Home Theater Projectors: A Comparison Review - Overview
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JVC DLA-RS1 and Sharp XV-Z20000 Home Theater Projectors: A Comparison Review - Overview-4
Sharp XV-Z20000 and JVC DLA-RS1 1080p Home Theater Projectors Reviewed: Image Quality
Sharp XV-Z20000 and JVC DLA-RS1 1080p Home Theater Projectors Reviewed: Image Quality-2
Sharp XV-Z20000 and JVC DLA-RS1 1080p Home Theater Projectors Reviewed: Image Quality-3
Sharp XV-Z20000 and JVC DLA-RS1 1080p Home Theater Projectors Reviewed: Image Quality-4
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Sharp XV-Z20000 and JVC DLA-RS1 1080p Home Theater Projectors Reviewed: Image Quality-7
JVC RS1 and Sharp XV-Z20000 1080p Projector Comparison Review - General Performance
JVC RS1 and Sharp XV-Z20000 1080p Projector Comparison Review - General Performance-2
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JVC RS1 and Sharp XV-Z20000 1080p Projector Comparison Review - General Performance-4
Sharp XV-Z20000 and JVC DLA-RS1 Projector Comparison: Warranty
1080p Home Theater Projector Comparison Review: Sharp XV-Z20000 and JVC DLA RS1: Summary, Pros, Cons
1080p Home Theater Projector Comparison Review: Sharp XV-Z20000 and JVC DLA RS1: Summary, Pros, Cons-2
1080p Home Theater Projector Comparison Review: Sharp XV-Z20000 and JVC DLA RS1: Summary, Pros, Cons-3

I normally start with a pretty in depth look at menus, in a standard review. For this comparison, however, no point in comparing similar menu features. Instead, focusing on the differences in features seems the logical thing to do.

JVC RS1 and Sharp XV-Z20000 Menus

Above: Sharp XV-Z20000 Picture menu, showing Preset modes, Below, JVC DLA-RS1

Roughly comparable (for what options they offer) are the JVC’s Image mode, and the Sharp’s Picture mode. The biggest exception, is that the Sharp XV-Z20000 places their color presets first, on the Picture mode, whereas the RS1, locates those presets on their second main menu; the Setup menu. I do find that to be a nuisance, it should be with the other color controls. However, since few would ever use the menus when the JVC has a separate button for each of its Preset modes. Both home theater projectors have the standard goodies – brightness, contrast, color saturation, Tint (certain modes only), and sharpness. The Sharp offers gamma in its Picture menu, but that selects from 5 preset gammas, and one Custom gamma. There is also a dedicated Gamma main menu on the Sharp, for very sophisticated control of gamma (all colors together, or R,G,B separately. With the JVC RS1, Gamma is a menu item on the main Image menu. However, that gamma menu is roughly the equivalent of the Gamma on the Sharp’s Picture menu. The JVC just gives you a choice of Normal (a gamma of 2.2), plus A, B, and C each one increases gamma a bit more, (decreases the relative brightness of the mid-range brightness areas compared to black or white). The JVC does not allow any ability to create custom gamma settings (sadly, but not critically).

In summarizing the difference in gamma controls the JVC has four pre-defined settings compared to the Sharp’s five, but you can do all kind of tweaking, tuning, adjustments (whatever you call it), beyond the five presets, on the Sharp. The JVC gives you the four, and that’s it, no way to modify them.

As I talk about the color management system of the Sharp, to tie everything together, I’ll also talk about the kind of adjustments needed to these to projectors, based on the measurements taken.

Once again, the Sharp offers far more image control when it comes to color, in fact it offers magnitudes more control. The CMS (color management system) of the Sharp is extensive, supporting not just RGB control, but also offers secondary color controls (cyan, yellow, magenta).

With the Sharp (you access the CMS system from the Picture menu, by selecting Advanced) there is separate control for Hue, Saturation, and what Sharp calls Value (not even defined in their manual). With the Hue control, you can control the balance of an individual color, for example – find that pure reds seem to have a slightly orangish caste to them. Bingo, adjust that here, to correct.

By comparison, the JVC has almost no control at all. In fact what they do offer, beyond its basic presets (Cinema, Natural, Dynamic, plus 3 savable settings), is just Color Offset, on the Image menu. This allows you to adjust Red, Green, and Blue, separately. That’s it! Now the good news is that the JVC RS1 offers the best out of the box color for movie watching I’ve seen yet (and that includes two far more expensive 3 chip DLP 720p projectors, the InFocus 777 and the SIM2 C3X).

xzv20000 menu Picture mode

JVC RS-1 menu setup imageprofile

xzv20000 menu picture CMS

Sharp XV-Z20000 and JVC RS1 User Memory Settings

Sharp has the Memory setting option for Picture mode, and also for gamma, etc. As a result you can just modify existing settings, or save a new one, as needed. Best I can tell, you are limited to just one new preset. but the manual is almost worthless. There is no mention if the projector will recognize different sources, so that a different group of settings can be saved for each device, or failing that, for each input. I must apologize, as I didn't explore this further. I will try to update!

The JVC by comparison has 3 User Savable Memory settings (found in the Setup mode, along side the three preset modes (as shown in the JVC's Setup Menu above.