JVC DLA-HD250 Physical Tour3

JVC DLA-HD250 Remote Control

Click to enlarge. so close. I own the “old” JVC DLA-RS20 which comes with the same remote control as the HD250 and HD250Pro come with. I never was satisfied with the range on the remote, and I’m still not! JVC upgraded the remote to all their models when they brought out the RS15, RS25, and RS35, and their consumer equivalents, but with the new HD250 they have regressed. Perhaps they had bins full of these old remotes, to get rid of?

Mind you once you get past the limited range, and also the slightly soft feel of some buttons, it’s a respectable remote. Still…

To paraphrase what I said in last year’s DLA-RS15 review – ‘perhaps the single greatest improvement of the RS15 is the new remote’ – so you can see why I’m bummed with the switch back to the “old” one. If I shelf mount my RS20 behind me, there is no way I can get a good bounce off of the screen, I’ll be foolishly holding the remote up and pointing behind me, every time I need to change something. The same would be true for the HD250.

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.

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.

Not bad, could be better. But then, remember, we reviewers are constantly playing with settings as we test and view products. You owners, will, by comparision hardly use the remote at all except for powering up and down and changing presets.

Other than the limited range, I have been pretty pleased with the rest of the remotes function. The amber backlight is just about right, in brightness, and easy to read the black labels placed on each lit up button.

Click Image to Enlarge

DLA-HD250 Lens Throw

JVC has been using this setup for about 4 years now, going back to the JVC RS1. The JVC HD250’s 2:1 aspect ratio zoom lens provides excellent placement flexibility for ceiling or shelf mounting. 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. These are the same as with previous few years JVC projectors. Same lens… In this case, the logic “if it works, don’t change it” seems to fit nicely.

DLA-HD250 Lens Shift

JVC’s DLA-HD250 and HD250Pro have plenty of lens shift. As a bonus, it’s even 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, as JVC doesn’t have exact numbers in its manual.

Certainly there are projectors with a more lens shift, and plenty with less. All considered, the JVC’s lens shift offers pretty good flexibility.

The JVC supports horizontal as well as vertical lens shift. The horizontal lens shift allows a maximum of about 30 inches to the left or right of the center point on that 100″ screen, and appropriately more on larger screens.

Note: The more vertical you use, the less horizontal is available, and vice versa. If you have maximum vertical, there is no horizontal lens shift.

Thanks to the large zoom range, plus motorized features, including lens shift, allows me, and other owners of Cinemascope shaped screens (2.35:1, 2.4:1…), who can place the projector within the front half of the zoom lense’s range, can fill their 2.35:1 screen with a movie, no letterbox on the screen (and therefore no letterbox visible at all, if your walls are dark).

When we then want to watch standard HDTV aspect ratio, be it HDTV, or some movies, and lots of other content, all we have to do is zoom out, to make the image smaller and fit the vertical. (The letterbox ends up on the sides.) I’d rather have not letterbox for movies, than sports, etc.

What I’m describing is essentially what Panasonic does at the touch of a button with their Lens Memory feature (and I figure they have that patented, since no one else has automated it). In this case, though, manually, you have to adjust the zoom first, then adjust the lens shift, and finally refocus, as working all those controls is likely to leave the lens just slightly out of focus.

How much time does it take me, to go from Cinemascope to HDTV, making the adjustments, or doing it in the reversde direction?

Typically the process was taking me about one minute. I can live with that. If you can’t, buy a Panny, or a 16:9 screen!

Anamorphic Lens