JVC DLA-RS15 - Performance

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Art Feierman

VPL VW85

8500UB

W20000

JVC DLA-RS15: Bottom Line Sharpness

As the owner of the older JVC, I've always considered it's sharpness to be acceptable, but yearned for even more. The DLA-RS15 delivers what I have been hoping for. I'm not saying that it's sharper than the average DLP projector, but, it's certainly up there competitive with a lot of DLP's in terms of sharpness. It sure works for me!

While before I certainly considered it a fair trade-off, (the other JVCs sharpness) in exchange for superior color accuracy, and the best black level performance available, with the RS15, you can have it all!

Light Leakage

No change here, from last year's models. This JVC projector leaks lots of light, out of the lens. This is especially true if you are using a lot of vertical lens shift. That's the bad news. The good news is that while it covers a wide area, it's so dark as to be a non-issue. That leakage (which is outside of the projected image area) is no brighter - less bright, than the black levels themselves, and they are darker than with any other projector. I was able to spot the faint light on my off-white front wall of my theater, but, then I had the walls painted a dark rust color, and no trace of that light remains detectable.

JVC DLA-RS15 Image Noise

Nothing new here. For the 3rd generation, JVC has continued with higher end Silicon Optix for their image processing. They are still using the Silicon Optix Reon-VX (the lastest version no doubt). The Reon-VX is found in a number of excellent projectors. I'm not aware of any notable flaws in image processing. Mosquito noise is just visible, in normal amounts, without the Noise Reduction engaged. I don't see a need to implement it, but that is personal taste. Performance on motion artifacts is very good. As you can imagine, the RS15 like the other JVCs easily passes all the other related related tests that we use from the HQV test disc, as that widely used test disc is put out by Silicon Optix.

The RS15 does offer a contrast enhancement feature. As would be expected, it does slightly increase the image noise when engaged.

DLA-RS15 Audible Noise

More than quiet enough. While there are quieter projectors the JVC RS15 is quieter than average, and claims a very impressive 19db noise level in low power mode. It's probably still 25 db or less with fan and lamp running at full power. The pitch of the noise is fairly average, and lower than many. Overall, having owned the equally quiet JVC RS20, audible noise has been a non-issue. In fairness, my RS20 sits on a high shelf (just over 10 feet) and about 8 feet behind me, so it's a lot further away than it would be in some smaller rooms or if ceiling mounting almost overhead. Still, while there are quieter projectors, this should satisfy all but the most noise adverse, and even those folks would have to have it placed close by before they might complain.