JVC DLA-RS35 Post Calibration Grayscale

Average gamma= 2.26

Wow, that’s pretty – except for a slight cooling trend down in the darkest ranges, the RS35 is superb. The color temp averages about 6575K.

Gamma settings:

The gamma controls on the RS35 allow for detailed customization, including different gamma curves for each primary color! You can have about as much fun as you would like, customizing gamma for your screen, room conditions, personal tastes, etc.

Ultimately though, Normal is the default and averages 2.26 (ideal is 2.2) over the range. Each of the four other preset gammas – A-D, have different curves, and do noticeably different things to different ranges of the image (bright, mid, dark, etc.).

In addition there are three Custom gamma modes (1,2,3) which you can tinker with. You can start with any one of the preset gammas (Normal, A-D), copy that into a Custom, and modify from there. You can even set different gamma settings for the different primary colors (red, green, blue), or all at once with white. This is one of the more comprehensive customizable gamma modes I’ve encountered. (and much fun to play with). of the Preset Gammas, I tend to favor Normal C, or D.

The A setting lifts the brightness in the very darkest areas, making dark shadow detail more visible, but, by doing so, removes some of the punch on dark scenes. B setting mostly lifts brightness in the 40 to 80 IRE range. It adds punch and also makes those sunny days seem sunnier. Gamma C is much like B, but a little less push in those brighter ranges, and a little push added at the low end to bring up the very darkest shadow detail. In other words, C, is very much like a cross between A and B, and personally preferable to either. Gamma D lifts the mid-tones only slightly. It is closest to Normal, but “brightens” the mid-range just slightly.

Basically I tend to favor D over Normal, depending on the movie. C is my choice when I want to make the image more dynamic looking. B will also do that but is more “over the top” and typically “distorts” the original too much for my taste.

And of course, you can create your own, similar to any of these, with your own preferences, if you like to play.

These are the adjustments we made to Red, Green and Blue for the grayscale balance of THX mode. This is accomplished by placing these adjustments into one of the three Custom settings (1, 2, or 3). We placed all of these into User 1 (which starts out as a copy of THX).

Calibration settings for User 1:
Custom Gamma on 2.4, Color on -25

NOTE: In addition to the usual grayscale calibration, I tried two different methods of adjusting color via the CMS controls.  The first one, on CMS Custom 1, uses the standard method of adjusting the controls with 75% Brightness windows for each color.  The second one, on CMS Custom 2, uses 75% Saturation windows for each color.  The second method results in a slightly better picture quality (less washed-out looking than the first method.

OK, you’ve got everything you need to copy our calibration efforts on your shiny new JVC DLA-RS35 projector. Of course, there will be slight variations due to the lamp (and lamp performance will change over time). We calibrated with the lamp virtually brand new, as opposed to waiting a couple hundred hours, which is generally considered more ideal. Still, any shifts are fairly slight. If I end up purchasing the RS35 (with hand picked components and tighter quality control), I’ll be calibrating it when new, and then likely redoing the calibration after about 300 hours. If that all happens, I’ll post those numbers as well.

Bottom line: Skin tones, no, everything, tends to really look great, and natural, on our review RS35 using these settings. Gorgeous! I’ve run my RS20 against the RS35 with these settings, and no question, the RS35 looks better! In terms of faithful color accuracy and skin tones, this RS35 wins. The two projectors have the same flavor – feel – but the RS35 gets the gold.