JVC DLA-RS35 - Screen Recommendations

JVC RS35 Projector Screen Recommendations

The RS35 projector filling my 128" screen, has black levels just barely noticeable on dark scenes when looking at the letterbox area. Not perfect, but close, and the best yet. Personally, I like that, and probably favor a screen like my Firehawk over a tyical white surface. That said, a lot of that, is my personal preference. I'm willing to give up a little corner roll-off for those even blacker blacks.

Thanks to the RS35's brightness in THX, or calibrated Cinema 2, the RS35 has plenty of horsepower to handle the full 128" diagonal size of my Firehawk G3. In fact it still had enough lumens to spare, so that I even tried stopping the manual iris a small amount from its maximum setting of 0, to -5 for movie viewing, and the JVC still has enough brightness (That was playing around. I do like bright images, so most of the time I've got the iris wide open.)

For those of us who also like to watch sports, or typical TV/HDTV programming in an environment with some intentional ambient light, the THX and Dynamic modes are just a tad brighter, so there's not a lot of spare lumens to deal with ambient light. In a room like mine, while I don't need the Firehawk surface for great movie watching (room fully darkened), the screen's handling of side ambient light really comes in handy for dealing with the intentional ambient light I like for sports viewing, much of which comes from the sides. For that, the Firehawk does a great job.

Bottom line, get a good screen that meets your lighting requirements. Preferably it should be a very fine surface, designed for 1080p projectors. For those wanting really large screens, higher gain screens may do the trick but remember, they have a narrow viewing cone (where you sit) and tend to roll off brightness in the corners.