JVC DLA-RS60 – Review Summary

JVC DLA-RS60 Projector - The Bottom Line

The RS60 is a classy projector, from looks to performance. It features motorized lens – focus, zoom, and lens shift, offers excellent placement flextibiliy, a pretty typical selection of inputs, and is reasonably quiet. The three year warranty is longer than many projectors near its price, but many others also have three year warranties. We consider three years to be very good. JVC’s also built up a very good rep for supporting some of the pickiest home theater enthusiasts on the planet, since their projectors are favorites among the “hard core”.

Overall picture quality is excellent. The great skin tones and overall color accuracy post calibration, look natural. Unmatched black level performance (at any price), enhances all scenes, but gives the JVC DLA-RS60 a dramatic advantage on really dark scenes, even against excellent competition, like the Sony VPL-VW90ES. End of conversation, all that combined earns the JVC DLA-RS60 a Hot Product Award. Brightness and 3D performance need work, but this is one superior 2D projector.

JVC DLA-RS60 Brightness

The issue of brightness (compared to claim) is an issue in its own right. Still the brightness is what it is, we have only our measurements plus those from several owners to confirm the low numbers. The closest competitors to the JVC DLA-RS60 are the Sony VPL-VW90ES and JVC’s own DLA-RS50 (the identical twin with the “bad genes”, as the RS60s get the best of the components).

Calibrated, the JVC RS60’s 451 measured lumens of brightness is lower than previous JVC’s but is still more than enough for a great looking 100 or 110″ diagonal 16:9 screen. The basic THX mode, also excellent, will deliver just over 500 lumens (mid point on the zoom, about 550 at full wide angle).

While 451 lumens is still reasonable, it is strange, that this projector which claims 1300 lumens at 8500K, can do only about 1/3 the rated lumens at D65. My own RS20, two generations older, measured about 750 lumens, when new, and calibrated.

So be it! Having enough brightness is important, so a less bright projector limits potential screen size, or might require a higher gain screen to get sufficient brightness. Still as long as this JVC is bright enough for your setup, and tastes, 450 – 500 lumens will work for a whole lot of folks for some seriously fine movie viewing.

3D Brightness of the DLA-RS60 projector

I am not saying that the 3D image of the JVC DLA-RS60 is too dim to watch in 3D. What I am, however, trying to point out, is that when you do watch it it will seem dim. If you’ve compensated greatly with screen gain, or have the smallest of screens (under 80″ diagonal) you can get something resembling good moderate brightness.

Even then, however, when ever you peek out from under those active 3D glasses, and see the screen without the loss of roughly 75% of the brightness, you will be immediately reminded about how lacking the 3D image is, in terms of real brightness, and how much better you would enjoy it if it was 2x, 3x, or 4x brighter. And that’s the point, I think almost everyone will be unsatisfied, in that they certainly would be if 2D was that bright.

For 3D viewing, we used the brightest mode we could find (we had not discovered the color profile off option with it’s very iffy color). Even when I reduced the image size on the 1.4 gain white surfaced Carada screen, to sizes between 80 and 90 inches diagonal, I was never happy with the brightness. In a couple of weeks, however I will have my first real high power screen, Da-lite’s with it’s 2.5 gain screen. Perhaps the RS60 or an RS50 will arrive about then, one can only hope, as I’d like to see first hand the trade-offs.