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JVC DLA-X35 Performance

Posted on June 22, 2013 By Art Feierman

On this page we take a look at the DLA-X35 projector’s brightness, sharpness, and image noise. We’ll discuss brightness in both 2D and 3D, as well. Also considered here are other issues including image noise, light leakage, and audible noise.

The DLA-X35 and the DLA-RS46U are rated 1300 lumens, one hundred lumens more than JVC’s higher end projectors.

That extra 100 lumens does not give the DLA-X35 projector enough lumens to compete with other projectors “more suitable’ for the family room, despite JVC offering both a white DLA-X35W, the one we have here, as well as an otherwise identical DLA-X35B black version of the projector.

Of course, everything depends on your room attributes, and the size of your screen.  Let’s just say that there are projectors out there that are easily twice as bright, with competitive pictures, that would be more suitable for many setups.  Of course some family rooms are halfway or more to cave, and some of you aren’t hunting for a large screen.  Certainly the DLA-X35W can play in a white ceilinged “family room” with decent lighting control.  I did it for years with my RS1 and later RS20, both just about the same brightness as this X35R.  My trick was movies only at night.  Sports viewing in the daytime was doable, not exceptional.  But I had a large screen – 128″ diagonal, Firehawk G3, which rejected most side ambient light.  I wouldn’t have wanted to try it with a typical white surfaced screen in that room.

Ed.Note: When measuring, we do not attempt to find every lumen, we only care about pictures that are very watchable.  No doubt we could tweak settings and find at least 10% more lumens, but the only point would be to see how many we can find. We focus instead on “best” and “brightest” modes which are excellent and very watchable, respectively.

JVC DLA-X35 Lumen Output and Color Temp at 100 IRE (mid zoom) Pre-Calibration:
Film 694 @ 6132
Cinema 739 @ 6815, 496 @ 7448 in default Low lamp mode
Natural 739 @ 6819
Stage 793 @ 7897
Animation 838 @ 8415
3D 856 @ 7868
User 1-5 730 @ 6858

First are the lumen measurements for each of the preset and user modes. Also included was the measured color temp for white, for each mode.

JVC’s DLA-X35 lacks the THX mode found on the higher end projectors.

Here are samples of the DLA-X35 projector in different modes: User 1 is our calibrated Best. We offer up the other modes calibrated.  Stage is our “Brightest”, but User is so close in brightness that Mike didn’t feel the need to tweek Stage, which mostly would have improved only slightly, but at the cost of its brightness advantage.

 

JVC DLA-X35 Mode Slideshow

As with the other JVC projectors reviewed this year, The X35’s Stage mode seems brighter, far more pop than the calibrated User 1. It seems significantly more dynamic, able to cut through ambient light, than the modest 150 lumen difference.  One reason is likely the higher color temp of 7500K.  If you slide that down to 7000 you lose a bit of the pop, more if you took it to 6500K.   I expect the lumens will drop to about the same level as the uncalibrated User mode.

Let me mention again that the major difference between this DLA-X35 projector and the DLA-X55R is primarily e-shift2.  If you would like to see the impact of e-shift2 in its different modes, we have a video in process.  It will be added to this review, but two more sections with demonstrations of the different modes will be on a second video for our subscribers (once the new site is launched), or everyone can visit the X55R review here for still photos showing each mode’s differences.

Effect of zoom on lumen output (3D mode):
Zoom out 951
Mid-zoom 856
Zoom in 709

Going from mid-point on the zoom to full wide angle (the closest you can place the projector to your screen), gives you about 12 % more lumens.  Maximum telephoto is close to 25% less bright than closest positioning.

This is most impressive for a 2:1 zoom. Most projectors with that much zoom range see a drop of 30-40%.  That makes this JVC a better projector in terms of brightness, for shelf mounting on the rear wall, as it might be as bright as some other brand that claims 15-20% more lumens.

JVC refers to full brightness as High, and their “eco-mode” as Normal brightess.

Lumen Output Low Lamp
Cinema 496 lumens (that’s 45 more lumens than the X55R measured.)
 

At full power, Cinema measured 739 lumens, so the X35 projector has a drop of about 33%.  That should be pretty consistant regardless of which mode you are in.    Bottom line, you can have a very quiet projector if you can get by without 1/3 of your lumens.  (Note, virtually all projectors have differrent color temperatures when not running at full power. Thus if you calibrate at full power, don’t expect to get the same accurate color when you switch down to eco-mode.  There’s always sume shifting.

Color Temp over IRE Range, Best mode (Pre calibration):Cinema (User and Natural are very similar)
30 IRE 6541
50 IRE 6668
80 IRE 6744
100 IRE 6815

Other than the warm – (shift toward red – the 6292K) in the lower ranges of brightness – the starting point for calibration is pretty good.

Effect of Lens Aperture setting on lumen output (3D mode):
0 (maximum opening) 856
-7 (half open) 667
-15 (minimum opening) 469

As is the case, with all projectors with manual irises, note that the more you close down the iris of this JVC, the higher the contrast. Blacks will get even blacker, both by virtue of the smaller iris opening, and also because of the reduced overall brightness. Of course, the idea is not to starve yourself of brightness, for a very minor improvement in blacks. I think more folks (if you don’t need maximum brightness) would tend to drop the projector to Low power on the lamp, before reducing brightness via the iris.  Afterall, the other way you get a significantly quieter projector and more life out of the lamp.

JVC DLA-X35 Projector – Image Quality 4
JVC DLA-X35 Performance 2