JVC DLA-X95R Performance 3

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Art Feierman

X95R Light Leakage

The JVC DLA-X95R does leak light through the lens. Fortunately, a projector with this black level performance is leaking a tiny amount of light. You simply won't see it with anything much above a completely black image being projected. Below is an incredibly overexposed image of the JVC (left) next to the Epson 5020. Note the lighter vertical band running through the Epson (about 10% in from the JVC edge). That's light leaking from the JVC. Also there's a general amount of low light all the way around the JVC, which really isn't detectable here, even with more than a half minute exposure, plus additional push, and with the camera's aperture wide open.

Don't start wondering why the Epson looks darker overall. In this photo, I froze the projectors with no signal present. That allows the Epson iris to stop down further than it can even are the darkest scenes, sort of a reset position. I have yet to see any scene where the Epson has blacker blacks.

Basically I'm pointing out that yes, they could control light through the lens better, (further improve the optical engine) but as they already have the blackest blacks available (that would be the grey - then you realize that the leakage is even darker than the JVC's most perfect black. When you consider the light leakage, but paired with the blacks potential, but it really should be seen as a "who cares" improvement. You will never see this, or notice this, even though the tiny leakage must have the tiniest impact on the image. JVC on the left, below:

Click Image to Enlarge

DLA-X95R Image Noise

I didn't spot the minor, and not very often panning issues, we look for. At certain panning speeds you can always see some judder with 24fps movies. In this case, one of our test scenes is near the opening of the movie RED when they pan the neighborhood. The JVC did a really good job. From a practical standpoint it was perhaps insignificantly smoother than the Epson, but definitely better than the Sony VPL-VW95ES.

Of course fancy image processing, including e-Shift2, can add to the visible image noise, and they do. Still pretty good looking, almost always better than the typical DLP in terms of noises such as common mosquito noise.

3D noise: Much better than last year's JVC projectors. I think JVC did a great job of improving 3D performance this year. They went, in one year, from mediocre, to "pretty competent".

I watched a ton of 3D with this JVC X95R projector, that included Hugo, MIB 3, the last Harry Potter, The Avengers, Step-Up 3D (dance movie). My concern with 3D was not crosstalk or other 3D issues, but always came back to the brightness. I'm sorry, working with less than 800 lumens in 3D is always going to make brightness the primary issue.

At least this year, they have the big crosstalk issues discussed last year, under control.

JVC DLA-X95R Audible Noise

Large projectors have the room to baffle noise and end up quieter than smaller projectors. Still, this JVC X95R is still fairly loud at full power considering. (Of course, I'm talking for a home theater projector.) It might be a touch quieter than those Epsons but there are noticeably quieter projectors at full power. I'd say the JVC is a little quieter than the average DLP projector, but that's about it.

In low power, no issue at all. The JVC X95 projector is close to silent, for all practical purposes. In its low power (Normal) lamp mode, it's likely in the low 20s interms of measured decibels (we do not measure).

The pitch is reasonably low, so it may seem a touch quieter at full power than a number of other projectors with higher pitched fan (and in the case of DLP projectors, color wheel whine).

Bottom line on audible noise: The JVC DLA-X95R's handling of fan noise is pretty good. It's fairly typical (or slightly quieter than most) at full power, and really quiet at low.