JVC DLA-RS1000/N5 & RS2000/NX7 Owners Thread

[Dylan Seeger]

I'd like to give a quick thanks to those of you that helped me find this new forum. Hopefully better than the AVS BS that we've had to put up with. Although this confirmation with the letters and question is getting old.

The confirmation is to stop bots from posting things on the forum. It's a way to make sure your account is owned by a real human. Its only for the first handful of posts.

[Purple X]

The new firmware seems to have improved HDR and DI with HDR; Need to test more content to be sure but a quick test DI ON/OFF DI ON now brightness stays the same and the black floor drops, ie constrast increases. (before contrast did not increase) This is now working the same as what was demonstrated to me back in november.

Also auto-mapping seems to be OK now with regard to raising blacks as well, but I need to test more to be sure. One thing  is the output sure seems overall brighter and with more contrast than before. I was able to reduce tone mapping level by one and still have a brighter mapping.

[Dylan Seeger]

Interesting! I'll have to check this out. I haven't used the auto-tonemapping feature much since I use madVR. But I'd like to see how the DI functionality changes before and after the update. I will check out some untouched HDR content on V2.0 and then do the update to see what difference it makes

[gonzalc3]

Great review on the RS2000 Dylan!

[Dylan Seeger]

Thanks! In the end, it got edited down a bit, but I think the general message I was trying to convey holds true. During fact checking, JVC told me they are aware of the DI issues and are currently working on a fix. So stay tuned. I hope we see a firmware update soon!

[AVSMike]

It is hard to get all the info in, in the limited amount of space allowed. 

[markmon]

Thanks! In the end, it got edited down a bit, but I think the general message I was trying to convey holds true. During fact checking, JVC told me they are aware of the DI issues and are currently working on a fix. So stay tuned. I hope we see a firmware update soon!

Does JVC also acknowledge that the iris just doesn't clamp down as much as it use to on older models?  We aren't getting anywhere near the 800K:1 spec on the RS2000. The iris behaves much more like a Sony iris, does not act very aggressively on scenes like ending credits, interstellar etc. 

[DavidHir]

I cannot speak on these new units, but having owned an RS4910 and now RS440; I really liked the fades I would get on the RS4910.  It must have been clamping almost or completely down.  Sometimes it really gave a dramatic effect especially in some sci-fi or horror movies.  I don't get this effect on the RS440 and both are getting similar contrast ratios when at the same calibrated lumens.

[Dylan Seeger]

Does JVC also acknowledge that the iris just doesn't clamp down as much as it use to on older models?  We aren't getting anywhere near the 800K:1 spec on the RS2000. The iris behaves much more like a Sony iris, does not act very aggressively on scenes like ending credits, interstellar etc.

No, I was just told they're aware and are looking into implementing a fix. To be fair, in its current state, it still works better than most of the dynamic contrast systems I've seen. We'll have to wait and see how the new firmware (when it comes) changes it's performance. I do agree that the older eshift models had a better DI implementation.

[Manni]

I cannot speak on these new units, but having owned an RS4910 and now RS440; I really liked the fades I would get on the RS4910.  It must have been clamping almost or completely down.  Sometimes it really gave a dramatic effect especially in some sci-fi or horror movies.  I don't get this effect on the RS440 and both are getting similar contrast ratios when at the same calibrated lumens.

I agree that the 4910 had the best fade to black (I had one too), but it also had the worst gamma and pumping artifacts (though without the yellowing bug of the current models, which will be solved). I guess JVC are trying to find a balance between fade to black and artifacts.

This is why I suggested they create an Auto 3 mode, with no gamma processing whatsoever when there is content on the screen, that would only kick in on black and would close the iris as much as possible on fade to black.

Problem is, this causes pumping (for example during credits) and I guess a lot of people have been complaining about pumping on credits (and a few freak scenes).

Still, especially with HDR, between getting highlights crushed in every single scene with gamma artifacts in auto2 and pumping on credits to get full fade to black on auto3, I'd select auto3.

To me the native contrast on the rs2000 is good enough to use manual most of the time. In a bat cave, it's the fade to black that hurts most after a few seconds due to the black floor being quite high as the iris remains half open with the current DI implementation (compared to what we used to get with the rs4910, or even with the rs500 that didn't close as much but closed much further than -15 in auto).

If JVC only corrects the yellowing bug but keeps the gamma artifacts as they are, the DI is still not usable to me in HDR (manual iris fully open) because it crushes too many highlights and you lose way too much detail to artificially increase perceived contrast. It is usable in SDR (iris -7 or less), with few if any gamma artifacts, but it also makes much less of a difference because it doesn't fully close the way it did in previous generations.

To be fair, this is exactly the same with previous models, at least in HDR iris fully open. It might be gone from a few test scenes, but it's still present if you look at about any scene with highlights such as spotlights, headlights, any kind of bright spot of well-defined highlight against a dark background (car headlights at the beginning of MI:Fallout, subs spotlights in The Meg, etc).

I think it's because they are trying to maximise the perceived contrast on star fields, as they know a lot of users and reviewers will put a picture in Interstellar or Star Trek to look at contrast, and it works very well with these because there is no highlights, just very bright small dots (stars). So with their gamma processing, the small white dots look very bright and the space looks very dark. Great.

But if you add bright objects with well-defined highlights (bright planets, as in some shots in 2001, headlights, car lights, spot lights, etc) it's far too aggressive and blooms everything. The highlights become a blob of white, and you lose so much detail that it's simply not an option if you care about picture quality to leave it on.

So hopefully JVC will 1) fix the yellowing bug 2) improve the gamma artifacts, which means make the iris significantly less aggressive in auto2, especially in HDR with iris fully open and 3) give users an option to get better fade to black if they are happy to pay the price for that, which is a bit more pumping.

So auto1 could be for those who want the most perceived contrast at the cost of anything else, auto2 for those who want a balanced approach and are happy with the benefit of a less aggressive DI at the cost of a few artifacts (minor blooming, bit of pumping) and auto3 for those who are happy with the contrast in manual and just want much better fade to black with no gamma processing at all on content, at the cost of more pumping on credits and a few freak scenes.

At the moment, they probably feel stuck between a rock and a hard place, which is why I suggested the auto 3 (fade to black only) option. I don't think they can make everyone happy with the two modes they currently have, especially in HDR.

I hope they have taken all this on board, and will not only fix the yellowing bug.

Luckily, the projector looks great with the DI disabled, so it's a good fallback position if you can't live with the DI.

Very much looking forward to the next firmware

PS: Mike, if JVC want a list of scenes with timecodes where the current DI implementation blooms highlights beyond what's acceptable, I'd be happy to provide it. They keep referring to the yellowing bug (that happens on credits or after a fade to black) but that's not the only issue with the current DI implementation, at least in HDR iris fully open. It's in every single scene with well-defined, significant highlights on dark background.

[AVSMike]

Mani, please provide (email to me) and I will forward. Thank you.

[Manni]

Mani, please provide (email to me) and I will forward. Thank you.

Thanks, will do. I'll try to provide screenshots as well from different sources and in different modes (HDR, HDR tonemapped to SDR) so they can see it's not the source or the calibration/tonemapping, but the dynamic iris itself causing this.

[David Vaughn]

No, I was just told they're aware and are looking into implementing a fix. To be fair, in its current state, it still works better than most of the dynamic contrast systems I've seen. We'll have to wait and see how the new firmware (when it comes) changes it's performance. I do agree that the older eshift models had a better DI implementation.

Dylan, great review of the JVC. Word counts suck, don't they? 

[AVSMike]

JVC videos explaining several of the features.
https://www.youtube.com/user/JVCAmerica/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=1

[Dylan Seeger]

I've seen a few posts now indicating a 2.04 firmware is out in the wild. I did see one report indicating better dynamic iris performance.