The reason I am putting up my Sony VW870/995ES 4K laser projector for sale is that I am going back to JVC again. I have just completed my calibrations using both Chromapure and JVC’s proprietary calibration s/w styled, JVC AutoCal ver 13 B1.10. In the coming days, I will be posting some of my personal take on the JVC DLA-NZ7 8K e-Shift laser projector and how it stacks against my $21K Sony 4K projector circa 2019.
At the time of this review, all JVC projectors sold in Singapore will come with 2 years of local support from JVC Singapore.
It comes with one accessory box that houses 3 power cords, an instruction manual and a remote control with 2 batteries. That’s pretty much it. What I will call the “bare essentials”…
I absolutely hated this JVC remote! The buttons are all flat with no ridges or bump. This is the same remote controller used in my previous JVC projector, the NX7. C’mon JVC, you can do better than that! Very disappointing.
Gone are the days of electronic len cover. It probably cuts costs and also reduces the instances of mechanical failure of the lens cover being unable to open and close, rendering the projector unusable. Look on the bright side of things…
If you look closely, you will see this projector is the Nov 22 batch, meaning it comes pre-installed with the latest feature firmware ver 2.00. One of the reasons that I decided to get the JVC now is due to the new features released in this new firmware.
Courtesy from my dealer, Krishna Electronics P/L for giving me the 3D Synchro emitter as a review package. Luckily I have a pair of 3D RF glasses that I can use to review 3D imagery (if I want to)
Yes, spent the whole morning till early afternoon yesterday on calibration. Did a lot of intensive reading on some of the settings and the new features from firmware v 2.00. Spent another 2 hrs in the evening setting up the Lumagen Radiance Pro to work correctly with JVC and finally another 2 hrs figuring out how to get the Zidoo media player to play well with the JVC. I just came back from @durian house after listening to his Dirac Live setup on the Onkyo AVR. Very impressive to say the least. Just reached home.
I will spend some time later this evening evaluating some HDR and SDR content.
I’m going to do the review in a reverse manner…meaning I will let the images produced by this JVC projector “do the talking” for now.
Here are some “eye candy” shots (Note: images have compressed to save on bandwidth and increase loading speed) after I have calibrated the JVC DLA-NZ7. Most of what you see here are NOT even full-bitrate 4K HDR clips. These are assorted clips from prominent Youtube sites featuring trailers and some stock demo clips to showcase HDR. Their source links can be found below:
So far, the Lumagen DTM is the best in taming specular highlights while retaining black levels. The flash bolt passing through Barry Allen shows how difficult to tame HDR. I need more time to tweak the JVC DTM to get better results.
Both i did. First i calibrate the projector using Chromapure together with Lumagen Radiance Pro in the chain as the Lumagen RP have been built in test patterns for me to do all basic and advanced settings. Next, I removed Lumagen RP from the chain and calibrate the projector on its merits using JVC Autocal software with SpyderX Pro colorimeter.
Both sets of results are pretty identical with JVC Autocal prividing a much better gamma compared to using Chromapure. In the end, i cleared all my Lumagen calibration settings and used it as a middleware for its dynamic tone mapping and also its new instant auto aspect ratio feature.
I may consider doing another calibration using Chromapure and Lumagen RP again to see if I can get better results. Thus far, Im pretty impressed by JVC proprietary Autocal software. With better gamma, it will translate downstream to better contrast and more accurate colors across the IRE spectrum.
Yes, JVC Autocal s/w do support both SDR and HDR calibration. And yes, Chromapure is good at SDR calibration. For HDR, thanks to Lumagen RP ability to do SDR2020, I am able use this for HDR content for my Sony laser projector. For JVC, the s/w provides me with the ability to do HDR separately.
I will be posting more pix to compare the DTM done by Lumagen RP vs the JVC frame adapt HDR. Infortunately, The JVC frame adapt HDR is not perfect due to the HDR standards and the industry not having a standard to author the movies at either 1,000nits or 4,000nits. This is why Lumagen RP’s way of doing HDR did the opposite to convert HDR to SDR 2020, freeing itself from the inperfect HDR inplemetation in most sources.
Nice projector.
How would you rate it compare to your old NX7 with colour filter on?
Apart from the brightness, does the NZ7 way superior than the NX7?
I have the NX7 now but always itchy to get the NZ series…
I have only used NX7 for about 3 months before I sold off. Based on my memory, NX7 has a CR of 80K:1 native as it utilise better optics but the black floor is definitely not as good as the NZ7 or any of the model in the NZ series. This is due to the improved laser dimming (LD) technology used. Not even the RS4500 (the very first JVC 4K laser projector) have better black floor than the new NZ series with laser.
For the NZ series, some have said NZ7 is NOT equivalent to NX7 as the native CR for the NZ7 is 40K:1. In my opinion, when it comes to native CR, it really depends on one very important factor - i.e. viewing in a dark room to achieve better CR. For every JVC, Dynamic Iris (DI) or now Laser Dimming (LD) can help to increase the perceived CR even further. There is very little value in discussion when it comes to JVC CR. Based on my experience with projector, anything from 20K:1 is considered very good and it should be able to discern fine details. Of course, the optics and the Len assembly (all glass with minimal chroma aberration) will help to bring out the best PQ.
In gist, there is no need to upgrade your NX7 to NZ7 or even NZ8 at this point if you are not suffering any severe drop in lumens from the lamp. Just purchase a new one at a few hundred dollars and wait for the next gen.
