Projector Reviews

The projector incorporates JVC’s 120Hz Clear Motion Drive, a selectable 120-hertz feature designed to produce smoother motion. When 120Hz Clear Motion Drive is off, the JVC’s processor stage doubles a 1080p/24 source to 48 frames per second. Then it flashes this 48-fps result on the screen twice, for an effective on-screen refresh rate of 96 Hz. If you turn on 120Hz Clear Motion Drive, it will interpolate rather than just repeat the required added frames to reach the effective refresh rate of 120 Hz. With a 1080p/60 source (or a lower-resolution source that’s first upconverted and/or deinterlaced to 1080p/60), it flashes each frame twice to reach a 120-Hz refresh rate. It will either repeat the extra frame (120Hz Clear Motion Drive off) or interpolate it (120Hz Clear Motion Drive on).

For those who are wondering if the 120Hz refresh rate makes this projector compatible with 3D, the answer is no.

While you can dial in different settings for each picture mode, you can’t adjust the picture controls in a given mode differently for each input. The settings for a given mode are global across all inputs. The DLA-HD950 also has Day and Night ISF picture modes; these options will appear in the selection menu only after setup by an ISF-trained calibrator.

Fun and Games with THX
The DLA-HD950 is THX certified, so it’s required to meet certain THX requirements for a good picture. One of the nine picture modes is THX. This mode locks out several of the features that I mentioned above. You’re restricted to the 6500K Color Temperature setting, the CMS is inaccessible, and the gamma is fixed, without any selectable options. The fixed THX gamma averaged a bit low at less than 2.1, but it nearly always looked right.

With these restrictions, why would you select the THX mode at all? Because it produces the most accurate out-of-the-box color gamut, and it possibly eliminates the need to dive into the complexities of the CMS. The THX mode’s color gamut in our sample was close to ideal.

However, one significant problem with the THX mode is that the fixed color temperature of 6500K was more than 7000K. This is significantly different from the D65 standard. But there is a way for a calibrator to adjust the THX mode with help from the service menu and end up with an excellent result. For more details on this, see HT Labs Measures.

Firing It Up
The JVC employs HQV Reon-VX video processing. Its SD 480i-to-1080p deinterlacing/upconversion and HD 1080i-to-1080p deinterlacing were good, but they weren’t quite pristine. The DLA-HD950 had problems passing our 2:2 pulldown tests with both SD and HD sources. It also had some difficulty maintaining a solid lock in our SD 3:2 pulldown test over HDMI. To sort this out, I ran it through the most difficult 3:2 test I know of: the ship’s rails and superstructure in the original DVD release of Titanic. It passed this test with only a few hard-to-spot jaggies.

The projector also passed above-white and below-black information, but it only does this if you set the HDMI Input control to Enhanced. For additional video processing results, see the Video Test Bench chart.

JVC’s 120Hz Clear Motion Drive worked as I expected. It provided smoother motion, with a video-like look on film-based material. This result is common to all motion compensation that’s based on frame interpolation. I didn’t use it for any of my serious viewing.

The convergence of the red, green, and blue color panels in our review sample was excellent out of the box. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough so that any errors were unnoticeable at a normal viewing distance.

The DLA-HD950 is the quietest JVC I’ve tested; it’s almost silent in its Normal Lamp Power setting. In the High setting, the fan is clearly audible in a quiet room, but it’s not obtrusive, particularly with sound playing.

From fleshtones to greens and everything in between, I never had any complaint about the JVC’s color performance, either subjectively or objectively. It didn’t put a visible foot wrong, a quality that all of my measurements confirmed. I’ve been impressed by the overall performance of every JVC projector I’ve seen since the DLA-RS1 debuted three years ago. Still, in the past, color hasn’t been their strong suit, either from insufficient controls (gray scale in the DLA-HD1 and DLA-RS1) or a too-wide and nonadjustable color gamut. This is the first time I’ve found nothing to criticize in a JVC’s color performance.