We reported the news some time ago, but today JVC has made it official: it has a new 3-strong range of home cinema projectors launching in the UK towards the end of next month.
Among the headlines are sky-high native contrast performance, user-selectable Intelligent Lens Aperture (for even deeper blacks) and the sixth generation of JVC’s D-ILA imaging device. This last features a 40% reduction in pixel gap compared to the previous D-ILA chipset – pictures should be appreciably smoother.
There’s a certain degree of dissembling going on about these new projectors’ compatibility with 4K content (as far as any native 4K content exists), though. A brief demonstration of the flagship DLZ-X900R proved the projector’s winning way with native 4K material, but the product itself isn’t, strictly speaking, a 4K projector at all.
Instead, JVC has taken the e-shift technology it first used to upconvert high-def content to 4K and supercharged it. In e-shift3 guise, the tech allows sources up to 4K/60p resolution to be displayed as such – the projector’s processing power is sufficient to separate a 3840 x 2160 signal into two easier-to-handle 1920 x 1080 images and stitch them back together again.
Elsewhere there’s a much-improved smartphone control app, a Clear Black feature that provides very targeted local area contrast enhancement, and improved Clear Motion Drive.
The DLA-X500R will sell for around £5000. The DLA-X700R and DLA-X900R (both of which have THX 3D and ISF certification) will cost roughly £7000 and £10000 respectively.
by Simon Lucas