Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/2321
CEDIA 2007 - Day 3: Marantz, JVC and Samsung Projector Wrap-up
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 8, 2007 2:03 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
On our last day of CEDIA we went through and did cleanup on the show floor, catching all of the things we missed and that you requested specifically.
A prevalent theme at CEDIA
Our first stop was a rarity at CEDIA as it would turn out...
The JVC Update
As an installer-focused show, we mostly encountered sales and marketing types, who gave us fluff answers to our questions and usually didn't even know the specs of the product they were trying to sell. There were a few exceptions, one of which being JVC, who allowed us to sit down with Gary Klasmeier, the Product Engineering Manager for JVC Professional Products including the newly announced DLA-RS2.
Sitting down with Gary we were able to get much more detail on the RS2 and how it differs from its predecessor.
Typically, a projector will take around 18 - 24 months to go from brainstorming a model to release. With DLA-RS2, a number of items were borrowed from the RS1 design, such as the case, thus allowing for a shorter design cycle.
The RS2/HD100 projectors that were at CEDIA were only about a week old before they were brought out to the show, they were in all senses of the words: engineering samples. The next step for JVC are pre-production samples, these ones will be used to figure out exactly what needs to be fixed/changed before going into mass production. JVC is expecting the first pre-production samples back by the end of this month, at which point he will have a better idea of when the final shipments will go out.
Right now JVC is targeting late November for the release of the DLA-RS2 and DLA-HD100, a stark contrast to Sony's immediately available VW60 but potentially worth the wait.
Color Accuracy and Adjustment
With the RS2/HD100, JVC has added a number of color and gamma adjustment options that weren't there in the RS1.
The OSD menu offers RGB adjustment at several points along the gamma curve as you can see from the picture below:
You can also now individually select gamma correction values instead of having to rely on factory presets.
Improvements: RS1 vs. RS2
The JVC DLA-RS1 was widely regarded as an excellent LCoS projector at its price point, so we wanted to know what had truly changed between it and the new RS2 resulting in better specs and a higher price.
The RS2 primarily uses improved LCoS panels, reducing stray light within the panels themselves, and thus improving contrast ratio. Much like CPU and GPU manufacturing, when producing LCoS devices, JVC can learn a lot about tweaking its production to result in improvements to the chips. In the case of the RS2, JVC was able to improve the surface uniformity of the LCoS panels and reduce the space between pixels.
The less uniform the LCoS surface is, the more variance there will be between phase angles of the liquid crystals on the chip, resulting in stray light especially if they are all supposed to be angled the same for example in a totally black portion of a scene. Flatter pixel surfaces and smaller pixel gaps allow the liquid crystals to all stay in the same line and keep the same phase angles, giving you improved contrast ratio.
Other improvements to the display engine included changes to the color filters; by narrowing up some of the color filters in the RS2, JVC was able to reduce stray light which also contributed to the increase in contrast ratio.
Although the lens is different from the RS1 to RS2, it appears that there are no visual benefits to the new lens. JVC simply went from a manually operated lens to a motorized lens.
JVC on 2.35:1
JVC is one of many companies offering the Panamorph UH380 as an option for 2.35:1 setups, we asked Mr. Klasmeier why JVC didn't simply produce its own 2.35:1 lenses, ideally at more affordable price points to better service the needs of the consumers.
From JVC's perspective, the fact that it is even offering the UH380 as an option is a huge step forward. The success of the UH380 option will really determine what JVC decides to do in the future, but as 2.35:1 setups become more popular you can expect manufacturers like JVC to begin considering marketing and selling their own anamorphic lenses.
JVC RS2 Gallery
If you want a closer look at some of the pics we took, click on any of the thumbnails below to get a sample from the RS2 demo:
Sony VW60 Gallery
We went back to Sony for some better pics of the VW60 for comparison. You know the drill, click the thumbnails to enlarge:
Samsung SP-A800: Add it to the Ranks
Samsung had a new 1080p single-chip DLP projector at its booth, but with no adjoining demo and no one around to answer questions we skipped it on our first round on the show floor.
With some extra time to kill today we went back to Samsung, determined to get a demo of the new projector and luckily we succeeded. Along the far edge of the show floor were a series of closed rooms designed for demos that couldn't fit in an already crowded booth; it was in one of those rooms that Samsung had its SP-A800 projector setup and ready to go.
The demonstration was not without its flaws, getting any of the three high definition players to properly display on the projector was a bit of a pain, so we spent a great deal of time waiting for the demo to start - but it was well worth the wait.
Casablanca (HD-DVD) - Click to Enlarge
Projected onto a 9' wide, 16:9, 1.3 gain screen the 800 threw a beautiful picture. It's tough to really compare to the other greats of the show, but the SP-A800 was easily among the best we saw at CEDIA.
Phantom (Blu-ray) - Click to Enlarge
Particularly impressive were the calibration options on the SP-A800, you can disable individual colors for calibration:
As well as switch between color standards for display:
You can easily adjust between iris opening presets:
For single-chip 1080p DLP projectors, the SP-A800 is definitely one to watch for. It's quite configurable and produces a quality image; the price point is up in the air, although we were told that it would be somewhere under $10K.
Marantz VP-15S1
At your request, we paid Marantz a visit to check out the new VP-15S1. The 15S1 is Marantz' more "affordable" single-chip 1080p DLP, using TI's DarkChip 3 and priced at $9,995.
As an example of anamorphic lens pricing at its best, the $6K ISCO III lens is offered as an option with the 15S1 with motorized sled for a mere $12,995 - $3K more than the projector itself.
The ISCO III
Now Marantz won the award for best overall home theater experience at the show. The VP-15S1 was setup in a real home theater, complete with Marantz THX Ultra 2 speakers driven by a high end Marantz receiver. The ISCO III lens was used to stretch the 16:9 image to fill the 10' 2.35:1 screen we watched Cars on.
The image was gorgeous but the overall experience was quite possibly even more impressive. Instead of simply putting a projector and a screen in a room, Marantz made sure the home theater experience was complete, with a speaker setup that left us temporarily deaf.
The VP-11S2 was also at Marantz' booth but not running, that model uses TI's recently announced DarkChip 4 DLP.
Final Words
That's it for our coverage of CEDIA, we'll see you in a few months at CES in Las Vegas.