I’ve been saying for some time that I believe projector manufacturers are leading the way in the home AV market in shipping products from the factory that straight from the box will provide approved performance.
What I mean more specifically is that for years TV manufacturers have been known to ship TVs in what experts refer to as “torch mode,” meaning that the controls are cranked—think Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel’s Marshall amps—to help the TVs look as vivid as possible on retail show floors.
Taking the exact opposite approach to these types of trends are the projector companies. Arguably the company that first addressed the “torch mode” trend was JVC. Today, JVC is not only still promoting turnkey projector installations and calibrated picture performance through technologies like its Filmmaker Mode, but it has continually worked to improve its core technologies like D-ILA.
Allowing me to check out its competitively priced DLA-NZ500 for this review, I was happy to insert this projector into my AV system that includes a 100-inch 16:9 Screen Innovations (SI) Pure White 1.3-gain Zero Edge screen, along with an Integra DTX-3.4 receiver, a Panasonic DP-UB820 UHD disc player, and 4K Apple TV.
CE Pros & Cons
Pros:
- High levels of performance at a competitive price point
- The projector isn’t a flamethrower in terms of brightness levels, but it is more than bright enough to live in a range of room environments, including rooms with ambient light
- The Filmmaker Mode provides an easy way for dealers to transform the home theater installs into a “must watch” experience
Cons:
- This isn’t a con, but more of an observation—dealers with no training or intermediate calibration skill levels may want to resist calibrating the projector, and instead just opt to use the Filmmaker Mode.
JVC DLA-NZ500 Features
The DLA-NZ500 is closer to the entry point of the JVC product line with the company offering several models with pricing ranging from $5,999.95 for the DLA-RS1100/DLA-NP5 to the of the JVC product line and the $29,999.5 DLA-NZ900/DLA-RS4200.
The $6,499.95 DLA-NZ500 utilizes three of the company’s 0.69-inch native 4K D-ILA chips, along with JVC’s BLU-Escent Laser that uses a blue laser diode as the light source to help the projector produce up to 2,000 lumens of brightness. The projector also includes a motorized lens that is highlighted by a 15-element, 11-group construction with an 80mm aperture. The lens’ motor functions provide push button zoom focus and shift (70% vertical and 28% horizontal).
Other features the DLA-NZ500 offers include a pair of HDMI inputs that support data rates up to 32Gbps, as well as wide color gamut BT2020 compatibility, and the capability to reproduce HDR10 and HDR10+ high dynamic range content. The company underscores the native 4K (4096 x 2160) projector provides its Gen2 Frame Adapt HDR proprietary algorithm, which it says analyzes each frame to perform real-time tone mapping to optimize the product’s dynamic range.
JVC says the projector’s inclusion of its Vivid Picture mode optimizes SDR (standard dynamic range) content, and the company stresses that all its projectors provide ISF C3 mode to enable trained ISF (Imaging Science Foundation) technicians to calibrate the products.
Lastly, speaking of calibration, let’s circle back to something I mentioned earlier: Filmmaker Mode. To be sure I explained this mode correctly, I asked JVC’s Robert Budde for an explanation of the mode, and this is his response: “This mode is set to the parameters designated by the UHD Alliance to preserve the director’s intent or look.”
He went on to point out that sources like Kaleidescape and Panasonic UHD players can send over a FMM flag to the projector, and typically it turns off functions such as RGB gains and Offsets, CMS controls, MPC controls, processing options such as low latency and interpolation, and zooming/aspect ratio options.
With the projector mostly locked down in Filmmaker Mode, dealers can still set the brightness and contrast levels to match their clients’ screens and room environments.
Summary of Features
- Native 4K with three D-ILA chips that produce a resolution of 4096 x 2160
- Brightness levels up to 2,000 lumens
- Two HDMI ports that support 4K at 60Hz content
- HDR10 and HDR10+ compatibility
- 15-element, 11-group motorized lens
- MSRP is $6,499.95
Here is a closer look at the rear panel inputs of the DLA-NZ500. (photo credit: Bob Archer CE Pro)
Setup
After unpacking the DLA-NZ500 I lifted the 32-pound projector onto my projector shelf, which is approximately 12-feet from my SI Pure White 100-inch screen. One of the reasons the projector fits so nicely on my projector shelf is its relatively compact size. According to JVC, the DLA-NZ500 is roughly 35% smaller than its NZ7/RS2100 previous-generation projectors.
With the projector in place, I plugged a FBBR HDMI cable into HDMI 1 and I connected an AudioQuest power cable to a Richard Gray’s RGPC 1200 power conditioner.
Firing up the DLA-NZ500 I was not sure what to expect going into this review. Despite having many years in the electronics industry, I have never had a JVC product in my system. Any trepidation I may have had quickly went away as I was able set the screen size, geometry and focus just about immediately, and I was able to figure out the menu system to navigate the various sub menus.
Jumping into Filmmaker Mode right from the start, I enabled this function to start watching some TVs and movies. Setup does not take long, and the DLA-NZ500 is basically a turnkey projector when using Filmmaker Mode.
Later I would make some adjustments to the contrast and black levels to fine tune the image to my SI screen and room. I also investigated manually calibrating the projector, and I’ll admit, the Filmmaker Mode won out.
Projector Performance
For the review, the DLA-NZ500 performed at an extremely high level considering its price point. Yes, some people may want a brighter image, but the blacks are deep and rich, the colors are deep and rich, the images are smooth, skin tones are realistic, and overall, the colors are accurate.
In my opinion, part of the value of the projector lies in the Filmmaker Mode. If you have the skills possessed by Joel Silver and Jason Dustal who are high-level ISF instructors, or dealers like Robert Zohn of Value Electronics, pull out your computer, your test-pattern generators, and your colorimeter and go for a full, customized calibration. If you don’t have those tools and/or ISF training the Filmmaker Mode makes a great choice for dealers looking to offer their customers elevated home theater experiences.
With that said I would recommend taking an extra few minutes and fine tuning the contrast and black levels through basic tools such as the Spears & Munsil Ultra HD Benchmark 4K UHD calibration discs. Reasonably priced solutions like these discs can also go a long way with Filmmaker Mode without the heavy investment into the equipment I mentioned earlier with calibration software, test-tone generators, etc.
Watching real-world content for the review that included streaming media–as well as Blu-ray and UHD discs and more–I was also impressed with the level of detail the DLA-NZ500 delivered during the review. Additionally, I thought the images were bright enough to combat some levels of ambient light, even with a matte-white screen.
I’d also like to emphasize, despite the Filmmaker Mode disabling the imaging processing, I did not notice judder, interlacing artifacts or other issues that may take away from image quality.
JVC DLA-NZ500 Final Thoughts
Based on my experience after this review of the DLA-NZ500, I think JVC is doing a great job with giving dealers a high-performance projector at a price point that homeowners can afford. Sure, there are less expensive projectors out there that produce UHD resolutions, but those products won’t touch the image clarity, black levels, color depth and accuracy, and overall picture quality.
Underscoring that value proposition even further, the DLA-NZ500 performed at levels that will rival other, more expensive projectors. Having never tried a JVC projector before, I can see why the brand has a large following of loyal dealers, and now based on that experience, I can without hesitation recommend trying the DLA-NZ500 out for yourself.
The JVC DLA-NZ500 produces balanced, rich images with a lot of detail, which can be found in this scene from “Blade Runner 2049,” starring Ana de Armas. Photo/Bob Archer – CE Pro
