Who Knows D-ILA?

[Bob]

My wife and I went over to a friends house to see their recently completed HT and was impressed by their projector. It was a JVC D-ILA projector and I liked it all most as much as most CRT projectors that I have seen. Since my wife has been asking me about when are we going to get a front projector that is hdtv compatable I have been starting to look into them more seriously. My question is this, my friend told me that the only problem with his projector is that it is only compatible with a htpc and a couple of DVD players, not most. Any truth to that?

[George Bellefontaine]

I don't think that's accurate, Bob. D-ILA has a good reputation for quality of picture and high contrast compared to lcd and dlp. I do know that early models were noisy. They create a lot of heat. Also the lamps used to have a short life and were very expensive.

The July issue of Widescreen Review has an article and review of a JVC D-ILA projector. I haven't read it as yet, but if you have a copy it may answer some of your questions.

Cheers,
George




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[Brandon B]

If you think you might be interested one real soon, AVS is closing out some JVC G15 B stocks for a pretty good discount (~$6800 vs $8000+ normal street price).

As George says, there should not be any compatibility issues with any sources. I have seen some discussions whether there is any point to using an HTPC with the Hitachi 5500, which uses a D-ILA type engine, but the question was whether it was worth the trouble, not if it would work.

The cool JVC is the G150CL. It is the one they are pushing for studio screening rooms, and comes fairly well calibrated right out of the box. Sells for about $14K though.

BB

[Daryl Furkalo]

I think your friend might be referring to the inputs on the projector. Most projectors don't have component inputs, VGA only, so you have to feed it with a DVD player that has a VGA out, or your HTPC. There are ways around that with component->VGA transcoders, line doublers/quads, etc.

[JonMarsh]

Bob,

Your friend is correct, in terms of reaching the projector's potential. The D-ILA projectors do have a scaler built in for conventional video sources, but it REALLY isn't a very good one- that may even be a charitable comment. The best performance out of one of those beasts will be achieved by driving it on the RGB inputs with a "native" 1368X1024 signal. Then, they can really shine. They do OK downscaling HDTV inputs, too. But 480i or 480P really leaves a lot to be desired in termsof their potential. The scaling done by an HTPC works much, MUCH better, but they're a little tricky to setup for correct dot phase and exact timing to be optimum with the D-ILA units. The PowerStrip utility has these timings built in, so it's the "hot ticket" to get a GeForce or Radeon card setup for D-ILA.

With conventional 480i or 480P, for example, a Sony 10HT or 11HT is a better bet.

One other issue with the JVC's is noise; a hush box is a good idea. Also, they generally do benefit a great deal from calibration; there are a few specialists who do that.

Bottom line; they're a very "hi-fi" projector once you get them setup right, but they're not what I would call "plug'n'play".

Regards,

Jon




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[Bob]

Jon,
Thanks for the info.
Your answer seems to mimic what he was saying. Also, you are right about needing to be blimped for sound, which was the case at his house.
He also said that it was a real pain to set up and that it had been calibrated. Several times he mentioned by whom like I should have recognized the name but, didn't.
Is it true that the bulbs have a short life? That is my main gripe with CRT and was hoping to get away from that.

[JonMarsh]

The D-ILA projectors use a Xenon lamp which is great quality from the light spectra viewpoint- excellent color balance. However, they are expensive (I've heard around $800). Bulb life is about 1000 hours. CRT projectors, if setup carefully and NOT running in maximum overdrive mode (they way they are typically delivered) should run between 5,000 and 10,000 hours- but then the rebuild is pretty expensive. And time and labor consuming, whereas popping in a new lamp (as long as you didn't wait until the old one literally "blew up") is pretty straight forward.

-Jon




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[Wireless]

William Phelps is the top calibrator for LCOS based projectors. You can also buy Dillard and a sensor and do a pretty good job yourself as it is software based. Users have reported significant improvements in contrast and black level using Dillard. The thing that William offers that Dillard can't supply is adjustment of the polarizing plates which can sometimes be out of alignment. If you want to improve the out of box performance either the software or Williams services are almost mandatory. The 150 is precalibrated and has a better scaler, but you can acheive the same level of performance for much less. Out of the box most of the numbers I have seen for G10,G11, G15, and G20s are somewhere around 250-400:1 contrast ratios. After calibration 600-900:1




John
My HT Picts