[The News Bot]

Reviewed by Phil Hinton
The JVC HD990 offers a slight step up in overall contrast and image depth over the HD950 as well as a nicer sharpness to the lens performance. It's going to be a limited product and suited to the custom installation market because of this. It also has to be used in the right conditions in terms of environment to squeeze every last drop of performance over the HD950. It's not for everyone, but it is a seriously good projector that those lucky enough to afford it will love. It offers a very slight yet very noticable improvement over the Reference level HD950.
Read the full review...

[IAN P]

Thanks Phil, great read. £3,500 over the 950, damn, is it really that good?


AVFORUMS hits the mark again.


14 grand excluding screen+installation. That narrows it down to about 6 folks on here.

[Phil Hinton]

LOL, yeah it's expensive and limited in market appeal (excluding the CI market of course). But it is always good to see what is happening at the higher end so you get an idea of what might next year be common place tech. Glad you enjoyed the review, we can all aspire to greatness even if the bank manager keeps our feet on the ground.

[IAN P]

Originally Posted by Phil Hinton

we can all aspire to greatness even if the bank manager keeps our feet on the ground.

Ain't that the truth. Lotto win is the only viable option.

No chance there then.

Oh well, another product to drool about.

[neil.schneider]

Hi Phil,
Thanks for a great review and all the hard work. As an owner of this projector I can say that the picture is fantastic, dark scenes are a jaw dropping experience, detail is excellent. As far as being worth the difference over the cost of the RS 950/25, over here in the states the cost over the 750 was not very much (under $1000). So to me it was a no brainer going for the 990/35. Coming from the rs2 has this has been a great upgrade, and the rs2 was no slouch either. Thanks again for confirming my thoughts, as all the other pro reviewers have done.

Neil

[Tight Git]

Originally Posted by IAN P

14 grand excluding screen+installation. That narrows it down to about 6 folks on here.

Alas, TG isn't one of them.

Thanks for another excellent review, Phil.

I think the law of diminishing returns has set in with a vengeance here.

I was happy to buy the HD750 over the HD350 (especially at the end-of-line price) but I really think the extra for the HD990 over the HD950 is very difficult to justify.

Still, if money's no object...

[KelvinS1965]

As usual a thorough review by Phil, which saves me buying a magazine to read some PR fluff regurgitated and re-written. I like the comparison to the Sony VW85 as that would be one of the main alternatives. I'm still loving my HD350 (with added external CMS nowadays) but I still like to read up about what's new, as you never know what might pop up in the classifieds in a year or two as I wouldn't have dreamt of buying my Arcam AV9 when it was new and first reviewed priced at £3,500.

I'm interested to know what would be the next jump over the HD990. If the 20,000:1 contrast difference (and optimised lens/optics) makes a visible difference from the HD950 would the next model have to go over 100,000:1 (native) to show a similar improvement?

I wonder whether historically this will become viewed as the pinacle of UHP based projectors and that JVC might move in other (LED/lazer) based directions after this. Perhaps they can squeeze another 20-30,000:1 CR or maybe improve the weaker ANSI contrast of the HDxxx line on the same 'underpinnings', I hope they can as this might bring the HD990 into my budget as a used purchase sooner rather than later seeing how new models push used prices down.

[JonStatt]

It is interesting to note that the US price of the 550 and 950 is not all that different to the UK pricing. The 950 costs 8000 USD. But the 990 is about half the difference above the 950 in the US than the UK, costing only 2000 US dollars more. In other words, we are paying an extra extra premium for a 990 in the UK. In fact the difference is also less in other countries in Europe, so if someone is thinking about buying a 990, they may want to evaluate buying it somewhere else within the EU (to ensure warranty).

[Danielsan]

Thanks Phil for your excellent comment, first of all say new to the forum, about to buy the JVC HD 990 but I have great doubt whether the 3D comes out very soon, thank you very much.http://www.avforums.com/forums/image...ies/please.gif

[JohnWH]

Phil,

any idea how this compares to the new Sim2 LED based unit?

Thanks,
John.