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Reviewed by Phil Hinton
The JVC DLA-HD550 takes up the mantle left by its out going model and adds in some newer features such as CMD and screen adjust. It offers an excellent out of the box greyscale and gamma performance. Its super quiet and offers class leading native contrast and black level performance. Images look deep and detailed in the darker reaches with only the wide colour gamut producing some concerns in terms of saturation and hue errors. Faces can appear a little sun burnt or overly rosy and sadly there is no way to resolve this. However, for those wanting vivid images that are not completely accurate, but pleasing to their eye, will not find any issue with the HD550. Overall, even with the slight issues this is still the projector to beat for overall image quality at the price point as things stand and as such its highly recommended you go and see one. Read the full review...
Excellent review Phil, very useful, thank you for your efforts.
One question I have; in your opinion, given you have now fully reviewed both the HD950 and the HD550, (colour calibration issues aside) is the HD950 worth the extra money in picture quality terms, particularly given that the extra cash would go most of the way towards a decent dedicated video processor that (I assume) should be able to correct the colour gamut issues?
Do you think this combo could give a better overall image quality to the HD950 alone?
Once again Phil an excellent and very detailed review, my hats off to you for doing these as I`m sure quite a lot of members decisions are based on your reviews and comments
I`m actually beginning to think now that full ISF calibrating is the way to go so your comments are now influencing me as well.
Once again thanks for a great and indepth review which I read thoroughly several times.
With a decent colour preset, and a lower price, the HD550 could have cleaned up on the market which the current good Panasonic PJs are aimed at, leaving the HD950 to take on Sony's offerings.
Instead JVC are barely reacting to the market - they've hamstrung the performance in order to leave the HD950 with a clearly better spec - but they're in danger of effectively trying to maintain the price and performance of an HD1 equivalent in a market where the competition is improving rapidly.
JVC may have a significant step forward in the pipeline to lift the performance of their entire range, but I have the feeling that this time next year the HD650(or whatever) will have the same spec, but with full CMS and a lower price to remain competitive. It's a pity JVC didn't take the initiative this year - it's worked well for them in the past!
Another excellent review Phil, covering everything that is often left out in many magazine reviews. Dissapointing that JVC didn't see fit to make at least one preset that gives close to accurate colour, though I understand there is different hardware in the 550 and 950 models (as was with the 350 and 750 models) so perhaps without this hardware even a 'fixed' CMS wouldn't be possible, though one does wonder why they can't use the same PCB in both models. There does appear to be little change from the HD350, so probably not a worthwhile upgrade even for a serial upgrader like me (plus as I posted earlier in the owners thread, I'm still very happy with mine).
Last edited by KelvinS1965; 12-02-2010 at 9:05 AM.
Reason: typos
I really like the looks etc of the 550, but having to spend £4000 on a pj and knowing the colour is not on par would bug me beyond believe.
Having an inexpensive external CMS on the horizon is good news but your pushing the price up toward the 950 territory with having to buy extra components.
Great pj, but the lack of CMS has me looking else where.
Spotted the colour problem immediately when JVC demonstrated the HD550 at Frank Harvey at their open day. The big fight scene in the fields on the latest film version of The Hulk showed that the greens are still verging on neon. It's a shame that something which has been a problem with their projectors since the HD1 is still plaguing their projectors today.
Fortunately for JVC they also make the HD950 which is the best picture I've ever seen. Very pleased (and some would say smug) owner of one now due to being that impressed with it.
Apart from buying an external CMS unit, the other method of taming the colour gamot is with filters. As Blue is the closest, a Blue filter could be used to pull in the Red and Green.
Question: Is there a way of working out how strong a filter to use ...
Full HD 1920 x 1080 D-ILA
E. & O.E.