JVC DLA-NZ8 4K Laser Projector Review & Comments

I think just buy UK. Even if you have to get an NZ7 rather than an NZ8.

JVCs are known to fail, especially brand new with the DD board thing from last gen. Last thing you want is vertical striples 1-2 years from now on or something similar. They're already known to be one of the worst companies to get support from.

Objective testing wise, NZ7 vs NZ8 doesn't seem huge from a calibrated light output perspective surprisingly and the contrast measurements if opened up look similar so it wouldn't be the end of the world.
Agree with this. Check over on the other forum and you’ll see lots of issues right out of the box. No guarantee you’d get a decent sample and no way to test it until you’re home.
 
Agree with this. Check over on the other forum and you’ll see lots of issues right out of the box. No guarantee you’d get a decent sample and no way to test it until you’re home.

I almost think with JVC, its just better to go second hand. Let someone else run in the unit, normally vertical stripes and DD failures or terrible bright corners will be picked up by a good owner and sorted or returned.

I'd be much more worried buying a boxed never-used JVC N5/N7/N9 without warranty than one which has 2000 hours on its milage from someone who knows what they're doing with projectors.
 
I know it's not everyone's first priority but can anyone comment on a perceivable difference upscaling 4k to 8k when using eshiftx on the nz8 vs the eshift on the nz7? I've yet to hear any real evaluation of this or simply displaying a native 8k signal x vs non x. The only comparisons were on screens far too small to appreciate 8k. I'd like to hear at least 150 inch comparisons or zoomed in on smaller screen comparisons.
 
I know it's not everyone's first priority but can anyone comment on a perceivable difference upscaling 4k to 8k when using eshiftx on the nz8 vs the eshift on the nz7? I've yet to hear any real evaluation of this or simply displaying a native 8k signal x vs non x. The only comparisons were on screens far too small to appreciate 8k. I'd like to hear at least 150 inch comparisons or zoomed in on smaller screen comparisons.
Better got still images, not really any difference whilst in motion.

The eshift does also make a noise which you might be susceptible too.
 
Better got still images, not really any difference whilst in motion.

The eshift does also make a noise which you might be susceptible too.
The e-shift on my NZ8 when I’ve tested it makes more noise than the fan! Will be interesting to see how it sounds once up.
 
The e-shift on my NZ8 when I’ve tested it makes more noise than the fan! Will be interesting to see how it sounds once up.
You need to copy my hush box mate and it will be silent! 😎
 
Can you elaborate or give pics of your hush box?

Page 80, then a few adaptations up until one a couple of weeks ago.

NX9 on high lamp is now virtually silent. Low lamp is totally silent
 
HI Steve
I have a fully black home theater with a 135 inch 2:35:1 screen and looking to upgrade to either a JVC NZ8 or Sony VPL-XW7000ES i can purchase either of these projectors for around the exact same price which would you recommend i like both but cannot decide
thanks
 
HI Steve
I have a fully black home theater with a 135 inch 2:35:1 screen and looking to upgrade to either a JVC NZ8 or Sony VPL-XW7000ES i can purchase either of these projectors for around the exact same price which would you recommend i like both but cannot decide
thanks
nz8
 
HI Steve
I have a fully black home theater with a 135 inch 2:35:1 screen and looking to upgrade to either a JVC NZ8 or Sony VPL-XW7000ES i can purchase either of these projectors for around the exact same price which would you recommend i like both but cannot decide
thanks
You should be looking to demo if you are considering both, preferably at home in your own cinema, ideally with a calibrator on hand if possible!
 
HI Steve
I have a fully black home theater with a 135 inch 2:35:1 screen and looking to upgrade to either a JVC NZ8 or Sony VPL-XW7000ES i can purchase either of these projectors for around the exact same price which would you recommend i like both but cannot decide
thanks
XW7000: 3200 lumens, 14kg
NZ8: 2500 lumens, 23.1kg!

The NZ8 is huge and heavy. That is not to be underestimated.
I think Sony played a blinder by keeping the mass down to something half sensible with the XW's.
 
HI Steve
I have a fully black home theater with a 135 inch 2:35:1 screen and looking to upgrade to either a JVC NZ8 or Sony VPL-XW7000ES i can purchase either of these projectors for around the exact same price which would you recommend i like both but cannot decide
thanks

There's probably some bias here considering its a NZ8 thread but I would vote NZ8 based on Sony's history of panel degradation would put me off from them.
 
Has anybody seen this 'shootout' between the NZ7 and Sony XW600ES? In my eyes, the Sony looks better (Although I appreciate that the material is Sony content). It made me reassess my next projector choice. Shame we don't get the 6000 in the EU, but it's definitely worth thinking about the Sony. I'm sure both would be amazing but it may be worth seeing if you can find a similar shootout for the NZ8/XW7000 and, as people have suggested, get a real-world demo

 
Can't say I'm Shane's biggest fan, but here's something at least:

 
Has anybody seen this 'shootout' between the NZ7 and Sony XW600ES? In my eyes, the Sony looks better (Although I appreciate that the material is Sony content). It made me reassess my next projector choice. Shame we don't get the 6000 in the EU, but it's definitely worth thinking about the Sony. I'm sure both would be amazing but it may be worth seeing if you can find a similar shootout for the NZ8/XW7000 and, as people have suggested, get a real-world demo

Anybody saying that the Sony has better black levels is not to be trusted as far as I am concerned, ignoring everything else it’s the one thing everyone knows JVC is the best for. This alone in the comments is a red flag “They are both very good projectors. We have since calibrated our JVC and the panel alignment made a big difference in the color accuracy. Thank you so much for watching and for your support. Let us know if we can help you out with the purchase of any products.

Divineavinc@gmail”

It’s like on the other forum someone claiming the Epson had better contrast and then eventually they admit they had some wacky gamma and contrast settings to oversaturate the Epson.

I’d suggest asking some people who’ve seen both properly calibrated and they will give you your answer. Let’s just say I had the choice between the NZ8 and the XW7000 and got the JVC.

Not fired it up properly yet though so who knows maybe I’ll regret it but I doubt it!

That being said both good projectors so pick the one which gives you the contrast, black levels, motion, sharpness and brightness you are happy with.
 
Anybody saying that the Sony has better black levels is not to be trusted as far as I am concerned, ignoring everything else it’s the one thing everyone knows JVC is the best for. This alone in the comments is a red flag “They are both very good projectors. We have since calibrated our JVC and the panel alignment made a big difference in the color accuracy. Thank you so much for watching and for your support. Let us know if we can help you out with the purchase of any products.

Divineavinc@gmail”

It’s like on the other forum someone claiming the Epson had better contrast and then eventually they admit they had some wacky gamma and contrast settings to oversaturate the Epson.

I’d suggest asking some people who’ve seen both properly calibrated and they will give you your answer. Let’s just say I had the choice between the NZ8 and the XW7000 and got the JVC.

Not fired it up properly yet though so who knows maybe I’ll regret it but I doubt it!

That being said both good projectors so pick the one which gives you the contrast, black levels, motion, sharpness and brightness you are happy with.


They don't know what they're talking about as you said. You can tell by the black level comment and the panel alignment comment. I've seen so many reviews from them and its embarrassing. Really likeable but their assessments are so off the mark and they're clearly technically a very limited company when it comes to proper calibration.

Has anybody seen this 'shootout' between the NZ7 and Sony XW600ES? In my eyes, the Sony looks better (Although I appreciate that the material is Sony content). It made me reassess my next projector choice. Shame we don't get the 6000 in the EU, but it's definitely worth thinking about the Sony. I'm sure both would be amazing but it may be worth seeing if you can find a similar shootout for the NZ8/XW7000 and, as people have suggested, get a real-world demo



Just view both in person.

You will either like Sony's brighter picture, sharper image, better noise (db) levels, form factor & better motion or JVC's better contrast, black levels, HDR tone mapping & installation modes.

Both are in the top tier of projection.
 
These guys got absolutely roasted in the US. There's a big projector nerd fest in the mid west and the overwhelming majority of blind taste testers picked the JVC - it also seems to be the choice of a few respected calibrators too.

I've had somewhat daily use with both brands, from the entry level models and up the the Sony GTZ 380 and then beyond that stuff with modified Christie's and of course the mac daddy of all the Christie Eclipse.

What it really comes down to is wether you prefer DLP to Lcos. Yes aot of Sony's have had panel degradation and yes a lot of JVC have had some panel problems - we've measure NZ9s with substantial varying numbers and uniformity.

Fortunately, most of it you'd never actually see, you're more likely to have problems from your room environment that is much more detrimental than the fear mongering drivel you read on forums.

Demo both, pick the one you like best none of them can delineate 4k properly anyway, but content is so poor that again, you'd never see it.
 
These guys got absolutely roasted in the US. There's a big projector nerd fest in the mid west and the overwhelming majority of blind taste testers picked the JVC - it also seems to be the choice of a few respected calibrators too.

I've had somewhat daily use with both brands, from the entry level models and up the the Sony GTZ 380 and then beyond that stuff with modified Christie's and of course the mac daddy of all the Christie Eclipse.

What it really comes down to is wether you prefer DLP to Lcos. Yes aot of Sony's have had panel degradation and yes a lot of JVC have had some panel problems - we've measure NZ9s with substantial varying numbers and uniformity.

Fortunately, most of it you'd never actually see, you're more likely to have problems from your room environment that is much more detrimental than the fear mongering drivel you read on forums.

Demo both, pick the one you like best none of them can delineate 4k properly anyway, but content is so poor that again, you'd never see it.


I wouldn't say the bright corners are fear mongering to be fair mate.

I think its more akin to OLED grey scale 5% banding. Its there, and if you're a perfectionist - its extremely irritating but it seems to be a limitation of the technology.

Fear mongering would (for me) allude to it affecting a small sample size or being essentially a made-up flaw. I think neither. Its there, its on every single N/NZ (with laser dimming disabled obviously) series sample I've seen [to varying degrees] and its clearly exposed with a simple test. Is it a big deal? Well thats all subjective. I don't think it is, and I think its way more palatable than OLED banding or LCD screen DSE or Epson's innate low contrast or Sony's contrast degradation BUT.. it is there. And its clear to see and it falls in line with the quantitative photos I'd asked for.

Extending this to someone buying a JVC projector, I'd absolutely respect someone who asked for a bright corner test OR asked for a contrast measurement at the CENTRE of the image and at the edges - this isn't fear mongering, this is just accepting the honest reality and limitation of the technology.

But then again, some people think 5% greyscale banding on an OLED isn't a big deal and they hardly see it. I just bought one from a user who swears he couldn't see it (and I believe him) but I can detect it on the content I personally use to run an OLED through its paces.

I was in a dealer's room, he was showing me a JVC and saying 'look, no bright spots' with a proud smile on his face (we'd spoken via email about it) - and I was really confused by his confidence given I could clearly see one on the top left.
 
I wouldn't say the bright corners are fear mongering to be fair mate.

I think its more akin to OLED grey scale 5% banding. Its there, and if you're a perfectionist - its extremely irritating but it seems to be a limitation of the technology.

Fear mongering would (for me) allude to it affecting a small sample size or being essentially a made-up flaw. I think neither. Its there, its on every single N/NZ (with laser dimming disabled obviously) series sample I've seen [to varying degrees] and its clearly exposed with a simple test. Is it a big deal? Well thats all subjective. I don't think it is, and I think its way more palatable than OLED banding or LCD screen DSE or Epson's innate low contrast or Sony's contrast degradation BUT.. it is there. And its clear to see and it falls in line with the quantitative photos I'd asked for.

Extending this to someone buying a JVC projector, I'd absolutely respect someone who asked for a bright corner test OR asked for a contrast measurement at the CENTRE of the image and at the edges - this isn't fear mongering, this is just accepting the honest reality and limitation of the technology.

But then again, some people think 5% greyscale banding on an OLED isn't a big deal and they hardly see it. I just bought one from a user who swears he couldn't see it (and I believe him) but I can detect it on the content I personally use to run an OLED through its paces.

I was in a dealer's room, he was showing me a JVC and saying 'look, no bright spots' with a proud smile on his face (we'd spoken via email about it) - and I was really confused by his confidence given I could clearly see one on the top left.
I think the one thing with that is if you have a scope screen like a large number of people seem to then you wouldn’t be able to see the bright corners as it would be off screen ;). Also if you have an ALR screen or high gain then those hotspot in the centre and darken at the edges so it probably equals out a bit on those
 
I think the one thing with that is if you have a scope screen like a large number of people seem to then you wouldn’t be able to see the bright corners as it would be off screen ;). Also if you have an ALR screen or high gain then those hotspot in the centre and darken at the edges so it probably equals out a bit on those

I use scope screen sometimes and they're still here if you want to find them.

TBH if you're using an ALR screen, then uniformity clearly isn't a priority lol rather than just fighting light pouring into the room :D.
 
I wouldn't say the bright corners are fear mongering to be fair mate.

I think its more akin to OLED grey scale 5% banding. Its there, and if you're a perfectionist - its extremely irritating but it seems to be a limitation of the technology.

It kinda is, the way it gets tossed around the forums. The fact is, it's a bi-product of the technology and it has a variance of fine to bad, which is factored into all manufactured displays. With content even the bad ones are missed by nearly every one until it's pointed out on full black, which is let's face it, practically 0% of a movie.

Fear mongering would (for me) allude to it affecting a small sample size or being essentially a made-up flaw. I think neither. Its there, its on every single N/NZ (with laser dimming disabled obviously) series sample I've seen [to varying degrees] and its clearly exposed with a simple test. Is it a big deal? Well thats all subjective. I don't think it is, and I think its way more palatable than OLED banding or LCD screen DSE or Epson's innate low contrast or Sony's contrast degradation BUT.. it is there. And its clear to see and it falls in line with the quantitative photos I'd asked for.

I think the overwhelming majority use laser dimming and therefore mitigating the problem, it's not made up - it's one of several bad flaws JVC have, like the contrast variance, and ropey HDMI, but again most people wouldn't be aware of it for 2 reasons. Content and their room - without at least a 2m wide black hole cove around your screen the image is compromised badly beyond these design flaws imo, especially with higher light output models.

Pretty easy to demonstrate too.

Extending this to someone buying a JVC projector, I'd absolutely respect someone who asked for a bright corner test OR asked for a contrast measurement at the CENTRE of the image and at the edges - this isn't fear mongering, this is just accepting the honest reality and limitation of the technology.

No retailer for the most part is going to pull a brand new unit out of the box, test it, give you the results and let you decide if you want it or not. They can however sell it to you, you can kick off about it and have said retailer send their measurements to JVC, at which point they might not even be remotely interested - in fact you'd have to get hold of the head of UK distribution to contest something like that generally speaking.


But then again, some people think 5% greyscale banding on an OLED isn't a big deal and they hardly see it. I just bought one from a user who swears he couldn't see it (and I believe him) but I can detect it on the content I personally use to run an OLED through its paces.

Is that content movies tho? I can make projectors over £100,000 show flaws up (and I'm sure I could do it with TV's as well) for example as mentioned, no JVC can delineate 4K properly, but again... content and context.

I was in a dealer's room, he was showing me a JVC and saying 'look, no bright spots' with a proud smile on his face (we'd spoken via email about it) - and I was really confused by his confidence given I could clearly see one on the top left.

Did you tell him? Don't forget that 'once seen can never be unseen' is very powerful. I can see laser speckle all day long and a few other things that I didn't even know the names of until a few months ago.

The very real truth is that JVC make really good projectors most of the time, nearly all of the time users don't see things discussed on forums and in the case of Sony they don't see the panel degrade either, until usually an upgrade down the line.

I was in a guys house with stacked projectors that had drifted, not subjectively badly either, it was like 3d without the glasses and when I asked when he was going to line them up again he said 'what?'

Suffice to say they're lined up now.
 
It kinda is, the way it gets tossed around the forums. The fact is, it's a bi-product of the technology and it has a variance of fine to bad, which is factored into all manufactured displays. With content even the bad ones are missed by nearly every one until it's pointed out on full black, which is let's face it, practically 0% of a movie.



I think the overwhelming majority use laser dimming and therefore mitigating the problem, it's not made up - it's one of several bad flaws JVC have, like the contrast variance, and ropey HDMI, but again most people wouldn't be aware of it for 2 reasons. Content and their room - without at least a 2m wide black hole cove around your screen the image is compromised badly beyond these design flaws imo, especially with higher light output models.

Pretty easy to demonstrate too.



No retailer for the most part is going to pull a brand new unit out of the box, test it, give you the results and let you decide if you want it or not. They can however sell it to you, you can kick off about it and have said retailer send their measurements to JVC, at which point they might not even be remotely interested - in fact you'd have to get hold of the head of UK distribution to contest something like that generally speaking.




Is that content movies tho? I can make projectors over £100,000 show flaws up (and I'm sure I could do it with TV's as well) for example as mentioned, no JVC can delineate 4K properly, but again... content and context.



Did you tell him? Don't forget that 'once seen can never be unseen' is very powerful. I can see laser speckle all day long and a few other things that I didn't even know the names of until a few months ago.

The very real truth is that JVC make really good projectors most of the time, nearly all of the time users don't see things discussed on forums and in the case of Sony they don't see the panel degrade either, until usually an upgrade down the line.

I was in a guys house with stacked projectors that had drifted, not subjectively badly either, it was like 3d without the glasses and when I asked when he was going to line them up again he said 'what?'

Suffice to say they're lined up now.

Yes, you can see the bright corners in some challenging content. It's well documented on AVS too. Its mainly fade to black scenes of course or very very very dark scenes. With a laser (if engaged), the fade to black isn't an issue which is awesome. A paper test or a contrast measurement at the middle of the screen and then the 4 corners will quantify it. Whether someone's eyes see it - meh... many factors at play.

I'm not stating a retailer check for us. When I mentioned contrast measurements, I meant for the second hand market. Buying new, you just need to suck it up or return in the first 30 days under UK law if its really bad as I'm sure contesting with JVC for bother the owner and the retailer must be very very tough. JVC must know the issue is there but they also know accepting it will set an insane precedent.

I think users not noticing flaws is fine. Heck, I'm sure a lot of people dread to even check for bright corners and would rather enjoy their kit. I'm certainly of that mind these days as playing lottery on a good sample is a horrible task.

However I also think recognising users who do recognise the flaws should be respected too and not just labelled as fear-mongering. As I said, for me is like OLED's 5% banding or a FALD TVs backlight/banding/grid pattern. Its there and its a technological limitation. I'm just not a fan of sweeping it under the carpet. Easier to be honest about it to set user expectations.

Otherwise we have some users and retailers running around saying its not an issue, no one notices, their projectors are perfect - which leaves users who are less rosy with their words a little perplexed and worried about their units being defective (when they're not).
 
All fair points I guess but just not a representative of the real world use. No display is perfect, they all have tolerances in their QC.

Also no one knows the percentage of truly defective, outside of tolerance units as the only info is a handful of forum users which is a tiny percentage of total units sold.

The RS2100 I've been watching has had nothing jump out at me, other than the uniformity drift (again with test patterns) the RS3100 I own has better convergence also. I don't see any bright corners either and I had laser dimming off till firmware 2.0 because, it was shite beforehand.

I have measured variable contrast in the RS4100 and the gap can be pretty wide, but without them being side by side in a blacked out room and not torture testing them with test patterns, I would not like to try a blind test personally.

So while we can acknowledge the shortcomings, I think it needs to be viewed through an objective lens rather than the doomsaying that I've read where the main message has been 'they're all shit'

If anything it should be tighter QC, but try getting parts for anything since covid, it's insane.
 

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