Does JVC's E-shift live up to the hype?

nightrider1470 · 3 Jul 2013 at 14:56

Am looking to buy a projector and after decent blacks so JVC seems a good choice. There is a huge price difference from the jvc x35 to x75 or even the x30 to x70.

So my question is does E-shift live up to the hype and warrant the extra cost.

I do all ready own a darbee so wondering which root to take

Warbie · 3 Jul 2013 at 15:14

Hi mate. I'm in a similar boat - have a darbee and use it with a HD-750 and have been thinking about upgrading for a while now. I've demoed the x70 and x75 and both are lovely. Re. e-shift, it certainly adds something to the picture, more so than the darbee I reckon, but still not a huge amount. Whether it's worth the extra cost is very subjective. The thing that has me most tempted is that it will likely allow for a shorter viewing distance. Going back to the projectors - they were excellent, but not that much better than what I currently have. That's worth bearing in mind when you come to make your decision - if your room isn't a well treated batcave and/or if you don't plan on sitting between 1 to 1.5 screen widths away, you'd most likely get better value for money with the cheaper models.

I'm leaning towards the new Sony's atm - the vw95es or whatever replaces the HW30ES - over the cheaper JVCs.

nightrider1470 · 3 Jul 2013 at 17:19

Thanks

I have a 134" screen and sit 13ft from the screen. Is considered extremely close?

Warbie · 3 Jul 2013 at 17:32

heh nice - that's pretty close. You would see the benefit in e-shift at that distance

You have to get right up close to see the pixel structure. The other thing that's very cool is being able to adjust the pixels to the tiniest increment and in individual parts of the image. Blue is off a tiny bit at the top right - just adjust it up there without hitting everything else. Just out of interest - do you have issues powering such a large screen? The only way I was happy with the brightness on mine (13' from 120") was by batcaving the room and by using a screen with a 2.8 gain. It looks like a massive plasma floating in space!

nightrider1470 · 3 Jul 2013 at 20:29

My back wall is a dark brown colour and my screen has been painted with black widow pant (grey)

I am really impulsive and have to everything now!!!!!....... Gona try and keep saving and wait till September as lots of projectors out then including the Optoma HD91 and Sony HW60ES but have a feeling they are going to be over my budget!

Lowe · 4 Jul 2013 at 09:23

But what about the rest of the room. 134" is huge for a home cinema projector and with a grey screen too you'll not get a bright enough image. Whilst the JVC's are great you only get the blacks benefit with a sensibly sized screen and proper bat cave environment. You'll be paying for something you'll never see.

Warbie · 4 Jul 2013 at 09:36

Agreed. A black widow screen - I had one a few years back - will struggle at that size with any of the current consumer JVC models. And that's with a brand new bulb - wait till the lumens drop off by 50% as the bulb ages. The improvement in contrast with the higher end models, which is largely what you're paying the extra for, will be lost too unless you have dark ceilings/carpets/walls (preferably black fabric etc). Go for one of the Sony's or one of the lower end JVCs (or get a high power screen and watch your lumens more than double

)

Lowe · 4 Jul 2013 at 09:58

I went for the Epson 9000 to get around this - my living room isn't ideal so was advised against the JVCs. On demoing I could see why, and it came down to the Epson or Sony. I got a better deal at the time on the Epson and I've not regretted it.