JVC HD-52Z575 52" D-ILA Rear-Projection High-Definition TV

Rating:
Summary: sizing and pricing
Review: Am having a wall unit put in to hold tv. All custom but readymade via Home Depot;Lowes etchave 48" widths 49/7/8 is what your JVC 52" D-ILA measures Right??? I almost decided on the samsung 46" which measures about 40" or less. Their 50" is Just the same 40" wide for they eliminated the wide Black Frame and the 43" became the 46".If one sits 8 feet from tv the 50 and 52" is too big.I have a 17 foot wall and a 2400 sq foot house and I will be 8ft from tv.I love your tv and would have bought it today but only if it were a bit smaller.You are also missing a very important price point.Around $2500.this makes it more affordable and therefore more volume. Samsung sell more dlp sets in 43 inch and 46 inch than the 50s and the 60inchYour styling and quality has everyone with projection lcds BEAT but you are missing the golden opportunity. Sales,Management, and marketing was my professon and without any company pension I retired at 55 yrs old 10 years ago and now live in Florida Ralph Langer Probably nothing will happen but I have given you a multi million $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Idea

Rating:
Summary: JVC D-ILA TV
Review: Got this TV back in August. Love the picture, and the slim profile. Got the HD52Z585(the cabinet is all black). Only problem is that I'm having an HDMI input compatibility issue with my hi-def satellite receiver. JVC has reported this as a problem on their website: http://www.jvc.com/support/support.jsp?pageID=1&item=411. After 3 phone calls to JVC, and waiting a month for service (which never occurred), I contacted the dealer. The store that I bought the TV from has an exchange policy with JVC if there's any problem. So they're bringing a new one tomorrow. Hope it doesn't have the same issue. If it does, I'm asking it be replaced with a different brand.

I've purchased countless JVC products over the years (3 HDTV's, 3 AV Receivers, VCR, 2 DVD Players, CD changer), and have never had a problem with any of them until now. Their customer no-service basically ignored me for a month (which is why I didn't give it 5 stars). So on that alone, this will be my last JVC product. Pity... You would think they would be willing to work with you on a $3000.00 + TV, but I guess not.

If you only use the component jacks for HD, you'll still love this TV. Just make sure a reputable dealer stands behind it if there's a problem.

Rating:
Summary: Beyond DLP - next generation TV
Review: I was impressed with this TV's picture in the showroom - I thought it was better than DLP sets (i.e. Samsung) and similar to plasma sets that cost 2-3x more. But I was a little reticent to purchase this TV due to the fact that its relatively new (released July-04) and there is not much critical feedback. I ended up purchasing the TV from Amazon and its been great. Check out AVS forum for detailed discussions about this TV and the technology behind it.

Rating:
Summary: 52" JVC DiLA TV
Review: Purchased this tv about 3 months ago, and am still very impressed by it. The picture with a high def feed is just incredible, I still find myself just standing and staring at it. But that is also its one drawback, not enough channels are in high def yet. I have dish and you only get 2 maybe 3 channels in high def that are worth watching. Local channels must be picked up using an "off air" antenna you will have to buy and have installed in addition to the dish, I don'y yet have the antenna as I am still trying to decide which to buy. Football / Basketball on ESPN in hi def is really cool.

Also you need to plan on spending another $300 to $600 on off air antennas, DVI to HDMI cables, etc just to get this set up correctly.

Rating:
Summary: Best 720p projection TV available
Review: Purchased this TV from Amazon.com and it was delivered to my
home in just a few days. Absolutely stunning on and off. You
got to see it to believe it!

I did extensive research before purchasing it and looked at DLP, CRT, LCD projection, and LCOS from Sony, Mitsubishi, Samsung, etc. - and this JVC triple-chip LCOS is the clear winner.

It has the brightest output, no rainbow effect ( DLP uses
one chip and a rotating color wheel that sends red, blue, and
green light sequentially to your eye and your brain must create
the color - this causes color artifacts ), no screen door
effect ( LCD projection and DLP both have space around each
pixel which creates a screen door effect if viewed from
a close proximity ). The color decoding is absolutely
incredible. It is like looking at a 52 inch tube!

Only gotcha is that there is an issue with the DVI input which JVC will dispatch an on-site technician to correct. Component
inputs are great right out of the box.

This TV is better than the best DLPs today at one third the price. Buy it - you will be happy. Amazon.com is an authorized
JVC dealer so you get JVC's on site warranty when purchased from
Amazon.com


Rating:
Summary: Great picture if you know what you're doing.
Review: Quick Review:
The HD52575 is a great alternative to DLP for those who pick up on 'rainbowing' (the appearance of trailing rainbow effects caused by a color wheel). The picture quality has the potential to be excellent, however it is pretty poor out of the box. If you have a setup disk or good knowledge of home theater setup, this is hardly a roadblock. The picture is very clear and vibrant once the setup has been completed. Audio is standard for a projection TV, but most people buying this will be running through a receiver anyway. The menus are sub-par, but again, if you're all about picture this is a GREAT buy. It is also the brightest projection TV I've ever seen. It eclipses a number of CRT and Plasma displays. It could do with a few more high-def inputs, but other than that, near perfect.

Detailed Review:
The first thing I noticed when I picked the set up was how light it was. Even for a micro-display projection it was incredibly easy to lift and move. My first thought (which turned out to be correct) was that they sacrificed low-range sound by using smaller speakers and no sub. Over all the cabinet is pretty stylish. There is only a power button on the front and no hidden panel. All of the other controls are located on the right-hand side along with additional inputs. The TV, like most projections, has a warm up time. The JVC's warm up time is a little longer than most for the initial picture, but much quicker for full luminosity. It takes about 70 seconds (90 is advertised on the packed - in warning sheet) to get an initial display, with full brightness in about 2 minutes. An initial setup menu that looked about 6 years too old came up. It was a standard language/time menu. Easy enough. The first thing I did was hook up a Windows Media Center PC via a Monster HDMI to DVI cable. Initial results were not great and I have to admit I was worried I'd be making a trip back to the store that night. I grabbed Return of the King from my DVD case and threw it in the drive. Again, I was worried. The picture was artifacted and the color was good, but not great. I popped into the menu and bumbled around for a bit until I got the hang of their system. All of the menus are serially linked. That is, you have to scroll through each item to navigate. There are menu headings, but they are non selectable, so you can't even jump from one category to another. Very poor design. When I found the picture setup, I noticed that everything was set at 0 with a +-30 range. I immediately hit the Detail control and set it to -30. Anything above -30 adds artificial edge to the picture. This helped a great deal with my media center picture and I was feeling relieved. I began setting up the other controls. First I turned off all of the automatic configurations for gama, noise and color. I then worked on manually configuring the hue and saturation. The TV had very little red push (the over calibration of the red channel to compensate for the bluer grays used by most TV manufacturers these days), so tones looked pretty good. The color and tint did have to be adjusted to get true cyan and magenta (see the end of the review for what worked for me). In the setup I found that the TV had very little overdrive(how far off the edge of the display the actual picture is projected. Most sets project between 5% and 10% over the edge, causing a loss of data but eliminating black bars on smaller source), which was great. The overdrive sat at about 2.5%, which is professional grade all the way. All of my initial calibrations were done using the 'Standard' preset. The TV has only 4 memory allocations for settings, which is unfortunate. I used an RGB filter and a test pattern to verify color correctness, but for most people, eyeballing should be fine. The controls are not graduated as much as they should be (61 total settings for each control), but most people shouldn't have a hard time finding a good balance between all of the settings. After I got it set up properly, I threw Return of the King back in and held my breath. The picture was amazing! From 5' some minor issues could be seen and the MPEG2 format did show its limitations, but at 10', it was a truly great experience! I grabbed a high-definition demo from the Windows Media website at 720p and tried that. Again, the adjustments had worked and all was right with the world. I spent about 3 hours setting up my various inputs to match the quality of the "Standard" preset and I'm very pleased with the picture.

Breakdown

Picture:
Initially very poor. The detail seting on the TV is over-weighted. Turning it to -30 is the only way to eliminate all artificial edges. Color is OK, but can be improved. Brightness needs to be toned down and contrast adjusted to acheive the best picture. There is no true gray temperature, only high and low. Low allows for a more accurate color representation, however many people are now used to the bluer gray tones so it's up to you. The dynamic settings can really mess up a good DVD when they start over correcting, but they can be turned off. Very low overdrive means you're getting the most information from your media. Over all, befor adjustment *** out of 5 stars and after, ****1/2 out of 5 stars.

Sound:
Passible mids and highs. Very minimal lows. I didn't spend much time on this since I run through an external receiver. One neat feature is the ability to use the TV speakers as a center channel. They are more than capable to drive voice and it's a good way to get a more true-to-theater audio experience. *** out of 5 stars.

Setup:
Setup is a pain. The menus are not intuitive nor are they complete. The visual style of the menus are about 6 years out of date at best. * out of 5 stars.

Other:
One complaint I read about the TV was fan noise. It is definitely present, but mostly unnoticable in a large room. There is not enough polution to be an issue.
Viewing angle is very high for a rear projection. The horizontal angle is very wide and the picture can be seen very well by everyone seated in a standard room. To preserve the intensity of the picture while keeping the viewing angle wide, it has been narrowed slightly on the verticle plane. Standing next to the TV, the picture is noticably dimmer, however as soon as you get your eye level below the top of the set, the picture jumps to life. The ammount of light driven by the set is amazing. But because of that, you do want to have some ambient light in the room.

Value:
A very good value when compared to competing technologies. High picture fidelity and low entry cost make this TV a great value. **** out of 5 stars.

Tech Info:
Here are the settings I used on the HDMI input to get a truer picture:
Tint +1
Color -8
Picture +8
Bright -27
Detail -30
Temperature: Low
All automatic settings OFF.