Looking at 61" LCoS JVC HD-61FN97 (1 Viewer)

[Bryan X]

I'm in the market to replace my 53" CRT HDTV this year. Right now I'm really interested in this 61" JVD HD-ILA.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1138084694149

We are adding on to our house and the new construction won't be done until June or July. So I don't really need to get the TV right now. My question is, when do the new models come out? I've seen this TV for anywhere from $2,099 to $2,399 but don't want to buy now if the new models will be coming out about the time I'll be finishing construction of the new addition to the house. Wait or buy now?

Anyone here who has this TV -- what are the good and the bad?

 

[Ed Moxley]

I don't know when the new ones come out, but that is exactly the tv I want! I haven't seen an HD picture, on any tv, that will compare. Closest one is the Sony SXRD. Unless they have stopped doing it, Best Buy usually gives you the matching stand, along with it. If they don't want to, I'd push them for it.......

Things I like about it are you don't need to worry about burn-in, no rainbow effect, very bright pic, even in well lit room. Whenever you get one, as soon as you hook it up, turn down the contrast and brightness, until you can properly calibrate it.

You can email JVC and ask them when the new models come out.
Good luck!

If you are one of the very rich, you can send me one!

 

[Bryan X]

I always properly calibrate my TVs (turning down the contrast and brightness on my CRT HDTV was the first thing I did), but I'm curious as to why you say to immediately turn down the contrast and brightness. LCoS don't suffer from burn-in so is there some other reason?

 

[Tom Keels]

Because they look awful if you don't.

 

[Ed Moxley]

Turning it down some also lengthens the life of the bulb some. With the price of replacement bulbs, every little bit helps. It would with me anyway.......

 

[Bryan X]

I realize that. Ed's post made me think there was a burn-in type issue, hence my question.



Thanks Ed. Makes sense about the bulb. Those are pricey.

 

[lloydMon]

I bought one about a month ago from Best Buy for $1900, including the stand. So far, so good....

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Actually the bulb runs at the same intensity regardless of user settings for contrast or brightness. Some sets have a "power saver" feature that actually does make the lamp burn less brightly, which may extend life, but otherwise changing contrast and brightness settings does vastly improve pq in all but the most brightly lit rooms but won't extend bulb life.

Many lcd flat panels have a "backlight" adustment which will extend the life of the backlight, however.

 

[Ed Moxley]

On the newer rear projection tvs, I equate the bulb, with the tube of crt tvs. I may be wrong. I'm going by what I've read at that site, and others. You probably know more about it than me and them.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

This was very true of crt based sets. The brightness of the picture was increased by driving the crts harder (upping the voltage of the electron beam to make the phosphors glow more brightly, thus wearing out the phosphors more quickly). In other words cranking up white level (or contrast) is the analogous to using a dimmer in conjunction with an incandescent light bulb.

On a microdisplay set the lamp is not used to vary brightness. These are high pressure mercury vapor lamps designed to produce an even color spectrum and they can only do so at one or two fixed levels of brightness.

When one of these lamp based sets is turned on the lamp takes a while to warm up and produce it's designed fixed level of brightness. It starts out very dim and can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 or 4 minutes to reach it's designed brightness. Until this brightness is achieved the color spectrum produced by the lamp is not correct, most sets show a distinct off-color until the lamp achieves designed brightness. If this brightness were varied with contrast or brightness controls as some might assume, color would vary tremendously when these controls were altered.

So while turning down the "dimmer" (or white level/contrast) on a crt based set will ease the load on the phosphors and extend the life of the crt tubes, you're not doing anything to the lamp brightness when you adjust these controls on a lamp based set.

 

[Gregg Loewen]

actually LCOS units can suffer from burn in...quite weird.

 

[Ed Moxley]

Why then, is it such a big selling feature of these tvs, to say it doesn't suffer from burn in? Isn't it supposed to be illegal to falsely advertise?

BTW Gregg.......
Fellow members at S&V Forums, have raved about how good your ISF calibration of their tvs were. They are very happy with your work!

Steve,
Thx for the explanation........

 

[Brian D H]

I've seen many horror stories about these bulbs going out after much less than 1000 hours. I've even heard rumblings of a class-action law suit about this.

Have the bulbs been improved on these sets? I like the picture on the JVC LCOS sets, but I don't want to replace a bulb every 6 to 12 months.

 

[Ed Moxley]

I don't know. I haven't heard of any issues with the bulbs going quickly.

 

[Brian D H]

Neither had I, then I Googled "JVC bulb life" and got this forum thread:

http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/2/176314.html

Very upsetting. Anyone here heard about this? Or should I trust only this forum... as usual

 

[Steve Schaffer]

These bulb problems showed up on JVC sets from previous model years, currently available models haven't had the problem. Toshiba dlp sets had premature bulb failures at about the same time, and Sony did the year before.
I frequent the rptv section over at AVS almost daily, not one brand is having an unusually high bulb failure rate on current models.

 

[Brian D H]

Thanks Steve! That's what I was hoping to hear.


So..... JVC listed the life-span on the bulbs as 6000 hours, but those earlier models had bulbs lasting less than 1000.

Question: Now that the problem is fixed, how long are they REALLY lasting? Any consensus?

 

[Steve Schaffer]

The last major model change for JVC was a little less than a year or so ago, don't think anbody's had one long enough for a bulb to fail yet. I know if I go to the Sony A2000 owner's thread over at AVS there have been no bulb failures mentionned and that set's been out since July of 06.

I was originally going to buy the JVC myself but lucked onto an incredible deal on a Sony KDS60A2000 on the Friday after Thanksgiving and got one of them instead (also a 1080p LCOS set). Price being equal I'd probably have gone with the JVC, but my Sony deal at the time was almost 1k less than the JVC. Right now the JVC is usually less expensive.

The Sonys have still got some complaints of color impurity (mine's ok though) but haven't seen any complaints about this on JVC since their 1st generation 720p LCOS sets about 3 years ago.

JVC is one of the few sets that does perfect de-interlacing of incoming 1080i sources.

 

[Brian D H]

OK, ok I'm totally sold - JVC LCoS it is. But....

Crud. I looked up the 52" HD-52FA97 and it doesn't appear to have Iris control.

The next size up, HD-56FN97 and the HD-56FH97, does have Iris control (but not the HD-56FB97). I don't think I can go that large. My room is only 11' deep, so with the seating against one wall and the TV against the other wall, I'm only 9 feet from the screen.

Three Questions:
1) What's the difference between the HD-56FN97 and the HD-56FH97. (Probably nothing significant)
2) I'm right in thinking that Iris control is a must, aren't I?
3) If I really can't go larger than 52" is there another LCoS set with Iris control out there?

(Bryan X: Sorry about borrowing your thread.)
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EDIT: Hmmm... Upon further review it seems that they make the bezel smaller as the TVs increase in size. The 56" TV is only 2 inches wider and 2 inches taller than the 52" version. So my only question is - is an 8' to 9' viewing distance too close? Also I may still be crunched for space, so please feel free to mention alternatives, if they exist.

 

[Citizen87645]

I have the same question as Brian D H. At 8-9' the viewing distance is 2x screen width, which in theory is fine, though I'm assuming for 1080p sources. There's a thread over at AVS about the 52FA97 and most complaints are about how bright the picture is. The auto iris creating a blacker black is very appealing though.