Sorry dear reader, I’ve been on a few deadlines. Reviews of various digital set top boxes and the Perreaux SXH1 headphone amp now in.
Last night I was fiddling with JVC’s new DLA-SX21 projector, based on its D-ILA (for Digital Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier) system. This uses reflective LCD panels (actually, Liquid Crystal on Silicon) rather than the more common transmissive types. For some reason this comes with a decidedly odd resolution of 1,400 by 1,050 pixels in 4:3 ratio. First impressions: can’t match DLP for contrast ratio, but it delivers an incredibly smooth picture. The reason is that there are virtually no electronics on the perimeter of the panels’ pixels, so the pixels are displayed with virtually invisible borders. No screen door effect. Very good indeed.
I was also trying to assess whether playing DVDs from a PowerDVD on a computer using a high resolution analogue connection to the projector would produce a better result, resolution wise, than a DVD player. The short answer is yes, but only a slight one. Not to the extent I expected. I shall explore this more.