JVC NZ700/RS2200 Laser D-ILA Native 4K Projector Review

About The JVC NZ700

JVC’s $9,999 MSRP latest entry into the Laser Projector market is a single blue laser/phosphor (BLU-Escent Laser diode 0.69-inch Native 4K D-ILA Device (4096 x 2160) x3) projector rated for 20,000+ hours of laser life. They claim 2300 lumens of brightness with a native contrast ratio of 80,000:1. In my measurements the NZ700 exceeds the lumens claims and instead of surpassing the lower tier NZ500 by 15%, it was consistently closer to 25% higher light output than its little brother (with color filter disabled). 

As for native contrast, the NZ700 excels and can meet its rated native contrast ratio claim with particular settings and installation. Do note however, most typical installation setups and aperture settings will have an impact on the native contrast and be on average in the 30-50k:1 range. I measured a variety of different ranges from close to far with varying lens zoom, aperture and other settings in a completely dark room. The NZ700 also has JVC’s new Deep Black Tone Control that can improve dark scene depth and quality without loss of detail.

While long throw projectors like the JVC NZ700 typically don’t support Dolby Vision, it does have support for HLG, HDR10 and HDR10+. Not supporting Dolby Vision really shouldn’t be a concern for most. JVC has frame by frame adaptive dynamic tone mapping (which now supports DML or Display Mastering Luminance) that works well to show plenty of highlight details, and doesn’t over darken dark scenes leaving shadow detail intact.

The overall design of the JVC NZ700 (and the step-down NZ500) has been updated to a whole new chassis compared to the previous models, with a front to back cooling system instead of back to front. This will direct the flow of warm exhaust air away from the viewer in most installations. It is also now much smaller and lighter than past models, making it much easier to lift or move around to install. The body also has four adjustable feet in each corner to help with alignment when using it on a shelf.

The fan in the NZ700 has multiple fan profiles based on the laser level setting. At lower LD Power the fans are nearly inaudible from a meter away. Increasing the LD power has multiple step ups in the fan curves which increase noise, but even at high settings, while it was certainly audible from about a meter away, it wasn’t a harsh tone nor was it too distracting. It was also quieter than other competing projectors I’ve tested when they were also at their highest fan profile. If you would be upgrading from a previous lamp based JVC like the NP5, the balance between light output to fan noise would be quite the upgrade. 

JVC designed a whole new lens for the NZ500 and NZ700. Now using a larger 80mm 15-element / 11 group lens for improved corner to corner sharpness and improved perceived resolution.

The lens also has a very good adjustment range of 70% vertical and 28% horizontal. So if your installation has the projector not quite center to the screen, you can shift the image and not have to use any keystone that can lower the resolution or sharpness of the image.

Unboxing & Aesthetics 

The JVC-NZ700 includes the projector, power cable, backlit remote, and a manually removable lens cover. The remote is not a very large remote, and next to the projector shows how much smaller the new chassis is.

Connectivity

On the back you will find 2 HDMI (32Gbps) ports, an ethernet and service port, and a simple on/off switch. Lower down is the power cable port. You’ll also spot the exhaust fans on each side of the body. Note that there are no control buttons on the body itself.

Projector Setup

The UI menu system is now different from other JVC models. When pressing the menu button on the remote, you will want to scroll all the way to the right (or press left once if on the far left tab) to select which of the three menu types you want to control. Whichever one is check marked is the menu system that opens when you press the menu button on the remote. For initial setup you will likely want to select the installation settings menu to start with. 

You can use the flexible zoom and lens shift range to align to your screen with a dedicated lens button on the remote. Pressing it each time will change which lens menu you are adjusting.

From there going to the pixel adjust menu you can apply convergence as needed, either across the screen or per area. Convergence can be adjusted independently per R/G/B in coarse (pixel) or fine adjustment steps.

JVC’s theater optimizer feature is now gone for the NZ700, but you can look up the screen number of your screen and apply it here in the screen setting menu.

Under the HDMI settings menu, you can set which input level, colorspace, picture modes, EDID are used for each HDMI input.

Image Quality

Image quality of the JVC NZ700 is very similar to the other models in JVC’s line up. Excellent overall, with a big emphasis on contrast and dark scene performance that remains unmatched from its competitors. Compared to the NZ500, the NZ700 in multiple modes and post calibration was around 20-25% brighter compared to the 15% higher lumen rating. That is with the color filter not enabled however, which lowers P3 gamut coverage to a high of 90% while the NZ500 does not have a color filter but natively has a few (3-4%) higher coverage than the NZ700 with filter not enabled has.

When enabling the filter on the NZ700, the P3 gamut is nearly fully covered (I measured up to 98%) at the expense of a 20% drop in light output. So in this case, it would have higher color ability with comparable light output of the NZ500. Either way, the NZ700 walks away with the advantage of its step-down sibling. This also means the NZ700 has a bit higher contrast, with both having similar black floors but the NZ700 being brighter. 

I tested with a 92” 1.3 gain white screen, and calibrated SDR to 135 nits with a black level of 0.0026nits to reach over 50,000:1 native contrast ratio. This was using the mid point of the lens zoom, 93 LD power and aperture of -11. 

Dark scene performance and even various APL level test patterns are simply unmatched in this class, and only a higher tier JVC projector would have (barely) any improvement in these scenes. Shadow detail is preserved while highlights are accurately represented with minimal bleed over to dark areas of the screen.

For HDR I used 93 laser power and closed the aperture by -2 to gain some contrast and drop the fan noise level some. This gave me up to 225 nits on my screen (200 full screen) after calibration to D65. You can see here the smaller the window size measured, there is up to a 10% or so increase in brightness due to “light recycling” that JVC projectors do. 

EOTF tracking is quite good out of the box in the Frame Adapt picture mode with HDR set to frame by frame and “Auto Wide”,  with a slight lift through the mid range. After calibration tracking is excellent for a projector with limited light output, and roll off starts around 45% stimulus.

Contrast is excellent in all viewing on the JVC NZ700, and the frame by frame dynamic tone mapping keeps all highlight details visible. While it would be nice to have some more adjustability for the dynamic tone mapping controls to have more “range” of adaptability, JVC still has the best overall dynamic tone mapping among their competitors.

Shadow detail and color performance in dark scenes is typically a major strong point for JVCs projectors and the NZ700 continues this trend. The nighttime Seattle city-scape shot on Spears & Munsil showed proper details in the trees in the foreground while maintaining good contrast between the dark areas and the small bright lights in the city.

Switching over to Aquaman 2, colors of foliage showcases solid depth and richness, good in-scene mixed contrast of shadow areas, and skin tones looked natural as expected. In HDR content having the color filter enabled or disabled can alter some scenes pretty dramatically and will cover that in more detail further below.

Colorimetry & Calibration

Measurements and calibration were done using Colorimetry Research CR-250 spectroradiometer and CR-100 colorimeter, Murideo 6G pattern generator, and Calman Ultimate software. 

Out of the box accuracy in SDR picture mode “Natural” with default settings was overly blue with too bright of a gamma, and non-linear RGB balance through the grayscale. Compared to a reference image, the settings in the user menu were unable to correct this to an acceptable degree, and required running and uploading a new 1Dlut to fix. 

With the grayscale calibrated to D65 with a gamma of 2.4, we can now look at the color performance. Which is excellent with very minor adjustments needed. Measured an average dE2000 error on a ColorChecker SG of 0.67, and max of 1.87.

HDR Grayscale after correction was already shared above, and color (excluding luminance error) is also quite good when measuring for P3 gamut within BT2020. With the color filter disabled the patches towards the edge of the P3 area are where the highest measured errors are since it is not capable of reaching that level of saturation (without enabling the color filter).

With the color filter disabled the NZ700 covers ~84% xy and 89% uv of the P3 gamut at full stimulus. Lowering to 10% stimulus the gamut shrinks and desaturates to ~81% in xy and uv. When content is graded to use colors further out to the edges of P3 (or wider into BT2020), it is in darker scenes that the lower saturation with the color filter disabled would be more visible. 

Enabling the color filter increases the gamut coverage of P3 to ~96% xy and 98% uv at full stimulus and only drops to a negligible difference of ~94% xy and uv at 10% stimulus.

Deciding to use the color filter or not is going to be heavily dependent on your installation. With most consumers moving towards larger screens, typically acoustically transparent ones with lower gain in the 0.5-0.8 range, often it is more common to leave the filter disabled to get as much light as possible.

In my test setup with a smaller high gain screen, having the filter engaged would make much more sense in day to day usage.

Here are some examples of HDR content that show benefits to both, having it off and on. Starting with It Chapter II at the end of the movie in the dark cave with the green lights. The green in this scene exceeds P3 and goes into BT2020, and is mostly lower in luminance (most BT2020 colors in movies are actually not bright as many believe).

In the second image with the filter enabled, even with a 20% reduction in light output the green is more saturated and vibrant. 

Similar can be seen from the fire of the stove in this shot of 1917.

These colors aren’t in BT2020, but as it gets closer to the fire in the stove, we can see brighter colors with the filter enabled. The darker shadowy areas of the scene remain the same between the two, as EOTF is tracking the same for both. Color gradients are handled well in both however, with no posterization concerns with or without the filter enabled.

Also when viewing the beginning of chapter 13 of 1917 when the soldier is waking up on the stairs, the level of saturation is noticeably deeper with the color filter enabled.

On the flip side, in this scene from Dragon Ball Super Super Hero which is graded to a high brightness APL with lower saturation levels, we can see a notably brighter and vibrant image with the color filter disabled.

Inside Out is notoriously graded beyond P3 through much of the movie, and one of my go-to choices for checking wide gamut color.

The green tone of the broccoli tree is different between having the color filter on or off, but this is another example of the colors being brighter with the color filter enabled. Especially towards the top where it gets darker, as with the filter enabled it is able to retain color more than with it disabled in lower luminance.

I also checked the HSV P3 color pattern on the Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark disc to verify, and it shows no anomalies or posterization issues with or without the filter. In the first image without the filter, we can see at the bottom the white area is a bit brighter than the bottom image with the filter enabled. Then with the filter enabled there is a visibly larger area of cyan and magenta visible with a smoother transition into green and red, and green also appears brighter than in the first image. Red looks visibly deeper in the most saturated areas as well.

Image Sharpness and Precision

The level of sharpness and detail is excellent with the NZ700. It is a true native 4k (4096x2160) projector without using pixel shifting. The new 80mm lens can throw an image that is razor sharp, and no visible softening in the corners.

The processing also isn’t causing any major artifacts using this ringing pattern. While smaller circles are visible, there is no “starburst” pattern or straight lines to be seen anywhere that over processed images would show. (the color in the image is from the camera struggling to take the picture).

Upscaling of HD signals is handled very well with no notable issues or concerns. Overall processing is top notch with JVC’s projector lineup. 

The NZ700 has a couple of adjustable processing features to aid in the visible detail. By default the setting of 5 is too high and looks over processed, but reducing it to 1-2 can be pleasing to many without visible over processing issues. You can see in these images how the fur can start to turn green with bad ringing when set too high.

Gaming & 3D

The NZ700 is not as strong a contender for gaming as some of its rivals. The input lag isn’t bad but not very good either at just over 2 frames of lag at 60Hz (~34ms). There is also no support for 4K 120Hz gaming either, or any other expected/wanted gaming features on modern displays. The NZ700 focuses on being a cinema or dark room home theater movie projector, and does very well in reaching that goal. However most would still be able to have great casual gaming experiences with the NZ700.

3D is also completely cut from the NZ700. If you want 3D and better gaming performance, you would have to go up the JVC tier ladder to the NZ800 or NZ900. There aren’t many people still interested in 3D, which is why it's more commonplace now for 3D to be removed from projectors. However there is a small die hard following of 3D that would not want to give it up.  

Settings

In SDR I would recommend the following settings.

• Picture Mode - Natural
  
• Color Profile - Auto (BT709)
  
• Color Temp - 6500k (or Custom 1 and 6500K)
  
• Gamma 2.4
  
• MPC - Graphic Mode Low 
  
• Enhance 1 or 2 - Smoothing 0
  
• LD Power - Highest setting per fan profile
  
• Dynamic Control - I preferred “Balanced” but try each setting to see what you like
  
• Aperture - At least a couple or few clicks negative
  
• Contrast/Brightness/Color/Tint all at default
  

For HDR,

• Picture Mode - HDR Frame Adapt HDR 1
  
• Color Profile - BT2020 (Normal = Color Filter Off, Wide = Color Filter On)
  
• Color Temp - 6500k (or Custom 2 and 6500k)
  
• MPC - Graphic Mode Low
  
• Enhance 1 or 2 - Smoothing 0
  
• LD Power - 100 (or 93 for a quieter fan profile)
  
• Dynamic Control - I preferred “Balanced” by try each setting to see what you like
  
• Aperture - -2
  

Final Conclusions

At an MSRP of $9,999 the JVC NZ700 brings a very high level of performance, however at a higher price bracket than the enthusiast home theater market would generally expect for a “mid tier” model. However, the entire projector market and pricing has changed so much in recent years, it is relative to its competition, priced in line with them while offering the best dark room home cinema performance of all projectors in its class. 

The biggest competition comes from its step-down little brother, the NZ500 for a few thousand less with similar performance. Which one you would go with would depend on your budget and installation needs. 

However, just from a personal note, I find the NZ700 to not only be worth the upgrade for most over the NZ500, but the overall best home cinema projector value on the market. While the NZ500 offers nearly the same contrast and color performance for less, the NZ700 brought a real world 25% increase in light output (compared to the rated 15% difference on the spec sheet), which allows the NZ700 to be more flexible with larger screens, woven or AT screens, environments with a little more ambient light, etc. If it were my money, I’d pick the NZ700 (maybe during a sale) over the NZ500, or anything else in its price bracket if a dark room movie watching cinema was the main use case. 

And when considering stepping up to the NZ800 which is almost 5 figures more money, I think most would be happy to stay with the NZ700 and call it “The Sweet Spot”. 

*The NZ700 and NZ500 share many attributes, and additional information from the NZ500 review would also apply to the NZ700.