Review: JVC DM65USR UHD TV
Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 4:27PM 
JVC exited the TV business a few years ago to focus on crafting world-class video projectors, but its TV branding lives on through a company called Amtran that continues to develop new products. The 65-inch JVC DM65USR Diamond Series 4K Ultra HD TV is an attractively priced balance of features and design, but its picture potential was diminished by a few annoying quirks.
Setup and calibration
The DM65USR's thin matte-finished bezel frames a screen that can pump out the light (up to 400 nits). Its 32-zone full-array local dimming LED backlight system also made for impressively dark black bars of letterboxed movies when viewed in a dimly lit room, however, a similarly sized Vizio P-Series UHD (ultra-high definition) television features twice the number of zones for increased dimming granularity.
White balance controls included 2-point and 10-point adjustments. The 2-point controls proved highly interactive and prone to increasing gamma errors, and I found it best to skip its use altogether in favor of the 10-point setup that produced an admirable HD grayscale response.
Fine-tuning the TV's grayscale also improved its color performance with all significant errors limited to fully saturated levels. Unfortunately, these carefully calibrated grayscale and color results had to be manually copied to each input, and the calibrated preset (Movie) was unavailable with 2160p input like that from the Sony FMP-X10 4K Media Player (read review). Also, minor brightness control adjustments drastically shifted the hue of dark gray levels making it a 'set and forget' affair.
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Calibration details
By popular request, I've added the white balance setup results I obtained for the JVC DM65USR in the chart below. Keep in mind that calibration settings are often TV specific - two TVs of the exact same model and screen size will often produce different calibration setup values. However, it's easy enough to try the setup below and if the results are unsatisfactory, reset the TV back to factory defaults.
Video processing
The DM65USR otherwise decent video processing of HD and UHD video sources was marred by a glitch that re-enabled motion interpolation after the setting had been disabled. Toggling the setting would re-disable it only to have it eventually re-enable...annoying for people who detest the smoothing effect applied to movies and TV shows recorded at 24 frames per second.
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Gamers will find the TV a good option as video lag reduced from 113ms to 46.5ms (less than 3 video frames at 60Hz) when using the Game picture preset.
Apps
As an Internet-enabled 4K UHD TV, the DM65USR is a bit surprising in that it lacks any UHD streaming options like Amazon Instant Video or Netflix. The TV features DLNA-style multimedia streaming and picture/music playback apps for files on USB-connected storage devices. An included 1080p Roku Streaming Stick provides plenty of additional, albeit non-UHD, app options.
A capable built-in web browser was further enhanced by a slick combo keyboard/touchpad remote.
Bottom line
The DM65USR has picture potential to be a terrific 4K UHD TV option, but it needs a software update to cure it of a few nagging glitches.
Read my complete review of the JVC DM65USR Diamond Series 4K Ultra HD TV at HD Guru.
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