Seeing Is Believing: JVC AV-P950

JVC Digital Presenter AV-P950

Pros: Roomy stage. Adjustable camera arm. Text zoom presets. Optional book holder.
Cons: Pixel artifacts appeared regularly on review unit. Autofocus wouldn't hold. Formidable control panel.
Rated: 3 out of 5.

CCD: 1/3-inch, 850,000 pixels maximum.
Frames per second: 15.
Zoom: 5X optical, 4X digital (20X digital zoom).
Inputs: RS-232, RGB (15-pin).
Outputs: Two RGB (15-pin), S-video, composite video, USB.
Remote included: Yes.
User-programmable presets: A4, letter and A5 size.
Image memory: Three images.
White balance: Auto, manual.
Weight: 26.5 pounds.
Dimensions: 30.1 x 18.5 x 28 inches (l x w x h).
Price: $3,795.
Contact: JVC Professional, 973.317.5000, www.jvcpro.com.


The first thing you notice about the JVC AV-P950 is its size. A 20-inch stage depth, with its letter-size light table, makes this a formidable document camera. The camera arm has five positions, and the side lights are equally flexible.

Although the stage area is big, there's still room for the slightly intimidating set of buttons. While it may be nice to have such easy access to so many options (lights, black-and-white or color, text mode, menu, brightness, auto-white, paper-size zoom presets and autofocus, among others), this profusion of settings could be a hindrance for presenters who don't work with the camera on a regular basis. Finding just the right button is bound to require at least a pause, and maybe even some digging through the manual. The Digital Presenter does come with presets to aid the presenter. The IR sensor for the included remote is at the top of the camera arm, making it an easy target, and the camera head can be flipped back 90 degrees to capture objects in the room.

As far as connections go, JVC offers the conference room basics along with a six-mode switch system for setting the RGB output resolution, preview mode and menu display settings. Although the JVC AV-P950 was easy to hook up to our data projector and monitor, the unit's performance was somewhat disappointing. The autofocus struggled on 3D objects, focusing in on an area, then re-evaluating and going fuzzy again, trying to find a depth-of-field focal point but often failing. In these cases we turned to manual focus, which helped, but only after some fussing.

In RGB mode, the Digital Presenter exhibited some pixel artifacts. With text documents, its handy zoom presets worked fine. Although it displayed text superbly in a well-lighted setting, the document camera struggled when room lights were dimmer; we had to make adjustments in the text mode to prevent document wash-out. With transparencies, the JVC performed better, both with the lighted stage and the slide holder, but it still struggled in darkened conditions.

While we liked the JVC's ample stage, zoom presets and camera adjustments, its performance in terms of autofocus, pixel artifacts and overall picture quality could have been better.


Julie Hill is managing editor of Presentations magazine.


Other document cameras reviewed:

AVerMedia AVerVision300
Canon RE-450X
Elmo EV-4400AF
Lumens PS300
Samsung SDP-950DX
Sony PCS-DS150
WolfVision VZ-8 Plus

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Originally published in the July 2002 issue of Presentations magazine. Copyright 2002, VNU Business Media.