Just listening to this now. Just hit the 4:09 mark, which sums up most of the industry's opinion of JVC projectors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAPI_LAfSZQThat being said, you picked 3 very popular models from 3 different companies making good projectors.
The video also hits things like real contrast/dynamic range vs. the over-inflated specs like the Epson claims at 1,000,000:1 and why JVC's native dynamic range is so good, even though the spec is "only" 40,000:1 or there abouts in comparison.
The Sony tops out at 1080p.
The Epson and JVC do faux-K, so the image will look sharper and closer to real 4K.
The Sony has a 3 year warranty vs 2 years on the Epson and JVC.
My pick though, looking at all of those pros/cons (even the "cons" are still pretty good specs on all models), then factoring in that Sony and even more so for Epson use a fake-ish method for getting contrast ratio vs a much more realistic rating on the JVC, and I would pick the JVC all day long.
The Sony and JVC use their own flavors of LCOS (SXRD for Sony and I-DLA for JVC). LCOS is generally considered superior to LCD like in the Epson.
The Epson can crank out 2500 ANSI lumens at high power, vs 1800 for the Sony and JVC. Again, these aren't always "higher is better" since the LCOS is a better technology at the same ANSI lumens, so those are all probably a wash in real world use.
Sony and Epson basically turn their projectors on to full power inside a pitch black room/test area, calibrate to output the brightest possible "white" as possible, open the iris on the lens all the way, and put their meter just in front of the lens. Grab that reading, and then they turn off the projector completed (as it is OFF) and then measure that black, and compare the difference.
JVC uses the same dark room/test area, calibrate to be a bright image, open the iris, measure the bright white, but instead of turning the projector off, they then tell the projector to display a black, so the projector is still on, the iris is still open, and the projector calibration is NOT changed, and then compare the difference. So both readings are with the projector being on, and no changes outside of "display and measure white" and then, without changing anything, "display and measure black."
Someone did a "real native" contrast test on a few projectors back when I looked at JVC, and even with the much lower spec, the JVC outperformed the others pretty handily which is why I chose JVC back in December 2011 (I can't believe that is has been 5 years since I pre-orderded it)...
. It is a setting somewhere.
