The first of Christie's Jazz Series of medium- to large-venue projectors, the 4K1600-JS may not have all the bells and whistles of competitors but provides the basics for filling a large screen and enough thoughtful extras to make students, businesspeople, or worshippers sit up and take notice. With more than 14,000 ANSI lumens on tap, it mixes high efficiency lasers with extra bright pixels for an emulated 4K resolution, an optional blending camera, and HDR playback.

Its nine available lenses—from ultra-short to ultra-long throw—mean it is flexible enough to accommodate all but the largest venues. Priced at $25,000 ($29,000 with a standard throw lens) it is comparable to Barco's I600-4K15 but lacks some amenities, like the I600-4K15's innovative 5-inch touchscreen dashboard display and optional Wi-Fi. Still, the 4K1600-JS has the power to deliver exceptionally sharp imaging and light up a big room.

Insights into Our Reviewer's Process

Check out this video podcast interview with Brian Nadel discussing his review of the Christie 4K 1600-JS projector.

Features

By using the latest array of components, Christie engineers have advanced the state of the art for medium- to large-venue projectors with the company's new Jazz Series. Rated at 14,000 ANSI lumens (16,600 ISO lumens) at 3840 x 2400 resolution, the 4K1600-JS has the potential to be a good all-around projector for a school's lecture hall, a business's large conference room, or a mid-sized church, temple, or mosque. Add in its HDR abilities to boost saturation, highlights, and contrast between light and dark areas of the frame, and you have a projector trifecta that is just as good for sales meetings as it is for a physics lecture or a digitally assisted religious service.

The 4K1600-JS's imaging starts with high efficiency blue diode lasers that are rated to last 20,000 hours—the rough equivalent of more than a decade of hard use. Part of the projector's laser light goes to a phosphor disc that generates a stream of green light that gets divided into its yellow and red components.

These beams are combined and sent through a four segment color wheel that spins at 4X speed to reduce rainbow and speckling effects. The sequential illumination is bounced off the 4K1600-JS's 0.8-inch High Efficiency Pixel (HEP) Digital Light Processing imaging target with the final image emerging from the projector's output lens.

Its native 1920 x 1200 image uses the latest pixel shifting advances to precisely move the target up-down and right-left 240 times a second. The end result is a surprisingly solid 3840 x 2400 projection.

Weighing in at 65 pounds, the 4K1600-JS measures 23.6 x 7.6 x 20.5 inches (WHD). It will require at least two people on hand for a safe installation, and a third pair of hands couldn't hurt.

Its four adjustable feet and four attachment points underneath mean the 4K1600-JS is just as good on a table, shelf, or in a projection room as hung from a ceiling. The projector worked fine with my generic mounting hardware, but Christie's $375 One Mount Plus spider bracket provides 30 degrees of tilt and roll adjustment for precise positioning. There's also a $1,600 rigging frame available.

In addition to picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture formats, the 4K1600-JS can project in a variety of aspect ratios, from the traditional computer 4:3 to the wide screen 16:9 or 16:10 to the latest 21:9 Microsoft Teams format. Rated to put out 16,600 ISO lumens and 14,000 ANSI lumens, the 4K1600-JS delivered just over its spec at 14,067 ANSI lumens.

Not bright enough for you? There's also the 18,000 ANSI/21,350 ISO lumen Christie Digital 4K2100-JS model. Christie's pricing is only available upon request but expect that the 4K2100-JS and 4K1600-JS will cost roughly $38,000 and $25,000, respectively, without lenses. There's also a pair of WUXGA Jazz projectors that top out at 20,000 ANSI lumens (DWU2400-JS) and 15,000 ANSI lumens (DWU1800-JS). They cost $29,000 and $20,000. Whichever you choose, these are impressive light levels for projectors that run on 110-volt electricity.

Available only in black, the 4K1600-JS can be set up at any angle, and its two fans draw cooling air into the front across its hot components and out the back. With a heat output of nearly 3,500 BTUs, the projector is on a par with a room-sized space heater. That said, it never got over 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

On the other hand, unlike many DLP-based projectors, the 4K1600-JS has three sets of dust filters that have a rated lifetime of 4,000 hours of use. The elements are washable and cost about $100.

The Jazz family offers nine high-quality lenses that range in price from $2,800 to $14,500. In addition to an ultra-short version (0.46:1 throw ratio) and a short throw design (0.78 to 0.9:1) there's the standard throw 1.4X optics that I used. There are versions that can extend the projector's image to nearly 13:1 throws for extra-long rooms.

Able to light up a company's large conference room, a lecture hall, or auditorium at school or a medium-sized church, the pair can put up a 40-foot image that's bright enough to be usable from between 47 and 55 feet, depending on the zoom level. Together, the 4K1600-JS and a standard throw lens pair came to nearly $29,000.

ProjectorCentral's Throw Calculator can help pick the right lens-projector pair for a wide variety of rooms. Just dial in the projector, lens, and throw distance or screen size. The calculator does the rest.

The 4K1600-JS has a thoughtful design with an AC power switch and cord lock to prevent it being kicked out at the wrong moment. On the other side is the projector's assortment of ports which lack two design touches that competitors provide. One is a cable cover for hiding sloppy wiring or a 5-inch dashboard touchscreen for checking on settings and changing them. The 4K1600-JS's control panel is backlit, though.

The Christie projector excels with two HDMI 2.0, a DisplayPort 1.2, and BNC video inputs that conform to the 12G SDI standard. Happily, the projector has an HDMI and BNC video out for sending cloned video to an additional display, like the speaker's lectern or an overflow room. Its third-generation HD-BaseT connection can grab video from a wired network.

With synchronization ports for projecting active 3D material, 4K1600-JS requires that the audience wear stereoscopic shutter glasses (not included with the projector). Meanwhile, the projector's Type-A USB 2.0 port is for power and diagnostics; it didn't work with a generic mouse for streamlining menu interactions. There's also a 12-volt projector screen trigger.

The projector can be controlled via its RS-232 connector or wired networking. It, however, falls short of the networking mark by lacking integrated or add-on Wi-Fi.

Once connected, the wired networking port offers an enormous amount of monitoring and adjustment potential next to the projector or across a campus. Using the 4K1600-JS's internal user interface starts with typing the projector's IP address (available on the menu's LAN page) into a web browser.

There's also an infrared remote that uses a pair of AAA batteries and had a 35-foot range. It can be extended by directly wiring it to the projector with an audio jumper cable. The projector works with Crestron Roomview V2, PJ Link V2 and AMX remote control schemes.

As is the case with other Christie 1DLP projectors, the 4K1600-JS includes lifetime support and a five-year warranty. That's two years longer coverage compared to Barco and Epson's commercial customers. On the other hand, Epson's Brighter Futures educational customers get the five-year treatment as well. There are technical support specialists on call 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (Eastern time) on weekdays.

Performance

Power On/Off. Aimed more at large venues than stop-and-go conference rooms or lecture halls, the 4K1600-JS was a little slow to get started at 34.8 seconds. It took 20.7 seconds for it to shut down and have its fan turn off.

It may not be the fastest but the 4K1600-JS can stand to be turned on and off during the day as needed with only minimal frustration. While running, its exhaust hit a peak of 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

Color Modes. The 4K1600-JS has eight picture modes as well as the ability to run the projector at constant illumination or constant power (my preference). In addition to the Bright setting for all-out illumination at a color temperature of 7500K, the projector's Video mode reduces the output to 70 percent and warms the picture up significantly. Changing to Enhanced mode makes colors pop for showing graphics in brightly lit room.

The more neutral Rec. 709 setting hits a color temperature of 6,500K and 80 percent brightness to mimic a television's output while the HDR setting uses the Rec. 2020 gamut for programming encoded to this standard. In addition to its high contrast DICOM SIM configuration for medical scans, the 4K1600-JS has a specialty mode for blending the output of projectors that's set at 70 percent brightness and 7500K to hide potential projector mismatches. Happily, it can work with the optional Christie Intelligent Camera (CIC) and the company's Mystique software to automate blending.

The 4K1600-JS also has a configuration for 3D content and a user-defined setting for picking your own mix of brightness, color balance, and contrast.

Presentation Viewing. Unlike many of its peers, the 4K1600-JS has no presentation mode per se. Its Bright setting is a good substitute at 14,067 ANSI lumens. Its color balance was surprisingly good with deep blues and vibrant reds, lacking the overwhelmingly green tone that many of its peers deliver in their brightest modes. In other words, it should do just fine for occasions where brightness counts for everything.

That said, its Enhanced mode makes colors pop for scientific or business presentations with graphical elements and delivered 12,332 ANSI lumens. However, its saturated colors will likely be too much for showing photos or videos, particularly in a darkened room. I found that it worked well with the University of Colorado's PhET classroom science and math simulations.

My advice for getting the best blend of brightness and realistic color balance is to use the Rec. 709 setting, which reduced output by one-third to 9,211 ANSI lumens. It combined naturalistic greens (trees) and blues (sky) with believable skin tones. The DICOM SIM setting is for hospitals and nursing schools to project high-contrast medical scans. It yielded 10,827 ANSI lumens.

There are two Eco modes that lower output and brightness to the level of less expensive projectors. The Eco1 mode reduced the 4K1600-JS's light level to 11,185 ANSI lumens, a drop of 20 percent while reducing the power draw by 19 percent. That said, the Eco 2 goes even further at reductions of 53 and 46 percent for lighting and power use.

Video Viewing. While it's not aimed at theatrical uses, the 4K1600-JS is impressive in showing movies, video clips, or the latest TikTok dance craze. Its Video mode put out 8,867 ANSI lumens and had a warm feeling without overloading the screen with too much orange and pink. It works well in a dark room.

Its HDR10 abilities are a bit too intense when using the Auto setting. My advice is to play with the settings until you get to a good compromise. While viewing the BBC's A Perfect Planet Blu-ray disc, the volcanic islands sequence looked incredibly realistic with rich red lava flows. The white clouds were contrasted by the azure lake and blue sky, making for excellent viewing. When the orange iguana popped up, it almost jumped off the screen.

At 990 watts, the 4K1600-JS has an efficiency rating of 14.2 lumens per watt. Its idle power consumption of 2.4 watts adds up to annual estimated electricity costs of $277. This is based on eight hour a day use over 200 days out of the year and the national average for electricity of 17.5 cents per kilowatt hour.

Conclusion

Got a big room to fill with light, images, and video? Christie's 4K1600-JS can do the trick with an excellent combination of more than 14,000 ANSI lumens of light, 4K imaging, and impressive efficiency for a school, business, or house of worship. Its selection of nine lenses—ranging from ultra-short throw optics to an auditorium filling 13:1 throw ratio—fosters flexibility that others lack. Its HDR abilities mean that encoded movies and videos will just about jump off the screen, and there's an optional camera for streamlining edge blending.

Christie's 4K1600-JS falls a little short of the mark by lacking a color dashboard screen for seeing and updating its settings as well as making Wi-Fi an option.

For more detailed specifications and connections, check out our Christie Jazz 4K1600-JS projector page.