THE FRONT LINE: JULY 2008
INFOCOMM 2008 – Projection, Wide And Digital
This year’s InfoComm show added NSCA’s expo and the NXTcomm (IT) event for a new record in attendance.
Las Vegas in mid-June is not exactly my idea of a fun place to visit, and this year was worse than usual with a high-pressure system forcing daytime temperatures in the mid-100s. It didn’t cool off much at night, either — about 5 degrees!
Fortunately, the Las Vegas Convention Center stayed cool as a cucumber. Good thing, too, with all of those plasma and LCD monitors, projectors, and LED walls chugging away! With over 34,000 visitors, the show had the feel of a mini-NAB. It didn’t hurt that companies like Thomson-Grass Valley, Tandberg, and Harris also exhibited at the show.
Figure 1. Sanyo’s 4LCD-equipped PLC-XP200L drew quite a crowd.
Figure 2. So did this side-by-side comparison of 4LCD and 3LCD imaging.
The biggest change this year was in the number of widescreen front projectors being exhibited. In the business projector space, notebook computers drive the market and many of those now have 16:10 screens with 1280x800 or 1920x1200 pixel resolution. Thus, we saw new LCD models from Sony, Sanyo, Epson, Hitachi, and NEC, and new DLP offerings from BenQ, Sharp, InFocus, Mitsubishi, and projectiondesign, among others.
The continuing battles between Texas Instruments and the 3LCD Marketing Association were in evidence in the Central Hall. 3LCD has proposed a color brightness metric that TI has essentially dismissed, saying it’s a flawed measurement to begin with. TI’s booth also featured demos of premature color film layer aging in 3LCD projectors and burn-in with static, high contrast images.
“Booth babes” with masks over their faces symbolized TI’s claim of the hazards from dust in LCD projectors and the need and expense to change air filters. Of course, 3LCD countered with the claim that DP projectors also need dust protection for the color wheel, lamp, and fans. And 3LCD’s demo of accurate color reproduction on 3 LCD projectors using jellybeans was quite delicious!
In the midst of this, Sanyo potentially upset the applecart by showing the world’s first 4LCD projector (that’s right, 4LCD!) Their PLC-XP200L (7000 lumens, XGA) will be the first chassis to use this new imaging engine that is claimed to improve contrast and color rendering in yellows and greens.
While Sanyo is a dominant brand in the projector world, Canon is almost an unknown player. Nevertheless, they’ve stopped OEMing LCoS panels from JVC, and have decided to roll their own The first product to use them is the REALiS WUX10 projector ($12,999). It’s rated at 3200 lumens and uses three Wide UXGA panels (1920x1200 pixels) and is aimed squarely at the high-resolution digital imaging market.
Figure 3. Canon is trying to carve out a niche in the super-high-rez projection market.
Figure 4. projectiondesign’s compact 3D projector was a crowd pleaser!
WUXGA was also in evidence in the projectiondesign booth, where their F10 (3500 lumens) and F30 (4000 lumens) DLP projectors held court. Both use new 1920x1200 DMDs and advanced color wheel designs. Projectiondesign also showed what has to be the world’s smallest 3D front projector, based on the F10 chassis.
More groundbreaking developments were seen in the Sharp booth, where the company’s new XG-P560W installation DLP projector is priced at a breakthrough $17,000. It uses three WXGA (1280x800) DMDs and is rated at 5200 lumens. For 4:3 fans, there’s also a three-chip XGA version, the XG-P610X, which will sell for $14,995.
NEC, who currently ranks #2 in projector sales with about 8% market share, showed why in their booth. They’ve found a way to combine WXGA resolution, wireless and wired LAN connectivity, Silicon Optix HQV Reon image processing and 2000 lumens of image brightness into the NP901 LCD projector for just $1,299. And for $700 more, you can have 3000 lumens and XGA resolution in the companion NP905 LCD model.
Speaking of Silicon Optix, a pre-show announcement was made that their Image Anyplace warp engine and Whitehorse video scaling platform had been sold to Flexible Picture Systems Ltd. The HQV Realta and Reon video scaling engines will continue to be licensed and sold by SO for the time being.
Figure 5. Sharp’s dropped the price big time on 3DLP installation projectors.
Figure 6. NEC’s jammed a lot into the NP901 for $1,300. How’d they do it?
Short-throw models were popular this year, from Sanyo’s updated PLC-XL51 to Mitsubishi’s new XD500U-ST (1024x768, 2000 lumens), which can light up a 60-inch screen from less than three feet away. Hitachi also had a short throw, the CP100, which is rated at 2500 lumens with XGA resolution. Image size is about 60 inches with a throw of 1.4 feet. The lamp access is through the top of the projector and it’s fully LAN-enabled.
Home theater fans weren’t left out. Mitsubishi had two new models to look at, the first being the 3LCD HC5500U. I tested a pre-production model a few months back and it’s a definite step up from the HC5000, but will sell for just $2,495. Like its predecessor, the HC5000 incorporates Silicon Optix HQV Reon processing. For $999, you can buy the new HC1600 (DLP, 1280x720). It’s got BrilliantColor and is rated at 1700 lumens.
Over in the Samsung booth, Joe Kane showed his latest work of art, the Samsung SP-A800B 1080p DLP projector. It incorporates the same precise color space mapping as the SP710 and is rated at 1000 lumens at full brightness. Of course, you won’t want to run it full-tilt, so calibrated light output will be lower — but accurate, and that’s what Joe is all about.
BenQ, missing from last year, made an appearance this year and featured their W20000 1080p DLP projector. It also uses the HQV Reon processor and DLP technology, plus it ads a dynamic iris for contrast enhancement. Brightness is rated at 1200 lumens, just as it is on the lower-priced W5000.
Figure 7. Epson’s got video-over-USB and instant wireless connectivity.
Figure 8. InFocus has DisplayLink’s version of video-over-USB. It’s the next big thing!
Epson had several new business projector announcements. The Epson PowerLite 1720, 1725, 1730W, and 1735W are all 3000-lumen models, with the first two equipped for XGA (1024x768) and the last two compatible with WXGA (1280x800). There are also three entry-level models, the PowerLite S6 (SVGA), 78c (XGA), and W6 (WXGA). These will retail for well under $900, and all new Epson projectors use the company’s proprietary video over USB system.
InFocus, who has been very low-key at recent InfoComm shows, showed up with six new business projectors that incorporate DisplayLink USB 2.0 technology. The IN1100 (XGA, 2200 lumens) and IN1102 (WXGA, 200 lumens) are joined by the 3500-lumens IN3100 series (XGA and WUXGA) and the 5000-lumens IN5100 (XGA and WUXGA) in supporting the “plug and play” DisplayLink format.
Sony had a brand new line of BrightEra LCD projectors out for inspection, with perhaps the most unusual being the turret-shaped VPL-FW300L (1366x800 resolution, 7,000 lumens) and VPL-FH300L (2048x1080 resolution, 6,000 lumens). The VPL-FW300 projector’s aspect ratio actually works out to 17:10, which is sure to drive systems integrators crazy as they try to find one screen that will cover that resolution, the fast-growing 16:10 standard, and the old reliable 16:9 HD format.
Finally, Optoma’s booth was noticeably missing in action from InfoComm, but they still managed to show the first commercially available pocket projector in the TI DLP booth. Optoma’s single-chip DLP Pico projector is slightly smaller than an iPhone and had a reasonably bright image on a small screen in the booth. Some folks have high expectations for this market, particularly all-in-one handheld phone/PDA/projector products.
