Laser Projection

[Steve Johnson]

After hearing what Ted was saying at NAB about a 4K Home laser projector, this is now being reported by some if the Apple websites that Apple has filed a patent for laser projection for laptops, computers, phones and tv's.

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/16/apple...r-use-in-lapt/


I haven't read the patent yet but would seem that laser projection might be the way forward if Apple is looking into it.

Thoughts?

[L. Langer]

It's been a foregone conclusion for years. Nothing new. Every big player in the HDTV and projector market has laser-based designs in their portfolios and Mitsubishi released their LaserVue projection HDTVs some time ago while several projector makers have released laser-based projectors in the past few years. The quality is there though there are some issues with high-resolution laser-displays but the physical size requirements for the technology (which are bulky projection TVs when you get right down to it) is the primary reason why you haven't seen them brought to market since they can't really compete with the smaller footprint of LED/LCD displays.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Mitsubishi has patents for laser projection as well. They initially demoed a DLP rear-projection HDTV using lasers about 5 or 6 years ago at CES. Never released a product. Patents are a funny thing. When it comes to most high tech type stuff, you can patent a specific design or way to do something, but an underlying concept typically remains open. Lasers are an established light source used for a great many things. Apple or even RED are not the first to seek patents for something that uses lasers, even projection, and they won't be the last.

I can't wait to see what RED comes up with! I really don't care if it uses lasers or not... If it gives us pristine 4K images and can be priced in-line with other high-end home theater projectors, that's a win. I'm hoping it will also be good enough to use for color work.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Problem with all projectors is you have to be in a blacked out room. Your screen has to be very bright which means it has to be almost black. This is fine for about 5% of home theaters I've seen.

Projection is a non-starter for the vast majority of the market. Rear-projection can get darker but still not as dark as an LCD or Plasma and you still have focus and geometry issues in rear-projection which destroys sharpness and usability as a UI display. Not to mention rear-projection normally has terrible viewing angles.

For my uses I don't want to sit in a black room while watching movies or TV during most of the day and I don't have the room for two viewing areas. And I'm what I would consider one of the more demanding customers when it comes to displays. So I'm not surprised that Lasers haven't caught on. Who wants milky washed out blacks or who wants to black out their living room? If a 4k Projector was under $2k I would consider getting one just for when I want to move my flatscreen out of the way and go wall sized cinema but otherwise I'm sticking with a flat-screen.

[Steve Johnson]

Mitsubishi has patents for laser projection as well. They initially demoed a DLP rear-projection HDTV using lasers about 5 or 6 years ago at CES. Never released a product. Patents are a funny thing. When it comes to most high tech type stuff, you can patent a specific design or way to do something, but an underlying concept typically remains open. Lasers are an established light source used for a great many things. Apple or even RED are not the first to seek patents for something that uses lasers, even projection, and they won't be the last.

I can't wait to see what RED comes up with! I really don't care if it uses lasers or not... If it gives us pristine 4K images and can be priced in-line with other high-end home theater projectors, that's a win. I'm hoping it will also be good enough to use for color work.

I am with you Jeff on the hoping it will be good enough to use for color work. I think if you look at RED from acquisition using RED One, Epic, Scarlet, post production - third parties, through to distribution with REDRay then these are all professional tools. Jim said that RED are a professional company and it would make total sense for their projector to be color accurate. If e REDRay does DCP (which they are saying it will) then it makes sense to have color accurately on the projector. It will be a great addition to view dailies, editing with, sound mixing with, color correction and viewing of final delivery.

[AnthonyFlores]

I'm eager for one as well, though personally just as much as professionally. My limited experience with them this NAB at both the Red and Sony booths -- which has been far superior to both any recent home viewing OR theater experience -- totally sold me. Besides, however fast technology is moving, it's going to take a while before a decent sized 4k display to be sub $10,000. If Red's projector gets us to 4k < $10,000 first, I'm all for it!

Anthony

[mikeburton]

This is more exciting to me than the new camera systems. I really hope these can come to market in a year or less. If it's priced under 25K and is color accurate, delivering enough brightness and 4K Resolution put me down for one ASAP! I've quietly hoped RED would come to market with their own line of projectors for quite some time now and I know they'll deliver on the specs/price ratio. I've been contemplating a 2K Barco for some time now and I'd love for a less expensive and hopefully smaller alternative to arise.

[Simon Dunne]

Jim, buy the rights to SED!!! I'm sure you can make your money back many times over and still beat the competition in terms of product application. Projectors are good, grade 1 8k monitors are even better ;)

[Peter Versey]

I've been looking forward to a really good reasonably priced laser projector (and eyepiece !) for some time.
The advantages of laser projection are a much larger colour gambit, more exact colours, brighter image with increased contrast, fewer parts , sharper pictures ,
no costly lens, no expensive lamp replacement down the line.
You can see where Kodak have been going with this at
http://avscience.com/2010/12/kodak-l...-presentation/

It should be better and more affordable, so hopefully Red will not charge us all too much for it when it arrives in the RED Shop : )

Peter Versey
UK camera operator/DP

[Ivan Kovax]

Just a follow up on this:

I was not able to attend NAB this year, and have heard much talk of this projector, red dragon, mission control...

Despite the early stage, does anybody have some more specifics regarding this 4K laser projector? What does RED mean by "home projector"? does this mean a theater projector will be coming somewhere along the line?

I remember in the early days Red spoke of releasing a 4k projector, but that project was put on the back burner for a while. I am very excited about the reboot of this idea!

I have a feeling that Red will soon be a household name, and not just among tech geeks :)