As part of Insight Media’s team coverage of CEDIA in Denver, I have been privileged to witness demonstrations of the latest in home theater front projection from Sim2, Digital Projection, projectiondesign, Runco, Planar, Sony, and JVC. Although, TI’s DLP dominates and the 3LCD consortium continues its push, a lesser-known technology managed to capture interest as one of the most impressive of them all.

John DiLoreto
Analyst and Editor for
Insight Media

Far less prominent is LCOS technology, available in separate versions from Sony (SXRD) and JVC (D-ILA).

A day before the show started, JVC invited the press to a demonstration of two new projectors at a small cinema in the adjacent Center for the Performing Arts. The first was their jaw-dropping 4K x 2K projector. Content from an airline simulator and a digital movie shot in 4K (four times the resolution of 1080) drew "oooh’s" from the audience.

In my Display Daily of August 24, I made reference to Sony raising the bar with its $4,000 VPL-/VW60 that delivers an on/off contrast of 35,000:1, enabled by an auto-iris. This contrast figure was questioned as unmeasurable and unmeaningful.

But as dynamic contrast producing methods are adopted by projection and LCD makers, it is becoming harder to find high-contrast products that don’t use dynamic methods (varies the light output based on the scene content to shift the dynamic range of the display higher or lower).

But JVC’s latest 1080p projector is so good it achieves a contrast of 30,000:1 without a dynamic aperture. Granted, it is hand picking the best panels for this new DLA-HD100 projector, but the performance is there nonetheless. JVC uses a trio of its latest 0.7-inch D-ILA chip, delivering a whopping 3,500 lumens. The projector comes in two models, the DLA-HD100 at $8,000 for premium retailers, and the DLA-RS2 aimed at custom installers.

Dr. William Bleha introduced the new projectors and their underlying technology. It was profound to have the technology introduced by the man who helped developed the original CRT-based ILA projection technology and who has led the development of five generations of D-ILA imagers and projectors. He also said "8K x 4K projectors are possible and being worked on now."

These advancements come on the heels of last year’s introduction of the RS1 with 15,000:1 contrast. The improvements come from a new generation of D-ILA device that claims an on-chip contrast of 40,000:1. Maintaining this contrast on a system level comes from engine design improvements that include the use of wire grid polarizers and improvements in stray-light rejection.

The projectors allow lens shift with custom Fujinon lenses and a new Gennum video processor that provides a v-stretch function that works with an optional anamorphic lens attachment.

JVC deserves to be congratulated on the pace of its improvements in D-ILA technology, especially over the past two years. Yet the pace of development industry-wide is relentless. Over and over, on the show floor and in private press demonstrations, top companies are vying to demonstrate what they consider "the best that home theater can offer," at price points ranging from a few thousand to over $100,000.

As the growing size of CEDIA shows, custom home theater is a rapidly growing market. And all of these projector contenders will have a place to play. Stay tuned for in-depth coverage of home theater projection and the rest of CEDIA team coverage in the upcoming issue of Projection Monthly with Flat Panel Coverage.

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