TGIF since that means CES is over. My feet hurt, I spent all Thursday evening in a flying cattle car and my brain was starting to short out. Between the Las Vegas Strip and CES, there was enough glitter and bright lights to short out anyone.

Matt Brennesholtz
Insight Media Analyst

I went to CES to look at pico-projectors, and there is no question they were there. I had seen pico-projector demonstrations before CES, but they had been mostly promise. Before CES, all the images I had seen produced by pico-projectors were dim, poor color, speckled, distorted, and/or held together by black masking tape. None of the projectors I had seen before looked like products. They looked like exactly what they were: laboratory demonstration units. The people showing these projectors explained the changes they would make before production to improve the image, form factor, etc. Since I am an engineer myself, I understood what they were talking about and could see the path they were planning to follow.

At CES 2008 things were different. While there were no actual current or formally announced products on display, there were several pico-projectors that actually looked like products. You could hold them in your hand or put them in your pocket, unlike a "pocket projector." You could play a video from your iPod or show photos or PowerPoint presentations from your PDA. You could point them at a blank wall and get an image that was big enough, bright enough and high enough resolution to use. But most of all, you could look at them and imagine them in bubble packs at the Apple Store, Best Buy or Wal-Mart.

Some of these units are shown in the photo. In addition to these pico-projectors, I saw offerings from Jabil/Sypro, SCRAM, and customers of Displaytech that looked like products and presumably will be soon.

As I said, none of the pico-projectors shown at CES were actual products. Most came with an explanation that ran something like, "This prototype unit uses 2 watts and produces 7 lumens. When it goes into production, it will consume 1.5 watts and produce 10 lumens." In addition, most of the pico-projectors were shown by companies not planning on introducing the projector themselves. The typical comment here was, "Our customer (that we can’t name) is planning on introducing it in the second half of 2008."

The markets for pico-projectors are not clear. When they are introduced later this year they will be in the form of stand-alone companion projectors that can connect to any video source. The initial units will probably carry price tags in the $300 - $400 range, although these prices are expected to fall fairly quickly into the $200 range.

There appear to be two major market differentiators among various pico-projectors: 1) lumens/watt and 2) resolution. Lumens/watt translates into the marketing issue of hours of battery operation. Most people believe two hours is a minimum, three preferred. I saw pico-projectors with resolutions in the range from QVGA (320×240) to WSVGA (852×600). Companies demonstrating QVGA projectors emphasized the importance of the size of the image while companies showing VGA or SVGA units think consumers would demand the higher resolution. Time will tell who is right.

Pico-projectors and (almost) everything else at CES will be covered in detail in the upcoming issues of MDR and LDR. In addition, the Insight Media pico-projector report will be updated based on input from CES and other sources and re-issued in early February. All purchasers of the November 2007 Pico-Projector report will get the updated version at no cost. Others interested in the Pico-Projector report can contact Dian Mecca (dian@insightmedia.info) for more information.

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