On October 23rd, NEC Display Solutions of America, Inc. (Itasca, IL) held its NEC Showcase New York in the Affinia Hotel in Manhattan. The showcase not only featured NEC products such as projectors and flat panel displays but also products from NEC partners.
Key among the products NEC showed were its new laser projectors. The company also took the opportunity to highlight one new non-laser projector. Rich McPherson, NEC Sr. Product Manager – Projectors, gave me a thorough tour of the room where all the laser projectors were on display. Projectors I saw included:
* PX602UL Single chip DLP laser phosphor installation projector
* PH1202HL Three chip DLP laser phosphor projector
* NC1040L three chip DLP pure-laser projector
* PH1201QL three chip DLP laser phosphor projector.
* M402H single chip DLP lamp-based projector
According to McPherson, lifetime on the laser phosphor and pure laser systems is said to be 20,000 hours. He said the laser phosphor projectors use blue lasers for the blue light and to excite a yellow phosphor. The light from the yellow phosphor is then split into red and green components for illumination of the DLPs. He said yellow was used, rather than separate red and green phosphors, because of the higher efficiency, higher power handling capability and longer life of the yellow phosphor compared to individual red and green phosphors.
PX602UL
The PX602UL was shown in the demo room in the portrait mode. This was to emphasize its ability to be installed in almost any orientation, including pointing straight down. The PX602UL is a single chip WUXGA (1920 x 1200) DLP projector with 6000 lumens output. There will also be a similar WXGA (1280 x 800) projector.
In addition to all the normal inputs for a high-end installation projector, the PX602UL has an HDMI output. McPherson says this allows projectors to be daisy-chained so that multiple projectors can show the same content. He said the HDCP system used for commercial content delivered by HDMI allows up to four displays to be daisy-chained together. In addition to the normal inputs, the projector has an Open Pluggable Specification (OPS) slot. The OPS system was created by Intel to facilitate plug-in computers and simplify digital signage systems. NEC has a number of OPS boards compatible with the PX602UL and other NEC displays with OPS slots and competitors’ products also feature an OPS slot. For example, the SB-07BC from NEC is HDBaseT OPS Receiver Module that can add an HDBaseT interface to a display with an OPS slot but no it has no product with a native HDBaseT interface.
Although at InfoComm this summer, NEC said the PX602UL would be available in the October time frame, McPherson said the current plan is to start shipping in November or December. MSRP is expected to be $19,999.
PH1202HL
The PH1202HL is a three chip DLP projector with a 20,000 hour laser phosphor light source. The projector has 1080p (1920 x 1080) resolution and produces 12K lumens. McPherson said it has the same feature set as the PX602UL projector, including the OPS slot.
When asked about the color gamut of the PH1202HL, McPherson said it was
