Canon was showing the 4K600STZ which is a 6,000 ANSI lumen DCI 4K projector in a blended application and based on its LCOS chips. The company announced the projector last year and we saw it at ISE. (LCoS and Rear Projection at Canon) The firm was using a new optical combiner from GBVI, which, unfortunately meant that the blend had a green tinge. This is a new design and there had not been time to optimise. Canon was generally very positive about GBVI’s technology in general.
Canon told us that its optics design is a special one that has a concept called ‘marginal focus’ that allows the edge of a warped image to be as sharp as the centre. The company has also included a motion blur mode that is useful in some simulations and has three settings. The mode uses black frame insertion and the frames can either be black (which reduces brightness) or at a low level of brightness, which improves the motion without such a high impact on brightness.
The projector is rated at 40K hours in its long life mode and also has a constant brightness mode, which is ideal for simulation. The brightness of the projector can be adjusted in 0.5% steps. That is a big advantage over lamp-based systems. With lamp-based systems, if a lamp has to be replaced because of failure, the other lamps will usually be along way away in terms of brightness, so in practice, if one fails, they all have to be replaced.
As well as the regular version, there are versions that are optimised for infrared use with night-vision goggles and another version that is designed for 3D glasses.
Canon told us that one of the developments that it has been working on is 4K lenses that are matched to the quality of the image.
The resolution of Canon’s blended image was very good. Image:Meko
