In a meeting room, DLP projector specialist Coretronic was showing a “laser TV”. This was a complete system consisting of a 3000-lumen UST projector that sits on the floor and illuminates a 100″ screen (from DNP) that uses light rejection to maintain good contrast and image performance. A sound bar forms part of the system. The colour performance was very good and the image quality overall was very impressive, with good uniformity. We heard that this is because much of the internal processing is done with TV chips rather than projector chips. Coretronic is also working on a 5,000-lumen version with a standard projector controller.
Staff told us that the performance was dependent on expensive Japanese optical components.
The TV is already selling in China, apparently with positive results (we think it uses the Optoma OEV953UT). At the moment, the pricing is from $8,000 to $16,000, but the firm told us that this could come down to around half that level later. Other brands are also selling this kind of product in China and staff told us that one factor is that the development is “Chinese” and therefore different from what the West is buying.
Also on show was a very wide angle UST projector that was being used with a capacitive touch whiteboard (not a display). The performance was quite good and the very wide performance (around 135″ to 140″ with a very wide aspect ratio) was similar to dual LCDs. However, the cost would be a lot less. The capacitive board is available as “film on board” or as a rollable film. The projector is already in mass production.
