At ISE Digital Projection Inc. (DPI) introduced six new projectors to its Insight, HIGHLite, E-Vision, Mercury (Titan) and M-Vision product lines.
The centerpiece of the show was the new Insight Dual Laser 4K projector with 27,000 lumens output. This is a DLP projector with true 4K (4096 × 2160) resolution. The projector uses 3 x 1.38″ DarkChip DMDs and provides 2000:1 contrast. The reason it is called “Dual Laser” is it uses two complete laser phosphor illumination systems originally developed for the HIGHLite series of projectors. That means 2 sets of lasers, two phosphor wheels and two diffuser wheels to eliminate speckle. These parallel optical paths then feed into a single rod integrator, custom made for the Dual Laser projector. There are actually 2 banks of lasers in each HIGHLite projector, one to produce blue light and one to produce yellow light, so there are a total of four banks of blue lasers in the Insight Dual Laser. Lifetime on the light source is said to be 20,000 hours. The projector comes with a three year warranty. The Insight Dual Laser 4K was used to fill the main screen in the Digital Projection booth and a second unit was shown on auxiliary screen. I was told the second unit wasn’t running at the full 27,000 lumen output of the projector because, given the screen size in the booth, the image would have been uncomfortably bright.
The projector will accept up to 60 fps 4096 x 2160 pixels sequential input via a single DisplayPort 1.2 connection or up to 60 fps (2 x 30 fps) 4096 x 2160 pixels Dual-Pipe input via DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 2.0. The projector will also accept either dual pipe or frame sequential 3D content and can double flash it.
Digital Projection Dual Laser 4K and the image it produced on Digital Projection’s main screen at ISE
The new 4K-UHD HIGHLite Laser projector is another three chip design using 3 x 0.65″ DarkChip 1080p DMDs and pixel shift to generate UHD resolution (3840 x 2160) and 2000:1 contrast. It produces 11,000 ANSI or 12,500 ISO lumens. It has HDMI, DisplayPort 1.2, 3G-SDI with loop-through and HDBaseT inputs and supports dual-pipe processing and double flash for 3D. It also has a DICOM simulation mode. The projector comes with a 5 year/20,000 hour warranty.
Insight Dual Laser 4K (top) and the HIGHLite Laser 4K-UHD (bottom) projectors from Digital Projection at ISE
The E-Vision Laser 4K projector uses a single 0.67″ TRP DMD and pixel shift to produce UHD (3840 x 2160) resolution and 7,000 ANSI or 7,500 ISO lumens. It has a native contrast of 1,000:1 but with dynamic black will produce 10,000:1 contrast. The 3G-SDI input with loop-through is SMPTE 292M, SMPTE 259M-C and SMPTE 424M compliant and the HDMI input includes Deep Color processing. It also has DisplayPort 1.2 and HDBaseT inputs and supports dual-pipe 3D via HDMI. It also has a five year/20,000 hour warranty.
The E-Vision Laser 10K uses a single 0.67″ DarkChip DMD to provide WUXGA (1920 x 1200) resolution and 9,500 ANSI or 10,500 ISO lumens. Part of the reason it has such high output is it uses a four segment color wheel, with RGBW segments. Native contrast is 1,000:1 and dynamic contrast is 10,000:1. It has the same inputs and outputs as the E-Vision Laser 4K, plus it has analog VGA input and monitor outputs and component video on 5 x BNC connectors. It also has a five year/20,000 hour warranty.
Digital Projection’s E-Vision Laser 4K (top) and E-Vision Laser 10K (bottom) at ISE
The only lamp-based projector Digital Projection was featuring at ISE was the Mercury Quad projector, based on the Titan series. It uses 4 x 465W high intensity discharge mercury lamps to produce 20,000 lumens output. The lamps have a 2,500 hour life at full power or 3,000 hours in the Eco mode. It uses 3 x 0.96″ DarkChip DMDs with WUXGA (1920 x 1200) resolution at a 16:10 aspect ratio with 2,000:1 contrast. It has 2 x HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.1a, HDBaseT and 3G-SDI in/out. DisplayPort accepts frame rates up to 120 Hz with latency as low as one frame. The HDMI 1.4 port accepts side by side, frame packing & top bottom 3D formats and the system has dual-flash capability.
Digital Projection Mercury Quad projector at ISE
Digital Projection also announced the M-Vision 15K before ISE and showed it in the booth but did not provide any details. The original pre-ISE announcement said, “Finally, the M-Vision range has been upgraded to also include the latest in laser illumination technology. The M-Vision Laser 15K is a powerful single chip DLP projector with an impressive 15,000 lumens output and 10,000:1 contrast ratio. The M-Vision Laser 15k brings budget-sensitive applications a large-screen imaging solution. Venues contending with ambient light, as well as applications needing a powerful yet budget-conscious large-format imagery solution, will directly benefit from the M-Vision 15K’s ample light output.” When asked, the Digital Projection rep said the unit on display was an early sample and actually had 18K lumens output. He said the projector should be available in June.
M-Vision Laser 15K at ISE
Digital projection showed an impressive array of new and upgraded technology at ISE. All the projectors had excellent image quality, given the limitations of booth size and trade show ambient illumination. I guess that’s no surprise since Digital Projection always has excellent image quality. –Matthew Brennesholtz
