We noted at CES that Epson was putting a lot of emphasis on the Moverio glasses product and at Gitex, the company started by showing us the latest iteration, the BT-200. At the moment, the company is trying to focus on seeding units into developers to produce apps for the glasses, which can support head tracking. The optical performance was pretty good, but this reporter found them heavy and wouldn’t be very keen to wear them over a long period. In the Middle East, the company has got stock with distributors.
Turning to traditional projectors, staff highlighted the convenience of the EH-TW6600W wireless FullHD projector that we reported on from IFA. Image quality certainly looks good for this model. The EB-Z10000 is a new installation model that we reported on in June and was being shown for the first time in the MEA region. We were impressed with the degree of geometric correction that can be achieved with the projector, with no external controller, even mapping around corners. It also supports curved screen use and edge blending.
We reported on the EB-W28 projector with the QR code support in Vol. 21, no 35, but this was our first demo. The system looks quite easy to use, although it doesn’t seem to do much more than saving the user from typing in an IP address! The sharing and networking options on the unit look quite useful.
The EB-1970/80 series is for meeting rooms and new were the EB-1895WU (1920 x 1200, 4,800 ANSI lumens) and the EB-1970W (1280 x 800, 5,000 ANSI lumens). Features that were highlighted were the WiDi and Miracast support for direct display from mobile devices and the auto keystone correction.
We looked at the company’s interactive projectors which support pen or six finger touch and the company told us about the laser home cinema projector using reflective LCDs and with UltraHD support that is “coming soon”. However, we have already reported on that in our Cedia report.
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In its announcements about the new high end projector for the home at Cedia, Epson said that it uses Reflective LCD technology and the same phrase was used to us at Gitex. “Ah!”, we said, “then that’s LCOS, then?”. We were told that it definitely wasn’t LCOS, but a variation on the quartz system used by Epson in its transmissive LCDs. We’re digging out more information (we already have enough that we realise that it is not LCOS, but will return to the subject again). Our contact at Gitex told us that the parts are “very expensive” and that has been a factor in bringing the high end systems to market. (BR)
