Gerd Kaiser, senior product manager for large venue projectors, said that the overarching theme for NEC at the show was, “Laser, laser, laser”! This was certainly borne out in the models on display, few of which used lamps.
At the front of the stand were NEC’s newest laser models: the 3P NC3540LS (seen as a prototype at CineEurope 2015: NEC is Ready for CineEurope) and laser phosphor NC1700L.
The NC1700L is designed for mid-size cinemas, with screens up to 17m wide. It will become available in January next year. Before that, NEC will launch the NC3540LS in November 2016. This laser model reaches DCI-4k resolution and is designed for screens up to 33m wide. Light output reaches 35,000 lumens; the projector uses a separate light farm, linked by fibre, as a light source. The projector was described as “Almost speckle-free” by Kaiser, due to its broad colour bands (spectral diversity).
Next year NEC will launch a stacking solution for the NC3540LS, supplying up to 70,000 lumens. It will be at CinemaCon 2017.
