Where is 4k demand coming from in the rental market, asked Panasonic’s Hartmut Kulessa? From new applications and opportunities, he answered.
Panasonic ran into the same problem as Barco (Barco is Ready for Lamp-Free Projection) when it came to developing a high-resolution projector for the rental market: there were no chips. However, the company has overcome that hurdle with a pixel-shifting technology (again, similar to Barco) called Quad Pixel Drive. Panasonic’s PT-RQ13K (Panasonic Emphasises Strength & Reliability), a 1DLP model, was built using a 2560 x 1600 chip and QPD.
Laser projection was also discussed. Panasonic has “no doubt” that laser projection will take over for installation, due to their lower TCO. However, where is the advantage for the rental market? These customers want big, bright images, which are often let down by lamps.
The lamp is the weak point in a projector. While laser models start off at a lower brightness than a comparable lamp-based unit, they also have a slower and more linear brightness decay. Brightness uniformity is also much easier to achieve. Rental managers select projectors based on their running hours, and early change of ‘good’ lamps is unavoidable. This is not the case with laser models; Panasonic’s projectors will remain above 90% brightness for 5,000 hours. Additionally, Panasonic’s ‘Brightness Priority’ setting enables brightness levels to be maintained above 80%, albeit at the cost of the projector’s operational lifetime.
Panasonic undertook a survey of the rental market in Europe, and came up with some interesting statistics. The average hire period for a projector is 4-5 days, but the unit is only in use (and paid for) for 1-2 days. Additionally, projectors are hired out about 57 times a year. This means that rental projectors are used for about 1,368 hours, spending 70% of their time on hire and 30% in the warehouse undergoing maintenance.
If a laser projector were used instead of a lamp-based model, the projector would not need to be returned for maintenance as often. Panasonic estimates that hire events could be raised by 33% – from 57 to 76 times per year.
In addition to the above, a laser projector can eliminate the need for ‘hot backups’ – that is, a separate dedicated backup unit for every projector that has been hired. Instead, a single ‘cold backup’ could be used to cover multiple projectors, due to the increased reliability of laser models.
After the presentations, it was time for Lang’s traditional – but sadly no longer daily – ‘Bier ab vier’ (‘Beer after four’). In the past, this was the time when Lang employees would get together and talk about the day, spreading knowledge between departments. The company is now too big for this to be a realistic prospect, but it was revived for the day. We picked up a tip from an Epson employee that the company is looking at the rental market, and will show a solid-state projector at ISE 2016. We’ll look out for it at the show!
