Sony had two main demos at CinemaCon 2017: a prototype RGB laser 4K projector and its Cledis LED 4K video wall solution. (Sony Rethinking Cledis for Cinema)
Sony started the regular briefings with a presentation describing some of the advantages of using SXRD LCoS panels instead of DLP chips in a projector. The main advantage is contrast. Sony’s Xenon lamp-based projectors can achieve 8000:1 sequential contrast.
Conventional Xenon-based DLP projectors are around 1800:1 to 2000:1. Adding a laser phosphor source can bump this up a little and by going to an RGB laser source with a new projection lens, Barco and Christie can now create 5000:1 to 6000:1 sequential contrast. IMAX RGB laser theaters are thought to be around 8000:1, and Dolby, which uses a dual modulation design manufactured by Christie, can achieve 1 million to one in a completely dark and empty theater.
Contrast and the ability to create HDR content in the theater is becoming a hot topic – one that will now become even more important to Sony and the industry based upon the new Samsung Cinema screen using LED video wall technology.
As reported in the article on Ymagis and EclairColor, HDR is already being rolled out in cinemas even without any standard for what this means. Around 50 theaters have been equipped so far – but only with Sony projectors. Ymagis believes a sequential contrast ratio of 5000:1 is the minimum, so the new Christie and Barco high contrast models should fit the bill.
Sony has been sitting back and waiting for the right time to introduce an RGB laser projector for the theatrical market. Some readers may recall that in 2005, Sony showed an RGB laser projector at a trade expo in Japan based upon the grating light value technology. (I got a chance to see this at the time at Sony in Japan and it looked very good – Man. Ed.) This was not further commercialized, however. Now, they think the time is right.
Sony’s RGB laser architecture is unique in the market. It basically takes two 3-chip SXRD light engines and couples them into a single projection lens with a beam combiner. The lasers are inside the chassis as Sony sees the 20% fiber coupling loss as too much. Sony also decided to NOT make this a 6p system, which they could have. Why? Sony feels the cost and caring for spectral 6p glasses is not a good cinema solution. Therefore, 3D is achieved by polarization techniques. Having one polarization state devoted to each eye reduces fatigue and helps in speckle mitigation as well. Plus, dual 4K images can be presented simultaneously – better matching the way the content is captured with 3D stereo rigs. This will help reduce motion artifacts and eye fatigue as well. Sony said the panels can be driven at up to 120 fps.
The other big news is the used of red, green and blue laser diodes. Most RGB laser projectors today use IR pumped and frequency-doubled green lasers, which offer high power, but are bigger and more expensive. Only now are green laser diodes with high enough power becoming commercially available to suit this market application (probably from Nichia, although Sony would not verify this). Sony did not disclose the green wavelength, but it may be around 520 to 525nm. That will allow the projector to cover more of the full human color gamut, but it will make compliance to the BT.2020 spec more difficult as 532 nm is specified in this document.
Sony ran a demo with the new RGB laser projector (photo), which they plan to ship in 2018. The production unit will be considerably smaller and lighter, we were told. The demo unit was also damaged in shipment. As a result, part of the image was out of focus, contrast and despecking was reduced and they were not able to demonstrate the 3D capability. Some thought Sony should not have shown the projector in this condition.
Spiderman content was shown, but because of the damaged prototype projector, it does not seem fair to comment on it at this time.
We tried to learn more about the architecture, but Sony is not saying very much at this time. For example, they were elusive on HDR support beyond the Ymagis/Eclair initiative. No price has been suggested nor plans to offer this to the hi-end home theater market. Contrast was not stated other than it will be at least 8000:1. – CC
