“ Barco's Light Steering Technology, first public demo”

[Cinetom]

At Cinemacon 2018 I attended a demo showing Barcos new Light Steering Technology.

During the 15 to 20 min demonstration, Barco never disclosed what we were seeing or what the source material was.

The screen appeared to be 25 to 30 feet wide. The demo compared a 4K Xenon projector to the projector with the light steering technology which was 4k laser-based.

They demoed clips from an Alien Movie and from Ice Age. With the LST projector, the images looked very bright with good HDR Effects. You could easily see the improvement over the Xenon projector.

The LST picture overall looked very bright, sharp with good color but the black level was a bit disappointing.

While the picture was very bright, I don’t know how bright, on the other end it does not match the LED walls black level, at least in its current state of development.

They are not saying anything about the price or expected delivery time frame. The light sharing technology I'm guessing is in the very early prototype stage and not anything we will be able to buy anytime soon.

Summary for me showed this is a promising technology if they can improve the black level to further compete with the LED Walls which will also be improving during the next few years.

Did anyone else see this demo? If so, please share your thoughts.

[lygren]

Very interesting! The not so impressive blacks are a bit disappointing though, but I guess the effect of "steering light" might differ a little from frame to frame given that it has to have somewhere to actually steer that light too... Perhaps in really dark frames and no peaks, it simply has nowhere to "put" that excessive light and as such does not lower blacks to any significant levels. It might be possible to adjust the algorithm a little in such regards so that it perhaps overcompensates a little on the light distribution...

How about halo / blooming - did you see any of that? One challenge from "steering light" would certainly be how precisely they are able to do so. If there is an even slightest imprecision, at least for highly contrasted objects, they would easily bleed at the edges - kind of like an LCD TV using multiple zones of backlight...

[MrPixels]

The product sounds like it is in its early development stage maybe black level will improve. Sad that most cinema's would not benefit from improved black level so the gain in peak brightness efficiency sounds promising with this new technology. It is too early to tell what the finished product will look like but it is nice to see advances in projection technology still taking place.

[Peter CINERAMAX]

I disagree with Cinetom, the room contrast was the issue, i have been to enough Dolby Cinemas and is no different, there was no artifacting either.

Put a xenon projector as a placeholder for VISION 2020, when i might consider doing projection ever again.


https://youtu.be/rEUsLfF31fY

More Highlights than dolby vision, with the far superior Barco Colorimetry.

Same Video Donald Posted. No Artifacts.

[MrPixels]

Peter that link is dead. Any screen caps?

[Peter CINERAMAX]

Hi, Same video Donald Had Posted. Excellent Image. Same Color as Thor with 4 times the cr..

[lygren]

Sounds very very interesting in such case, but the 4x contrast, i.e. up to >20.000:1 native, is that a figure Barco is referring to, or something that has been assessed / measured somehow? Still, the combination of a potentially >20x peak highlight production and contrast improved to the levels indicated - and with limited / low / non-existing amount of artefacts is really what projection needs right now... Too bad one would need half a million bucks to have it installed anytime soon, wish it was Sony or some other company that is more used to "trickling" tech down the tube than Barco purchasing this, but at least for commercial cinema it´s a potentially game changer albeit blacks are crushed from those horrid EXIT signs anyhow but at least peaks can be utilised!