Laser-fest promised by Showeast

[Peter CINERAMAX]

New more powerful single gun models with 20,000 and 40,000 lumens as well as the triple gun model are going to be shown by NEC during ShowEast. With Christie and Barco no doubt showing their 6p solutions as well.

Exciting times. We will be there probing and asking the relevant questions.

I'm stoked! 

[Peter CINERAMAX]

Here is the invite from NEC, Christie and Barco will probably exhibit at the AMC Aventura Cinema halls 17, 18, 19 as well...

[Peter CINERAMAX]

NC1040L delivered in spades,rec 2020ready,zero speckle, and upcoming improvements. I'll post pics.

[Peter CINERAMAX]

I spent the better part of two afternoons having the 1040L put though it's paces, taking pictures as settings were changed from native color (nerly rec 2020) and dci plus going from +12 laser intensity to +255, they show it at +35 to achieve 14 ft lambert on a 19 foot wide.

Bear with me as I decipher the pics.Much analysis to articulate. Some ranting too at the state of cinema lasers, why there is no perfect machine even though in between the 3 manufacturers they do cover all the bases.

[MrPixels]

Looking forward to your report Peter.

[Peter CINERAMAX]

I bumped on the first day at the demo with Polarization Guru Chris Ward owner of Depth Q, he convinced them to put up test patterns which turned out to be quite instructive in many ways,, hence I returned the next day with more test pattern experiments.

[Peter CINERAMAX]

They had the 1100 blue-pushed phosphor next to the 1040 .

The small lens of the 1110 actually appears to have more MTF in comparison to the 4k {insert rant points on apparent demonstration trends to soften the 4k lasers}.

There is no speckle per se. Speckle manifests like C-Band satellite noise (tearing). Whomever says that they saw speckle in the green is an idiot because they have diffused the light so much that you can see noise in the colors if you expand the gamut and intensify the laser but it manifests as hive noise behind the color, the barco dp-2k for example exhibits noise on blue, the laser blue is way cleaner than the barco xenon. Also the barco is dci to see the hive activity behind the green laser you really need to expand the gamut to native, which they call rec 2020 cause its nerly there.

[Peter CINERAMAX]

Next generation product specs, Commentary, analysis, and frustration rant to come.

Here are pics of dci color at 35 lamp power.

and rec 20202 at 12 lamp power (the minimum)
35 LP, 125LP, and 255LP.

[Peter CINERAMAX]

rec 2020 at 12 Power intensity.

We hear claims that  the range of 3 gun laser  is a lot more than xenon, my conclusion is yes but maybe by 15 to 20% only.

Rec 2020 test patterns were a bit noisier  in the green that dci color patterns, it may be speckle induced but as long as they use these strong diffusers it does not look like speckle, the horrors of the original Evans and Sutherland projector are a thing of the past.

[Peter CINERAMAX]

I was lucky this year to be able to talk to Richard McPherson of NEC rather than getting a lecture from the Head of DCI in Japan about the hazards of using commercial equipment in a Home, something DPI and Runco were doing with NEC for decades.

He completely dispelled any worries I had about Laser Radiation exposure to the eyes not only on the 1100 ( with which I was zapped once). In fact laser is safer than xenon for a given brightness value.

Someone else also explained about the forthcoming improvements coming to the 1040 platform, more contrast and better specs throughout, improved de-speckling on the lasers etc etc. Also a more powerful laser engine, ive heard 20k and 35k thrown around.

For Home Cinema you only need 20kw pre contrast mods.  Their target increased contrast  is 6k to 8k but no one will know until the proto is seen in Japan this Xmas.  The next gen 1040 should come to market next summer. Which is personally frustrating as it keeps on delaying projects....

[Peter CINERAMAX]

Nec is looking into 6P but apparently with not enough momentum.

Don't they realize that their projector is uniquely sized to be the ideal Laser Stack?

Christie is working on a smaller head that will eat NEC's lunch when it comes out because in addition of it's compactness will be mirror imaged vertically so as to minimize the inter-lens spacing, that and the fact that the NEC 4k lenses are soft add to the frustration.

Now why did Barco use a 2k lens in the Cinemacon demo? It is a disturbing trend, me having used fixed ultra-sharp lenses in my last three installs it feels like I am swimming against the current. It is a very promising time but a very frustrating time, no one has a focused vision in this industry. they are bringing laser into market via the level of attention in a voice dictation.

[Peter CINERAMAX]

NEC 1040 Uniquely suited for 6p. But NEC not motivated.