Laser Projection

[Steve Johnson]

I think the idea of RED RAY is to replace DCP.

I agree - I just think that there will be a hybrid version first offering both DCP and RED.

Its a fact that theaters will not invest in two concurrent player systems. DCP is the defacto standart right now and so both the studios and the theaters will use DCP in the first place.
So the the only way to spread a new format to the theaters is by making a player that plays DCPs and the new format

I would agree with Axel that to get theatres onboard, a hybrid would work as the might not go with the 2 players. Unless the RED format is adopted by all studios for releases, but then every digital theatre in the world would HAVE to adopt it. No I know Jim Cameron got all the digital theatres adopting 3D for Avatar, and it worked. Not saying it won't for RED, I just think there will be a phase in approach with a dual player that will play RED format (whatever that becomes - RedCode) and DCP.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Ah, an interesting thread.

There are a few different types out there. and a few on the market for a while. One that is like one of my old desgns is from www.microvision.com/showwx/ Not the best way to do it, but such a design could yeild a 4k display, particularly with some redesign cheaply. Forgot to mention, I think it was them that have a good chunk of laser projector patents from aquiring another large portfolio from a competitor. It also can take more powerful lasers for bigger screens.

I've previously been designing product concepts, and the technologies for them. I've come up with many new display concepta, but been concentrating on laser projection in particular, withnsomewhare over one hundred different desgns. A few years back I realised it was possible to design a large screen 4k display for realistically $80. 8k I do not know how easy it could be, the bigger the easier to increase resolution to some extent. I just came up with another refinement to it the other night. I also managed to come up with an ultimate laser projector concept, but am unsure of the physics on this. I've taken a section upto 100% efficency, and the other section should be able to reach close to 100%, I might have a design for that somewhere already. This is important for the long charge life products I am interested in, even watches. I have some interesting hybrid reflective display tecnology towards this too, and this afternoon have devised a system for a foldable many segment display with practicaly invisible joins, but with samsung's recent foldable oled display development it might be irrelevent.

I forgot to mention, I have been devising a mechanism to do a cheaper 4k display shortly (this year) as a touch editing surface. But nothing compared to what I could do with a few million in investment.

The industry is catching up with some of these ideas slowly, but this sort of stuff has been doable for years, it is only the laser efficency issues that restricted.

The problem is Red have not been hiring all the right people.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

It's been a foregone conclusion for years. Nothing new. Every big player in the HDTV and projector market has laser-based designs in their portfolios and Mitsubishi released their LaserVue projection HDTVs some time ago while several projector makers have released laser-based projectors in the past few years. The quality is there though there are some issues with high-resolution laser-displays but the physical size requirements for the technology (which are bulky projection TVs when you get right down to it) is the primary reason why you haven't seen them brought to market since they can't really compete with the smaller footprint of LED/LCD displays.

We are looking at units as thin as normal flat panels at least. People are too fanaticle about this thickness issue. The thickness of a laser vue is acceptable, unless you want to use it as a lay down touch surface, or handheld, or have some seroiuse space restrictions. Do you know the laservue is based on an Australuan design, that origionally supposed to release for $1700, and I still have not seen one here. For a leading edge upmarket set, I am surprised they have not tried to at least differentiate themselves in the past with shd resolution, may well have doubled their sales back then (read between the lines).

One of the real problems with laser is speckle, but there are ways around that.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Problem with all projectors is you have to be in a blacked out room. Your screen has to be very bright which means it has to be almost black. This is fine for about 5% of home theaters I've seen.

Projection is a non-starter for the vast majority of the market. Rear-projection can get darker but still not as dark as an LCD or Plasma and you still have focus and geometry issues in rear-projection which destroys sharpness and usability as a UI display. Not to mention rear-projection normally has terrible viewing angles.

For my uses I don't want to sit in a black room while watching movies or TV during most of the day and I don't have the room for two viewing areas. And I'm what I would consider one of the more demanding customers when it comes to displays. So I'm not surprised that Lasers haven't caught on. Who wants milky washed out blacks or who wants to black out their living room? If a 4k Projector was under $2k I would consider getting one just for when I want to move my flatscreen out of the way and go wall sized cinema but otherwise I'm sticking with a flat-screen.

There are projection surfaces designed to give a strong contrasty image in light, and with better blacks. I have a few personal designs. They ussualy are were very (very) expensive, as the patents for them are not out of date. I imagine anything that is really good is still expensive. A couple of nights ago I was looking for large touch screens, and came accross a video of maybe the showxx 20 lum laser projector on a cheap advanced projection surface in 700 lum lit room. Not the best video, but might research to get some for examination (luv to find a site that lists and evaluates them all).

The purist might insist on a white mat projection surface, but in reality better and good enough is possible for home use.

Haven't read the patent, but good to see that there is talk about Apple releasing hdtv this year, something I have been pushing for over the years. Be great if they had 40 or 50+ inch 4k tvs.

 

[Nathan VanderByl]

Wouldn't the biggest hurdle to getting a RED-based projector in cinemas worldwide, formats aside, be servicing/replacement parts? I also don't see RED delivering a consumer product. I imagine they will fill the niche much like they did with the RED One - a product that competes with all the "big boys" in the 4K projection world in a much smaller package and at a much cheaper price.

 

[Nathan VanderByl]

Haven't read the patent, but good to see that there is talk about Apple releasing hdtv this year, something I have been pushing for over the years. Be great if they had 40 or 50+ inch 4k tvs.

I wouldn't put too much stock in that - Apple builds ecosystems around a limited set of products that work great within them. If sales of AppleTV were notable, I could see them getting behind one.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

The good thing about laser/led based projection systens are extra long lamp life, and probably reduced servicing and manufacturing costs.

For Red a upmarket consumer projector in the $3-5k range, helps subsidise the cost of the projector for production purposes, as it could increase sakes many times. As well, there are certain common design advantages with a cinema sized version that is bigger and requires the secured encryption channels. The only issue is ever changing consumer standards. I mean, hdmi 1.4 is not adequate for the sort of 50hz non interlaced dual feild stereo 3d we need to be looking at, display port is better and i suspect we will see this capability soon in another version, so display port/thunderbolt on the product is a must. At 8k the situation is even worse. So, until this is worked out a projector will need a replacable upgrade card for the ports.


Nathan


It is a longterm veiw, what do they do next to keep business up, as the current product lines are getting fully developed in meaningful market differentiation (feature list) as many competitors become just as refined and appealing. Apple has allready announced they are pkanning on moving to concentrating on software differentiation in sime of these product lines. So they eventusally need new product lines to grow and survive, 3d tv with mac/ios becomes an option. The challenge for apple is to figure out where to go next. They seem to be limited, vision is vision, it can be all encompassing, but many people have troible seeing the future. I used to do a lot of conceptual design work, that included many designs like apple has, ten or more years before they came out, as did a freind of mine that designs computers to a limited extent. I know where they can go, my present designs concepts look ten years ahead, plus they are missing a huge gap in mobile features/design that i am considering exploiting. Same with cameras, everything out there looks primitive to what is on the drawing board.

About the Apple Hdtv, they have been exploring lay down Ms surface like products, but I will be dissapionted though, if this is merely a mix up with the apple tv set top box again. Watch that one, as they are apparently evaluating/evaluated the use of theri Arm chip in the macbook air, and the apple tv product could become a cloud based home computer. Most all the range could be replaced with Arm computers eventually, the os on itouch etc moved to being based on the mac os years ago. The Arm cpu used to be the most powerfull cpu in the world when released and after, at times, as powerfull as a mini computer at 4mhz in the 80's. It suceeds in the mobile space because it is an ols very efficent design.