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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

REDray Projector..

Jarreds first post from this thread is from April 2012... sigh. I think they should restart the idea ;)
 
If the right opportunity came along in terms of high quality/moderate cost light engines, powerful ASICs for UHD/4K processing, etc - then RED might revive the laser projector program. That said, I have to wonder if there is still a hole in the market for RED to leverage. In 2012 there were very few (maybe Epson) manufacturers outside of Sony putting significant resources into getting a UHD/4K projector to market that had great IQ and a list price under $10K. At CEDIA 2015 Sony showed a $60K laser UHD/4K projector that got raves, but the price point eliminates all but the 1% from purchasing - hard to cover NRE on sophisticated electronic devices with best case sales volumes in the 4 digits. On a positive note, a few years down the line, the progeny of the $60K "halo" product could be the projector many of us were hoping for from RED.

Sidebar: I believe one thing slowing the roll, is the manufacturers waiting on new silicon that can treat each UHD/4K frame as one, rather than integrating 1080 quadrants - way simpler signal chain. I'd guess the agonizingly slow roll out of HDMI2 and HDCP2.2 hasn't helped either - and don't get me started on the lack of useful standards to make connecting source devices to displays a plug-n-play experience - at 18gb/s, BTW. If only SuperMHL could proliferate, or a legit HDMI2.x spec that could carry us to UHD/4K 60P 10bit 4:2:2 at the very least.

Cheers - #19
 
At this point, I'm not sure if I would even be looking into projector tech if I were RED, or anyone else who wanted a solution to fill large screen areas. Large scale LCD screen and flexible screen technology has progressed to a point where it's becoming a commodity and making its way to smart phones and tablet devices. Large devices or surface areas are prohibitive still, but not in terms of manufacturing, it's an issue of driving the pixels with off-the-shelf GPUs at the moment. I think it would be better to focus efforts on 200~400 PPI flexible LED materials that can be supplied and driven in arbitrary sizes and shapes. Imagine that instead of a projector + screen combo, you just buy your big LED screen. Unroll the screen, mount it into a frame, attach the control box to the wall and connect power and interface cables to it, connect screen to control box and hang on wall over the top of it. Done. At 200 PPI a 158" (12.5 foot wide) 2.35:1 cinema screen has the equivalent of 30K pixels width. At first glance, that's like, uh, holy crap! But imagine the applications if it were used in a corporate or learning environment and the entire surface were touch-enabled. Think of the implications of such tech if it could be produced in such massive quantities that it becomes dirt cheap... What if school desks and work tables were all enabled with this tech? Students having the equivalent of a Wacom stylus plus full touch interface ability to work on their desk surfaces. They pick up their tablet or phone device when they leave and all the work goes with them and can be seamlessly accessed at home or elsewhere like public library spaces or coffee shops. What about sports bar settings where table and bar tops can be interacted with and configured by patrons right where they sit. Any game or show they want right there, they can throw it from the top surfaces up to larger screens. Have direct interaction with trivia or other such pub games... Really I'm not quite sure why all this isn't a happening thing just yet. The tech is here and has been here for a while. I guess it just takes someone to do it. None of these are new ideas...

What if 300 PPI LED screen material could be purchased in ready to use form for $30 per square meter? And what if it only took a simplistic commodity PC/GPU combo to drive it. Today this isn't possible. Won't be long until it is.
 
Interesting concept Jeff... but I'm still stuck in the mindset of wanting an under $10,000 laser projector to project on the side of a barn. '-)
 
I think LG are 2 generations away from selling large OLED screens that are less that 1 mm thick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h1MgIWLG1U

+) They've got an $ 8 billion bet on OLED until 2018.
+) Then need people to pine for contrast and buy their existing tech.

My (complete) guess is they'll ship 1mm x 8k HDR screens with greater than P3 colour gamut and Super MHL connectors in 2019.

AJ
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
At this point, I'm not sure if I would even be looking into projector tech if I were RED, or anyone else who wanted a solution to fill large screen areas. (snip) What if 300 PPI LED screen material could be purchased in ready to use form for $30 per square meter? And what if it only took a simplistic commodity PC/GPU combo to drive it. Today this isn't possible. Won't be long until it is.
Click to expand...

I've been a front projector as primary home screen guy since 1994. Currently rolling a 4K Sony 600ES w/ 108" Stewart Firehawk SST screen. The SXRD tech has high fill factor (no screen door effect) and decent blacks on the grey toned Firehawk. The only significant drawback, other than cost, is the need to control ambient light. The FireHawk material is designed to reflect on axis light - like from the projector, and reject off axis light - like from a window. That's sufficient for watching a ball game or other high key material, but not most narrative content.

If, as Jeff posits, a moderate cost option for emissive, rather than reflected, imagery becomes available... 100"+ diagonal screen sizes in rooms with windows and lights on, like most people's home viewing environments, could be huge.

FWIW, I really don't see RED getting back into the projector game. Moreover, I'd rather they pour all their engineering resources into making state of the art acquisition devices and refining the technology around them. Consumer displays are a low margin business sector that requires sophisticated marketing and distribution apparatus that RED doesn't currently have. Not saying that RED is incapable of accomplishing such a task, just that it would be a steep climb that would inevitably draw resources from camera development. Even Apple, dripping with cash, can't manage to properly support the pro market while busy trying to stay on top in the small consumer device market - iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch, etc... Just saying'.

Cheers - #19
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
At this point, I'm not sure if I would even be looking into projector tech if I were RED, or anyone else who wanted a solution to fill large screen areas. Large scale LCD screen and flexible screen technology has progressed to a point where it's becoming a commodity and making its way to smart phones and tablet devices.
Click to expand...
It's interesting to note (as I think I said several years ago) that both Red and Blackmagic worked very hard to create 4K and higher-res cameras, but have kind of ignored the high-end mastering and projection market. I would really love to see an under-$10,000 projector or reasonably-sized mastering-quality screen from either company, but it hasn't happened. I suspect if it were practical to do, it would've been done already.
 
Marc Wielage said:
It's interesting to note (as I think I said several years ago) that both Red and Blackmagic worked very hard to create 4K and higher-res cameras, but have kind of ignored the high-end mastering and projection market. I would really love to see an under-$10,000 projector or reasonably-sized mastering-quality screen from either company, but it hasn't happened. I suspect if it were practical to do, it would've been done already.
Click to expand...

There are so many on the market now that are pretty amazing,
Even tough Red and there amazing .RED codec and RED's 4K project was fantastic... I can't see how they would compete with the companies like Epson and Sony that are making amazing projectors from as little as 2500 bucks to 10k, which shoot images better than most cinemas.
I have one in my cinema at home, they are knife sharp and bright and play almost every codec.

Best RED keep concentrating on newer more innovative ideas like small ultra clear VR cameras rather than being bogged in projectors.
The current DSLR make is about to change again in the next couple of years with technology that will smash conventional thinking.
16k handheld sized VR cameras I think will become a big hit.

If you haven't watched a good VR demonstration mixed with Augmented reality... then you should !! 3 words... FUCKING MIND BLOWING !!
 
I've been following this thread and others on projection for years...and as a theatre owner (not just a filmmaker and owner of Dragons) I can tell you independent cinemas are a tough fight. Fewer people are going to theatres -unless of course they're the usual blockbusters.

We've been promoting and showing all kinds of amazing films worthy of broader audiences, but it's essentially a break even proposition unless you can get the big studio films.

Now, we are exploring doing as some others have an alternative: to create a post facility which takes advantage of our projector, surround system and screen so we can colour time, show dailies, and so on in order to multi-purpose the facility.

Bottom line is it's a shrinking market for projection as more people prefer the convenience of home and the small screen.
 
Hi, I am passing by, and haven't read all the new posts, but can say that $2.x k projectors are not that cheap. Basically your sub $100 projectors are cheap, they still do the same job, a sub $100 hdmi 2 4k android media player does 4k. All the stuff people had argued against me around, when I said it could be done for under $2k (probably I said under $1k) was self serving and nonsense. I was looking at doing a separate type of product and talking to a company about using their cheap head mounted display chips that had high reflectivity high pixel fill, and they had prototyped 16k chips which is public info. So, 4k can be done cheap, but 16k+ also uses.

Jeff, if you want to develop product for more smaller work and home theatre market then message me. There are ways around the laser power output issue.


Thanks.


Gooday.
 
Are there any options for a under 10 000 USD DCI/P3 compliant projector...? It was always a part of my roadmap to buy the Red laser projector, I even have the rest of the cinema in boxes gathering dust... oh well.
 
I saw somebody the other day pre books with clients to do filming with an ursa mini that has not arrived, don' t trust peolle to.deliver.

Anyway, having said that I think Sharp has aa LCD TV with Cinema color space , and Phillips has a.laser one with better color (80% of 2020, and 96% or so quantum.dots are.innthe lab. I wouldn't bother waiting, something will maybe come from somewhere, eventually.
,

But people need to.let Red know we want value, cheaper home/work room systems, or.better, 8-16k, for the price (Imax, Omimax, events and outdooe advertisers will probably be delighted and want cameras and pay $40k).
 
Let's hope that once 4k blu ray titles and players finally start to hit the streets that someone will finally wake up and build a great sub $5k 4k home theater projector.

When someone does it will sell like crazy.
 
As Wayne sometimes points out, the parts themselves are generally not that expensive. It's the manufacturers who choose to kneecap the feature sets inside a unit, or charge way too much, because they think they can...and invariably there are those who feel they can justify the spend. Remember the 120" 4K TV a year or two ago for over 100K?

I recall reading somewhere that the part for enabling 3D in a TV cost something like $.50 yet there's been a premium attached to it just because they could. As Red can attest it costs a huge amount of money to ramp up an assembly line -somewhere the numbers have to justify the price point. Question is who among the big manufacturers is going to take the leap on sub 10,000 units? My guess is whoever it will be will use an existing housing and limit the power inside the unit as companies like Sony and Barco already do in order to justify lower cost units (relatively speaking of course).
 
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