Digital projectors, new visual technologies

Zatni Arbi, Contributor, Jakarta, zatni@cbn.net.id

Just a few weeks after the world's leader in digital projectors, InFocus, launched its latest products in Jakarta, other companies joined it in flooding the local market with their own offerings.

If you think nobody would be interested in investing US$3,000 to US$4,500 on a digital projector, you are wrong. There must be a sizable market here, otherwise these companies would not have bothered bringing these expensive products into this country, where they had to set up service centers or prepare the necessary logistics to ensure that reliable after-sales service could be offered.

Among the companies that make digital projectors is NEC, a company that most of us recognize more for its Versa line of notebook computers. NEC is by no means a newcomer in display technology. In fact, for many years in the early 1990s its Multisync monitors kept receiving Editor's Choice awards and were considered the industry benchmark against which other monitors were measured.

In the past, this company was not very active in promoting its projectors and monitors in Indonesia, but it seems that this is going to change. Last month, NEC Singapore appointed two local companies -- PT Indovisual Presentatatama and PT Necindo -- as the distributors for its multimedia products, which include a plasma display, two LCD monitors, several flat CRT monitors and digital projectors for both business and home use. These products have a number of new technologies that are worth looking at, and this time we shall look only at the ones incorporated in the DLP (Digital Light Processing) projectors.

One of the interesting things that I never saw before on a digital projector is the inclusion of wireless LAN capability. So, if you use the NEC LT220 or LT260, for example, you can connect your notebook or desktop PC wirelessly using Wi-Fi 802.11b technology.

This will eliminate the need for the master of ceremony to keep the audience entertained while the previous speaker frantically unplugs his notebook and the next one tries to connect his to the digital projector. In addition, the notebook can now be placed anywhere in the meeting room.

These two microportable projectors also have the versatility to select which notebook it will communicate with. So, if you already have more than one notebook set to launch an individual Powerpoint presentation, pressing the button will allow you to choose which presentation it should project on the screen. Diagnostics and adjustment of the device can also be made remotely.

Another great new technology is what NEC calls 3D Reform. As presenters already know, sometimes the layout of a meeting room is such that it is difficult to place the projector squarely in front of the screen.

Fortunately, most projectors nowadays are equipped with the capability to compensate for the angle of projection so that the vertical edges of the projected image are not skewed. This feature is called keystone correction. To eliminate the distortion of the horizontal edges, however, you may have to move the projector itself around. With the 3D Reform feature found in these NEC projectors, the image on the screen can be made perfectly square without much hassle.

As they are portable projectors, these 2.9-kilogram DLP projectors are made to withstand dust, smoke and other less-than- friendly environments. The LT260 has a brightness level of 2100 ANSI lumens and XGA (1024 x 768) resolution, while the LT220 offers 2000 ANSI lumens with SVGA (800 x 600) resolution. The former has a good 1300:1 contrast ratio, in addition to NEC's VORTEX Technology Plus color management technology that allows features such as white balance correction and individual color adjustment.

Like most other projectors today, these projectors can sense non-native resolutions up to UXGA (1200 x 1024) and automatically convert it to their best capability. Their Eco-Mode technology allows us to adjust the brightness when the room is dark enough so that we can extend the life of the lamp.

Another nifty feature is the use of CompactFlash. Because these projectors have a built-in viewer, you can download your presentation file to a CompactFlash memory card and carry just this tiny card instead of the notebook to the meeting room. Of course, this will mean you can't make last-minute revisions.

For a larger audience, such as in a classroom, a small auditorium and a conference room, NEC offers the MT1060 (2300 ANSI lumens) and MT1065 (3000 ANSI lumens) portable projectors.

They all share the technologies found in the LT Series. If you need a high-end projector for a really large auditorium, however, you can check out the NEC SX/XT Series at their website www.necmultimedia.com.

How can you project the scene of the darkest and blackest night on a screen? You will need a projector with a very high contrast ratio, of course. NEC's new ShowCase Series digital entertainment projectors, the first of which is the HT1000, offers a contrast ratio of 3000:1. That means, broadly, that the ratio between the luminance of the brightest and darkest spots in the image is 3,000 to 1.

This high contrast ratio is achieved with the use a chip that incorporates NEC's proprietary SweetVision Technology. For comparison, the latest PolySilicon LCD has a contrast ratio of 200:1 or above, and the 35 mm slide has 500:1.

Other technologies found in the HT1000 include the company's 3D 10-bit video decoder, which further enhances images. It also uses Faroudja DCDi technology to compensate for interlaced video input, for example, from a standard TV broadcast.

Aspect ratio is a challenge in today's entertainment display systems, as different video sources may have different ratios -- the ratio between the width and the height of the image. HT1000 can handle various aspect ratios, including 16:9, 1.85:1 and 2.35:1.

It also has the ability automatically to fill a 16:9 screen with a 4:3 image input without creating a stretched look. You can also adjust the vertical position of the image so that there will be no black bars typical of certain aspect ratios.

NEC Singapore, the wholly owned subsidiary of the NEC Corp. that launched the products in Jakarta last month, also introduced a series of new monitors. One of them was the NEC PlasmaSync 42MP4, a 42-inch plasma display. It also showcased the mainstream and the professional lines of CRT monitors. What I am looking forward to, certainly, is the opportunity to test-drive their good-looking 15-inch LCD monitor, the LCD1550X. So, stay tuned.