If Sir Howard at Sony was motivated to move the industry towards 4K, he must have been proud to learn that Barco installed the first DLP 4K projector in Cinemark this past year. It would never have happened without him. But sadly for Sony, it also can no longer differentiate its projectors through claims of higher resolution. The new game for claims is brightness and higher frame rates, both areas where Sony’s SXRD LCOS technology is challenged. Perhaps Sir Howard is wishing he had bid a little higher for that DLP Cinema® license so many years ago.
Regardless of projector technology, more light will not come cheaply. Cinema projectors require the use of short-arc xenon lamps today. Among the several virtues of xenon bulbs is their short arc, necessary to create a small spot size so that the optics can focus light properly on the imaging devices. For example, due to the different optical demands of the projectors, Sony bulbs have a shorter arc than their DLP counterparts, which, interestingly, causes the bulb to burn faster and costs more. (If you’ve heard that the annual cost of bulbs for a Sony projector are higher than for a DLP, this is where that comes from.) The lack of coherence in xenon light is a problem, however, for efficiency.
Laser light sources are good at achieving both small spot size and efficiency. What they can’t achieve is low cost. As such, the technology will first be targeted for large screen projection, where two projectors are often required to obtain reasonable light levels for 3-D. It’ll be much easier to justify the cost of lasers when a 2nd projector purchase is saved.
Cost is not the only challenge of laser light sources, though. There are many design issues to be conquered, and the ever-present regulatory agencies that require convincing. A prominent design issue with coherence laser light, for example, is the problem of speckle, caused by the interference of like waves. There are a variety of solutions designed to address the problems, and each likely is patented. It could be that successful products require a variety of solutions, not all of which are available from one developer. Developers are holding their cards close to their chests, at least for now. As laser light sources emerge in the marketplace, one should expect multiple companies to benefit from every sale. Demonstrations and product announcements will emerge in 2012 (be prepared for a major announcement in this area in the near future), but don’t expect to see a laser in the projection booth until the regulators have “lightened up.”
The other area where projectors are evolving is high frame rates. To justify digital cinema as a suitable replacement for film, the frame rate was set at 24fps from the onset of digital cinema. Fortunately, one person in DCI had the foresight to push for 48fps capability, which made its way into the final specification. While DCI had no intent to encourage the emergence of 3-D, the specification of 48fps is what made it so easy to bring 3-D into the marketplace in short order. Independent of frame rate and resolution, DCI set the maximum compressed bit rate of the image at 250Mb/sec.
The next step in the evolution of frame rates, however, seeks 60, 96, and 120 fps performance, so as to achieve 30fps, 48fps, and 60fps 3-D. The dominant technology, Texas Instrument’s DLP, can readily achieve this in Series 2 projectors with only a software upgrade. But to achieve higher frame rates in servers and media blocks is a completely different matter, a discussion we take up in another section of this report. Sony claims its SXRD imaging devices can handle it, but it will require both hardware and software upgrades. Even so, the result is unlikely to be similar to that of DLP, observing that Sony ’s 48 fps 3-D solution is to project 2 x 24fps images and optically overlap them onto the screen. Sony, who may have once had a leg up in the resolution game, is now a sitting duck as TI convinces film makers that its DLP technology is ready for higher frame rate movies. The game is real as the release of high frame rate Hobbit nears at the end of this year, and as Cameron moves forward with the next Avatar.
Technology may pose some interesting twists, but the business of projection could also take an usual turn in 2012. TI’s licensing agreement with its three DLP Cinema® licensees will soon be up for renewal. TI is pondering the benefit of licensing additional manufacturers, a move its current licensees would not be happy with. On one hand, more competition could bring down market prices, a factor that would be welcomed by the many independent cinema owners that are under capitalized. On the other hand, it would dilute the sales of two strong DLP manufacturers, who have each built support infrastructure in different regions of the world, and are serving this industry well.
Projector manufacturing has changed. TI first governed DLP Cinema with a firm hand, dictating how circuit boards were to be built and firmware coded, insuring consistent colors and behaviors in competitive products. Now that these parameters are locked in stone, TI has taken a more hands-off approach, offering only reference designs to guide its licensees. Without the pedigree that mark current licensees, would a new manufacturer bring forth a product worthy of quality cinema?
If expanding the number of manufacturers, two companies come to mind: Panasonic, and the possibility of Sony. Licensing Sony would not, of course, introduce a new player to the digital cinema market. But if Panasonic had the chance, it would probably jump in aggressively. Which leaves many to think about where NEC would stand if faced with more competition.
When viewing companies, TI should look closely at the structure of the sales organization. Christie embraces direct sales in many markets, and coordinates worldwide sales with a fair degree of centralization. Barco, 12 years ago a nobody in cinema, now also operates a strong cinema sales organization. It has integrated cinema with its sales offices around the world, and brings strong central coordination to its sales efforts. (Witness Barco’s recent coup in Mexico.) The two weakest projector companies in digital cinema are NEC and Sony, neither of which conducts strong, centralized oversight in its worldwide sales effort. If TI is intent on bringing new blood into the market, it would be wise to first study the sales organizations of its new potential licensees. And if it were truly intent on bringing in someone new, perhaps it would be smarter to encourage its weakest licensee to auction its license.
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