21st Century Classroom
Interesting Developments
- By Andy McDonough
- 11/01/08
New projector technologies and features offer improved picture
quality, reductions in operation and installation costs, and
challenge our ideas about where and how projectors can be used.
WHAT'S NEW IN PROJECTOR TECH? July 2008 figures
from Pacific Media Associates reveal that two leading technologies, LCD
(the current choice of most professional A/V installers) and
DLP (which grew out of digital cinema), now control better
than 95 percent of the education market. Both camps have
developments to report.
The Lowdown on DLP
As the projector industry anticipated, more DLP projectors
are now employing Texas Instruments' BrilliantColor
technology, designed to improve color performance.
According to Bob Wudeck, business development
manager for TI's pro A/V group, the system "enhances both
color brightness and accuracy by adding additional primary
colors [yellow, cyan, and magenta] to the normal red, green,
and blue primaries." TI spokespeople-- and a horde of projector
vendors incorporating this technology into
their products-- claim that the innovative
use of "multiprimary" colors
allows vendors to build color
systems that can dramatically
enhance color performance
without paying a penalty in
brightness. Since the price
point for entry-level models used
by much of the education industry
has dropped into the $500 range for
projectors delivering 2,000 lumens at
SVGA resolution, both DLP and LCD technologies
exist in offerings that are more color-accurate, brighter,
and more affordable than previous generations.
In addition, because most DLP projectors have sealed
imaging chips, they are filter-free, which helps guarantee
continued good performance, and can lower maintenance
and support costs. Especially in the case of ceiling-mounted
projectors, regular servicing to clean and replace filters
can be expensive, difficult to schedule and, depending
upon your institution's liability policies, may require outside
contractors. Filter-free projectors can eliminate that
expense. What's more, portable projectors that rely on filters
are harder to track for regular maintenance and can
suffer from poor performance or damage before the need
for filter cleaning is discovered.
Still, you should be looking for the new wave of DLP projectors
that boast increased warranty protection with TI's
five-year DLP chip warranty (announced at this year's
National Educational Computing Conference). While each manufacturer
will be providing details on its own warranty extensions,
major manufacturers like BenQ, InFocus, Optoma, Toshiba, Vivitek, and ViewSonic all have expressed an
interest in offering TI's plan to support one-chip DLP projectors
used predominantly for education, conference
rooms, and home theater. The new
warranty also will apply to
the more upscale
three-chip DLP
projectors for
auditorium use.
This would be the
industry's longest
available protection
of its type that
does not include an
hours-of-usage restriction.
DLP vs. Laser: Projection for Lilliputians
A few years ago, TI launched a trend when it started leaking
the company's research into DLP chipsets that could be
used to build "pico projectors" minute enough to fit into
ultra-small housings and run off of batteries. While we still
may not be quite ready for projectors in our mobile phones
and handhelds, we've heard the rumors and over the past
year have seen some impressively tiny prototypes (at consumer
electronics shows and on the web) from Toshiba, 3M, and Microvision.
Now TI is poised to make such diminutive projectors a reality
by supplying the pico DLP chipset that will be used by Toshiba
and Optoma; according to TI spokespeople, both companies
will have handheld projector offerings shipping in 2009.
These pocket-sized personal projectors are about the size of
a large cell phone; they run on batteries and will project a
bright image with good contrast (for a letter-size page).
Other technologies for picos, like LCoS (liquid crystal on
silicon) and laser, have shown promise but have not garnered
the same acceptance by the manufacturing community.
But with several generations of TI's OMAP (Open Multimedia
Application Platform) architecture-- which integrates
software with mobile hardware in popular personal devices,
and is supported by mobile industry leaders such as Microsoft and Sony-- it seems only a matter of time before personal
devices like iPods and portable DVD players have their own
DLP projectors built right in. It won't be long before faculty
and students will be putting pico projectors to work sharing
personal media anywhere on campus, displaying presentations
and vodcasts with almost no setup.
Looking to LCD
LCD still dominates the pro A/V market (which includes large
schools and universities), according to Rina Bhuva, senior
strategic marketing manager for 3LCD. "A/V
professionals continue to choose this technology over competing
technologies for several reasons including better color
performance," she says. While both DLP and LCD camps
claim to have the best color, critics start to see marked differences
only at the price point for network-ready projectors
with XVGA resolution (about $1,000) or above. Even then,
the answer to which is better has everything to do with the
application: DLP projectors offer better contrast specifications,
which can be key in some applications where rendering
detail is required, but many feel that while advancements
have been made in DLP color reproduction, LCD color is still
more accurate and appealing.
Proponents of LCD technology like Tim Anderson, 3LCD
product marketing manager, are so confident of the color
accuracy and output, they are calling for the adoption of a
new industry-standard specification to indicate a projector's
"color brightness." With no such specification for color performance
currently available, this metric would, says Anderson,
be more informative for consumers than the current
industry convention of solely measuring a projector's maximum
white light in ANSI lumens. Based on performance averaged
across a nine-point color grid, the new color brightness
specification would appear in ANSI lumens alongside the traditional
measurement for white light output and be a comparative
indicator of a projector's color performance. 3LCD is
clearly leading the charge for this new metric, with support
from manufacturers like Epson, which in
2009 is likely to be the first to include the new color brightness
metric along with its other specifications.
New from Sanyo and still in its infancy,
4LCD projection technology (also know as QuaDrive)
promises to deliver improved brightness and color accuracy.
4LCD adds a proprietary color-control device to the existing
red, green, and blue panels found in standard 3LCD projectors
such as those from Epson and Mitsubishi. The color-control device, or fourth
panel, allows the engine to automatically control the amount
of yellow light in the image, producing higher luminosity and
clarity, and responding to the demand for brighter projectors
in large venues. Sanyo claims that the new 4LCD engine,
combined with a new, high-speed image-compensating chip,
allows for up to 20 percent more color space than a conventional
LCD engine, delivering better color at higher outputs.
While Sanyo is saying that its new PLC-XP200L 7,000-
lumen XVGA projector ($9,995 MSRP) will revolutionize
LCD projector solutions, many are waiting to see how the
new technology proves itself in real-world applications.
LCoS: Infinite Color and Superb Accuracy
In addition to LCD and DLP, the newer LCoS technology is
also an important player, though it has many fewer units out
there than its competitors. An analog technology, LCoS
modulates light as it passes through liquid crystal cells and
before it is reflected by a mirror substrate, making it, essentially,
a hybrid of LCD and DLP technologies. Introduced by Canon, LCoS provides advantages in
terms of higher resolution and the complete lack of visible
pixels. Teamed with this is the ability to provide continuous
color variation, making LCoS projectors capable of delivering
an infinite color spectrum, totally smooth images, and
sharp display of small text. LCoS projection products also
claim to eliminate the flickering or "screen door" effect
(fixed-pattern noise) of its competitors. Sony's version of
LCoS is called SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display).
Because of its extremely smooth color and brightness gradient, LCoS is particularly well-suited to applications
that demand highly accurate image rendition, as you might
find in the medical, photographic, and simulation markets.
LCoS is ideal in this sense for monochrome applications
such as the viewing of X-ray films and photographs.
Going Wireless
New wireless projectors with fully integrated IEEE802.11b/g
interfaces are offering transfer modes that transition
between images more smoothly, as well as wider compatibility
with other PC and network hardware. As part of a network,
projectors continue to be key to developing trends in
education, such as enabling content to be projected from
audience PCs, easy switching between multiple presenter
sources, and training modes where projected images go
directly to audience PCs. Presenters can reference files on
a server, enabling easy downloads directly to audience laptops,
thus eliminating the hassle of preparing printouts
(also saving trees and money). Video-streaming modes
supported by the major manufacturers allow for display of
full-screen MPEG2 (30 fps) video with
high-quality audio.
What's more, standard features for
projectors now include robust security
and data-protection components, like
WPA-PSK compatibility and support for
recent security encryptions such as
802.1X. You'll also find new projectors to
be compatible with a wider range of user
authentications, including WPA-EAP
(enterprise mode), EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS,
PEAP, LEAP, and EAP Fast.
Short Throw
The new generation of ultra-short-throw
projectors is particularly appealing for
classroom settings, not only for easy
setup in incredibly tight quarters, but
because these projectors put the light
source behind the instructor. Using innovative
technologies such as aspheric mirrors,
this generation of ultra-shorts is
boasting both improvements in brightness
and ease of installation, along with
fully integrated IEEE802.11b/g wireless
interfaces and Mac OS compatibility. In addition to technical
advances, look for new personal features
like the built-in Easy Electronic
Board capability in NEC's WT615, a function that allows
users to draw on the projected image
screen as they would a whiteboard. And
don't overlook Sanyo's PLC-XL51, an
XGA projector with a brightness of 2,600
lumens ($3,995 MSRP), which has been
outfitted with a built-in vibration sensor
that sounds an alarm when the unit is
picked up-- an effective way to hang on
to your hot new projection toy.
-Andy McDonough is a freelance writer
and technology consultant based in
Middletown, NJ.
