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Special Report
Recently, we were invited to attend Infocomm in Anaheim, California, where hundreds of A/V manufacturers filled the convention hall with every kind of home theater gear imaginable -- and then some. We only had a few hours to make the rounds, but came back with some impressive items that you should keep an eye out for in the months to come:
Our main purpose of attending Infocomm was to identify front and rear projection displays that we can recommend to our readers. Accompanied by Dennis Shepherd of Medical Video Systems, our exclusive hardware sponsor for The BIG Picture, we made the rounds looking for the most impressive displays we could find for the money. Here's Dennis, standing before a massive front projection display -- the screen was about thirty feet across and was displaying some eye-popping HDTV programming. Dennis kept laughing at me for exclaiming "Wow!" at just about every turn. There was simply no way to see everything at the show in the short time that I had, so I asked Dennis to show me the areas that he thought I might be interested in, given the goal of my mission.
The most indelible impression made upon me at Infocomm is that the three-gun CRT setup is quickly going the way of the dinosaur. There were hardly any three gun CRT projectors on display at the show -- and the ones I saw paled in comparison to the newer generation LCD, DLP and DLA projectors being shown. By and large, the size of high quality projection is shrinking rapidly as well. Texas Instruments displayed over a dozen projectors utlilizing their DLP engines -- most of them the size and weight of of a large brick. Though miniaturization seemed to be all the rage at the show, the mid-sized projectors still harnessed the best image quality, in my opinion.
Panasonic seemed to have the highest number of sleek new models available, however none of the ones I saw were displaying anything. Sort of hard to guage the performance of a new projector when it's merely sitting on a pedestal. Panasonic had a very impressive display area, however.
One of our first stops was at the JVC display area, where they were showing off the impressive capabilities of their D-ILA projectors, the G11, G15 and G20. The G11 and G20's were fed their source material through HTPC's and looked very nice. We spent some time chatting with Jim Taylor of JVC (left), Richard Martin of AVS Forum (center) and Dennis Shepherd of Medical Video Systems (right). I also had a good, lengthy chat with Tom Stites (not pictured), Regional sales manager for JVC that had a lot of positive words to share about our site. Just then, one of our readers showed up and introduced himself, which was a real treat.
JVC was introducing their newest D-ILA projector in a seperate viewing area, the DLA-G3010Z. According to their company press release, " JVC has successfully packed a stunning, true SXGA performance into the smallest body ever. Thanks to a newly designed, innovative optical engine which uses only 1 PBS (Polarized Beam Splitter), the DLA-G3010Z weighs only 14.3 lbs. in a sleek, portable package. Using JVC's exclusive, patented D-ILA device, the projector delivers resolution as high as 1,365 x 1,024 pixels, and thus can display all the details of an S-XGA (1,280 x 1,024 pixels) image without scaling or loss of quality. Despite its small size, the DLA-G3010Z generates 1,300 ANSI 
lumens, making it a powerful presentation tool in a brightly-lit environment. " We think this display has enormous potential, however, the engineering prototype at the show did not exhibit the contrast ratio or black level that we were hoping to see. JVC assures us, however, that they're still working on the unit and that production models will have these critical issues of home theater enthusiasts resolved.
The noisy environment of a convention is no place to test fan noise, but let's put it this way -- among the chatter and clamour surounding this thing, we couldn't hear any at all. Although the aforementioned contrast ratio needs tweaking for sure, the high resolution of the display was clearly evident with very crisp text graphics that looked really impressive.
We stopped in to Sony's display area for awhile and stood in front of a giant display, talking with a housewife in Indiana that was connected via teleconference with passersby. It was strange talking to some woman sitting in her kitchen in Indiana, but sort of fun. Sony had at least two VPL-VW10HT projectors on display and neither exhibited any improvement in black level -- one of our few complaints about this exciting machine.
Next, we were off to the projection shootout, where various manufacturers line up their front and rear projection displays for side by side comparision using the same source material. Sony was conspicuously absent from this demonstration. There were also scalers that were being compared and for the money, the Quadscan Pro was hard to beat. As far as front projection units were concerned, we were impressed with the Panasonic PTL-797PXU with 1024 X 768 resolution with an MSRP of $13,495. Another was Hitachi's CPX-970 with the same resolution for $11,995 with nice black level and very good detail, plus small and compact. Another front projector worth noting was the Proxima DP9260 with 2200 ANSI lumens, 1024 X 768 for $11, 999 was another nice looking display.
In the less than 4000 ANSI lumens shootout area with 1365 X 1024 resolution, the Sanyo PLC-EF10NZ for $23,995 and the identical twin by Proxima the Pro AV9400 Plus rendered the nicest image quality. JVC's DLA G20-U ($20,995) had some white balance problems that could probably have been easily corrected and if so, would make this an outstanding value as well. Barco's 62400 DLC priced at $28, 490 looked the worst of the bunch with bad color shifting and a less pleasing picture overall.
If you've really got money to burn and a HUGE screen to rival commercial theaters, the Sharp XGV10WU with 1280 X 1024 resolution for $34,995 yielded a very large, very nice picture and represented perhaps the greatest value for the money for projectors in the 4000 ANSI lumens and up category.
Impressive 16:9 flat panel plasma displays in the 50" and up category included NEC's Sync 5000w with a resolution of 1365 X 768 for $22,995. The Fujitsu PDF4221 with a resolution of 1024 x 1024 for $15,999 actually looked a little bit better to my eyes. Panasonic has some nice flat panel displays too, but for over $20k, I guess they'd better be!
After we left the projection shootout, we made an interesting discovery which left some very inconclusive impressions. Sanyo was displaying a prototype LCD projector for the home theater market that employs true 16:9 display panels -- up until now, Sony has been the only game in town for LCD panels in a native 16:9 configuration. The sanyo PLV60 with 1000 ANSI lumens with a claimed 600:1 contrast ratio was displaying terrible source material -- the projector was in full mode (i.e. 16 x 9 enhanced) but the DVD or tape that was being displayed was not enhanced, making for a rather dull looking, stretched out image. The actual contrast ratio of the PLV60 we saw looked more on the order of 100:1 or perhaps 150:1 if we want to be very gracious with the estimate. The Sanyo reps on hand were unsure if this projector will ever make it to the marketplace. Unless they can correct the problems, we tend to doubt it. It had a very nice, tight pixel array, though.
At the NEC booth, we saw an impressive, small front projector that is bound to make a big splash in the home theater market. The BT440 features 1100 ANSI lumens, claims 3000 hour lamp life in "econo mode" and is quiet and small. For a street price of under $3,000, the diminutive projector with a PC input and S-Video input represents a great value, despite the lack of component inputs, occasionally visible horizontal scan lines (ala Sony's VPL-W400Q) and a slight green push that can probably be adjusted via white balance. Some slight pixel structure was visible on an 80" screen at about 8' back, but not enough to concern us much.
NEC also impressed us the most with their own virtual theater containing what appeared to be a 50' screen displaying scenes from Backdraft. I don't know how much their massive Nighthawk XT5000DC projector with tri digital technology film decoding featuring 4,500 ANSI lumens and XGA to XGA resolution costs, but I sure hope that somebody gives me one on my next birthday. A lot of the vendors were "double stacking" their projectors (except in the Projection shootout where that is not allowed), to deliver brighter images, but the XT5000DC looked as good or better than the very best large displays I saw there.
We were also looking at RPTV's while we were there, too. Sony's discontinued 16:9 KL-W9000 and KL-W7000 series leaves an opening for affordable, high quality, LCD based rear projection displays. We know there's a market for it -- we helped create it at this very website! The HDTV Samsung SPD506F with a resolution of 1280 X 720 for $3,500 yielded a beautiful, even, bright, colorful 50" image. There's also a 43" version, the SPD436F which utilizes the same F-LCD light engine, pictured here in a most impressive display by Samsung which had photographers elbowing each other for position to take its' picture.
Finally, I received a 45-minute lesson on the art of screen making and customer service from none other than Stewart Filmscreen Corporation VP Don Stewart, a recent visitor to one of the projector forums on The BIG Picture website. When it was discovered that the Sony VPL-VW10HT was having trouble displaying images correctly with Stewarts perforated screens, Stewart went on the offensive and contacted their customers who were having trouble to offer them replacements while the engineering department develops a 
permanent solution to the problem. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing Don explain to us what makes a Stewart screen so special. Indeed, Stewart Filmscreen Corp. has won two Adademy Awards for special achievements and their screens appear in approximately 50% of home theater applications, according to Don Stewart. He also pointed out that Stewart is the only manufacturer that generates all their own materials for screen fabrication and that the company has a zero tolerance policy for defects and a Nordstrom approach to customer service. In this photo, Don Stewart stands before the display for Stewart Filmscreen's latest innovation. Named "Blackhawk", the rear projection screen element is said to deliver high gain, wide viewing angle and unprecedented black level without blooming or hotspotting with razor sharp resolution. The images upon the screen almost took on a three-dimensional quality and looked absolutely gorgeous.
Is it any coincidence that the projector manufactuers all insisted on using Stewart Filmscreens in their Projection Shootout? I don't think so. When the projector manufactuers make a choice like this, you should sit up and take notice, too. I sure did.
With only six hours to spend at Infocomm and hundreds of booths to visit, we certainly didn't see everything - but we hope that you've enjoyed our special report about the things we did manage to see this year. Wow.
The secrets behind New Line and Laser Pacific's commitment to pushing the DVD envelope.
New Line Cinema's Editor's Day: The behind-the-scenes Making of Pleasantville.
A candid interview with the DVD development team at Warner Home Video.
A candid conversation with Pixar.
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