Technology Showcase: Home-theater Projectors

Aug 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Jay Ankeney

The most innovative front-projector systems.

SIM2's Grand Cinema C3X 1080 is the smallest and highest performing full-HD, 1080p/24fps 3-chip DLP projector on the market. The C3X 1080 is housed in a stunning, high-gloss sculpted cabinet designed by Giorgio Revoldini.

Building on technology developed for its original ultra-premium Qualia 004 SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display) home-theater front projector first introduced in 2004, Sony is now recommending two full-HD 1080p Bravia projectors — the VPL-VW200 and VPL-VW60. Both feature all-digital video-signal processing via the Bravia engine that has unique algorithms for noise reduction and color enhancement. When combined with Sony's Advanced Iris technology, the newly designed SXRD panels in the VW200 and VW60 help to deliver a stunning 35,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. The VW60 features improved brightness of 1000 lumens. The VW200 projector also has new high-frame-rate SXRD (120fps) panels, and it offers three motion-compensation modes that enable users to adapt performance based on content for the best possible motion reproduction with moving images.

Want to take your home-theater projector over to your friend's house to watch the big game? Toshiba would recommend its line of lightweight DLP projectors that just started shipping last July, the TDP-XP1U and the TDP-XP2U. The TDP-XP1U and the TDP-XP2U offer 2200 ANSI lumens and 2500 ANSI lumens, respectively, and 2000:1 contrast ratio. Both projectors are native 4:3 (XGA 1024×768), but they can scale 16:9 output for widescreen content. The projectors boast an extended lamp life of up to 3,000 hours in standard mode and 4,000 hours in economy mode. Each features a 2W monarual loudspeaker for enhanced presentations and a special monitor-out capabilities to display and view images on an outboard monitor and the projector screen simultaneously.

ViewSonic has announced its entrance into the luxury home-theater lifestyle category with the first offering in its Precision series: the Pro8100 projector with 1080p resolution; 13,000:1 contrast ratio; 1000 lumens of brightness; auto iris; and full-HD optics. The Pro8100 uses ViewSonic's proprietary Precision Color System (PCS), an image enhancement technology that renders natural colors with extensive tuning capabilities. PCS features include 3D color management, auto contrast, H-Edge enhancement, 33 levels of gamma correction, and a daylight-mode function to automatically adjust the image to suit the lighting environment. The Pro8100's connectivity includes all standard connections as well as two HDMI 1.3 inputs with HDCP that allows it to interface with multiple devices — such as game consoles, HD broadcast receivers, and Blu-ray Disc players.