Ultra HD emerged in full force at the CEDIA Expo, where Digital Projection demonstrated its first 4K laser projector and its first 4K LED projector.
For its part, Prima Cinema demonstrated a prototype 4K version of its $35,000 Prima Movie Player, which downloads movies while they’re still in theaters. The company plans availability sometime next year.
Prima currently offers a $35,000 Movie Player that plays encrypted 1080p movies with 10-bit color, exceeding Blu-ray’s 8-bit color. The player continuously downloads and stores encrypted films, allowing for instant playback and eliminating the buffering that occurs with streaming movies. Dozens of 1080p movies can be stored on the player with 7.1-channel PCM soundtracks. Each movie costs $500.
Prima’s prototype 4K player delivers full 4K at 4096 by 2160 pixels at 60fps with DCI-P3 color gamut. It supports 8-, 10- and 12-bit color with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling per pixel and 8-bit color at 4:4:4.
For its part, Digital Projection demonstrated its $120,000 Insight 4K laser projector and $150,000 Insight LED 4K projector, which delivers close-to- Rec. 2020 color gamut. The laser projector delivers the Rec. 709 gamut available on Blu-ray discs. Both deliver full 4K resolution at 4096 by 2160 pixels.
The laser projector shipped in September, and the LED projector shipped this month.
The laser model’s laser light source delivers 12,000 lumens of brightness with a 2,000:1 contrast ratio, making it bright enough for use in rooms with high ambient light. A 30-percent brightness setting is available for use in darker rooms. Illumination life is 20,000 hours until half brightness.
The LED projector’s LED light source provides 3,000 lumens of brightness with 2,000:1 contrast ratio. Illumination life exceeds 50,000 hours.
Both projectors use DLP, or digital light processing, technology, which uses micro mirrors that tilt toward and away from the light source to create a light or dark pixel.
