|
|
 |
|
[ The Video Agenda ]
|
 |
|
 |
 |
|
If you build it, will they come?
|
|
by Mark J. Pescatore
|
James Chan, director of product marketing for Mitsubishi’s Presentation Products Division, is passionate about LED projectors, and his enthusiasm is contagious. During a session at the Projection Summit at last month’s InfoComm in Las Vegas, NV, he introduced a low-cost DLP projector that he thinks could be successful for a variety of applications, including portable home theater, small group presentations, and digital camera display magnification.
The battery-powered Mitsubishi PocketProjector, using LED technology instead of a typical projector lamp, can provide more than 10,000 hours of use. It’s a native SVGA projector with RCA and S-Video inputs that weighs less than a pound. In fact, the battery weighs more than the projector!
Granted, the projector is a little light in the lumens department, with an output measuring maybe 20 lumens. That’s not a typo. (In comparison, many of the low-end projectors on the market these days are delivering close to 1500 lumens.)
Chan admitted that brightness has room for improvement, but he added that sufficient brightness is not determined by manufacturers — it’s measured by what is accepted by users. How good is good enough? In a dark room and projecting about a 40-inch picture, the PocketProjector actually performed better than I expected.
Mitsubishi isn’t the only company interested in LED technology. Samsung demonstrated its own Pocket Imager at InfoComm as well. It’s not being targeted to the U.S. market at this time, and Samsung’s Mark Pickard said the company doesn’t have a usage model yet for the product. Unlike the Mitsubishi model, the Pocket Imager isn’t battery powered, though it still faces the low-lumen limitation.
So, can LED be a viable player in the projector marketplace? That’s the big question, according to fellow Projection Summit presenter Chris Chinnock, senior analyst for Insight Media. The industry has to be willing to think outside the box, look beyond its traditional emphasis on lumens and resolution, and consider new applications. A quick survey Chinnock conducted at the end of the session indicated that the majority of attendees felt that LED technology has a future in consumer, not professional products.
Midori Takaso from Techno Systems Research sees the PocketProjector as a gadget for the early adopter. Despite its current technical limitations, she thinks these miniaturized LED projectors could be a fantastic new market.
At this point, I agree that LED projectors are a gadget. In fact, I’d almost consider them “disposable” projectors, because they aren’t designed with replacement lamps in mind. When they make it to market, I think they’ll fall into the same sort of category as cell phones — use ‘em until a newer, cooler model comes out.
For professional applications, LED projectors are still a long way from being a viable alternative. With the advances in lumens and reductions in prices over the past few years, a $700, 20-lumen projector sounds like nothing less than a silly expenditure for a school or military facility.
With the rapid advancements in projector technology, however, LED options may not be silly for long. And that’s what has me intrigued.
The recent and relatively quick adoption of phone/PDA combo units tells me that consumers are willing to pay for technological innovation, even if it means a slightly bigger cell phone. Now, imagine a slightly bigger PDA with a built-in projector. Run your PowerPoint presentation straight from the device. Oh, it may not have 2000 lumens and XGA resolution, but a few hundred lumens and SVGA resolution for a small group presentation might be good enough. (Let’s not forget that only a few years ago 1000 lumens was considered pretty potent for a portable projector.) Plus, there are applications for these LED projectors that haven’t even been conceptualized yet.
While its immediate future is clearly in the consumer space, a few well designed products and performance enhancements could bring LED into the professional projector market as well. If the projector industry can show a little patience and allow this technology to mature, it could develop several new niches and attract even more users.
If you build it, will they come? I think so. After all, we do love our gadgets. And we love our useful tools even more.
Mark J. Pescatore is the editor. Contact him at mpescatore@cmpinformation.com.
|
|
|
Government Video is part of the NewBay Media Community
copyright 2007© NewBay Media LLC.
810 Seventh Avenue, 27th Floor New York, NY 10019 T (212)378-0400 F (212)378-2160
|
|
|
