IFA 08: Lamp-Free projectors for 2009 - and 3D?

On their stand at IFA 08 in Berlin, Texas Instruments had two different demos on show ... follow the arrows:


To the left: Lamp-Free projection

These home cinema projectors work without a lamp, much like today’s pocket projectors, except that the quality is much better.  The incredibly expensive bulb found in regular projectors, which can easily cost between 400 and 600 euros, is instead replaced with three diodes in red, green and blue.

The demo was very convincing, apart from with a few bright shades which tended to leak a little.  The manufacturer went on to explain that the lifespan of the diodes would not necessarily be made available in the product’s technical specification, just the lifespan of the projector itself.  No need to worry about long the diodes would last – that will all be sorted out, they said. 
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As for the leaking colors, they too will be fixed before the end of the year.  The problem was apparently caused by the transition from the normal gamut colors in the clip that was being shown to a wide gamut projection, whose brighter shades were meant to impress.

These projectors should arrive at the start of 2009, and will be a little more expensive than current models, although TI eventually wants this new system to replace all of its current DLP range, which is based on color wheels and expensive lamps.  And because there is no more color wheel, the manufacturer claims we will see the end of the ‘rainbow effect’ which viewers of DLP images sometimes complain about.

TI do acknowledge one problem with this technology: diodes don’t yet allow for the same amount of lighting power as lamps do.  Users will have to make do with a maximum of 2000 Lumens, which is more than enough for a home-cinema, but which won’t work in a well-lit meeting room, for example.

To the right: 3-D Cinema

In their other demo, TI were showing clips from the recently-released film Journey to the Centre of the Earth in 3D.



You don the glasses, take a seat, and then, well, try to struggle through.  The effect really isn’t as good as it was in the cinema.  About half of the clips seem to have real depth, but the others appear doubled, which is very disorientating.  TI admits that while their Lamp-Free technology is mature and ready to come to market, the same cannot be said of their 3D system, which is a very optimistic way of looking at it.