Front Projectors Race toward Lower Pricing as First 1080p Models Arrive

Front projector prices are hitting new lows as industry speeds at the $500 barrier many observers believe will open up the elusive volume-driven consumer market. Already, retailers seem to be hastening the pace, with Circuit City and Best Buy devoting chunks of last weekend’s circulars to the category, highlighting Toshiba and InFocus front projectors with 800x600 resolution at $699. Office Depot countered with the Epson Powerlite S3 ($699), being replaced by the S4, with 800x600 resolution, 1,600 lumens and 400:1 contrast ratio and the step up Powerlite 76C ($899) with 1,024x768 and 2,000 lumens. The $500 level could be crossed this fall with a device from market share leader InFocus, not exhibiting at Infocomm but instead holed up at a nearby hotel for meetings with dealers.

The price moves follow a year in which 1.3 million units shipped in the U.S., with CE and office superstore chains accounting for 5% and 7%, respectively, and Pro AV dealers (32%) and distributors (24%) still dominating, said Rosemary Abowd, vp-flat panel and rear projection TV research at Pacific Media Assoc. Counting warehouse clubs and others, retail sold 19% of units for the year, 28% in Q4, she said. Overall average retail street price stayed relatively stable, hitting $1,063 in March vs. $1,091 a year earlier, Abowd said. Leading the charge to lower retailers were warehouse clubs, including Costco, pricing projectors about 10% below national average, Current Analysis said. The same study found CompUSA and Fry’s Electronics pricing the models they carried about 5% and 2%, respectively, above average, the firm said.

“One of the things holding retail back is getting the product presented in a way that’s compelling,” Steve Kovsky of Current Analysis said: “For retail to really take off, these products are going to have to go where the TVs are” and not be in the PC section, as they are at many retailers. “There’s a job educating retailers to tell consumers that these are an option for home entertainment,” Kovsky said.

The race to $500 likely will hang on a bill of materials (BOM) pegged at $200-$250, with lamp and microdisplay device (DLP or LCD) about 70% of that, officials said. BOM doesn’t include retail margins. The dive has component suppliers scrambling. “So far we've been able to keep up and meet or beat the market requirements, but revenue has been trending flat because of the price reductions,” said Michael Callahan, projection products mktg. dir. at Pixelworks.

But many makers are within striking distance of $500. Dell recently introduced its 1200MP at $699, using a 0.7” DLP with 800x600 resolution, 200-w lamp delivering 2,000 lumens and 2,100:1 contrast ratio, said Senior Displays Product Mgr. Christopher Burkhart. It will has a $599 street price. Dell has angled its step-up Dell 2400MP a with 1,024x768 resolution and 3,000 lumens (250-w lamp) at a $999 street price, Burkhart said. And while Dell projectors target the business market, it’s weighing a consumer model, he said.

“We're looking at how we address that market because the consumer space is different and they're less concerned about price than they are picture quality and brightness,” Burkhart said: “People aren’t buying projectors as their main source and they're buying it to complement the TV… They're looking for many features, all of which are great options to have, but none of which are $499 either.” On the business side, $599-$699 projectors will “increase the opportunities” to sell the product and expand the market, he said. Dell sells most front projectors through its Web site, but the PC maker is thinking of dedicating part of a new standalone store in W. Nyack, N.Y., to the technology.

On the high-end side, makers rolled out front projectors using TI’s 0.95” chip in single and 3-panel designs at prices near $20,000. Christie Digital, Panasonic, Projection Design and others are readying front projectors with the chip. Projection Design’s Action Model Three 1080 contains a single DLP, 2,500 lumens from two 250-w Philips UHP lamps, 7,500:1 contrast ratio and dual 7-segment color wheels. It also is sold with a choice of Gennum or Genesis Microchip video processors and lens ranging from a 0.75:1 fixed focus ($3,000) to a 3.7-6.5:1 zoom tele photo lens ($4,500).

TI’s supply of 0.95” chips has been good, but the market for 1080p projectors will be slow to emerge, Projection Design Pres. Gary Plavin said. Projection Design, which shipped its first model in May, has worked through the initial backorder, officials said. “It a whole new system that has to be worked through with a whole new front end so it’s going to take some time,” Plavin said.

TI’s first DLP chip with native 1080p resolution didn’t seem to faze competitors. Sony is readying replacements for the SRX-R110 ($90,000) and SRX-R105 ($60,000) that will ship starting in Aug. at a “slight premium” to earlier models, Sony said. The new versions will add a DVI connector and 60p resolution, but otherwise continue with 1.55” SXRD panels with 4,096x2,160 resolution, 4,000:1 contrast ratio and 10,000 or 5,000 lumens depending on the model. The new projectors will keep deploying two 2,000-w Xenon lamps. But in the fall Sony will employ a new design when a 3rd model ships targeting the digital cinema market with 18,000 lumens, Sony executives said in declining to release additional details.

“Texas Instruments is a strong competitor, but SXRD is in a class by itself,” a Sony spokesman said. But Sony isn’t fielding an SXRD front projector in the same price range as those with TI’s new 0.95” chip. JVC has carved out a niche in the 1080p space with several models, including the DLA- HD10K, which shipped in Feb. at $24,000. The projector has three 0.8” D-ILA chips and features 600 lumens and 2,000:1 contrast ratio. It’s sold with optional standalone video processors from Genesis Microchip’s Faroudja brand or Anchor Bay’s DVDO, Field Application Engineer Robert Budde said. “We feel we have the experience that’s needed to succeed with 1080p” and giving JVC an edge on TI, Budde said.

Infocomm Notebook

Samsung has no immediate plans to field a “pocket” front projector in the U.S. until product performance improves, IT Display Products Senior Mktg. Mgr. Mark Pickard said. Samsung has shown a model containing a 0.55” DLP chip with 800x600 resolution and had 3 LEDs delivering 20 lumens. “The concept is perfectly valid, but the technology is not, at least not yet,” Pickard said. Industry officials have said light output for pocket projectors could hit 70 lumens by year’s end, 100 lumens in 2007.

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Hitachi seems to have gained traction for its LCoS technology in public displays after limited success in front projectors and scrapping plans for rear projection TVs. The firm recently installed 82, 50” video cubes at a horse track in Del., each with a 0.7” LCoS microdisplay with 1,400x1,050 resolution, 1,000 lumens and 1,300:1 contrast ratio, said Assistant Business Solution Mgr. Yasuo Oda. The video cubes were cobbled together to create a single display for indoor race watching, he said. At Infocomm, Hitachi showed a version of the 0.7” chip with 1,024x768 resolution, 1,000 lumens and 1,500:1 contrast ratio.

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Sony tabled plans for deploying product using grating light valve (GLV) technology it licensed several years ago from Silicon Light Machines, officials said. A year ago, Sony officials said GLV was “market ready” (CED June 8/05 p1) and last fall it demonstrated the technology during CEATEC in Japan (CED Oct 8 p2). “Right now it’s on the back burner because of laser cost,” Sandor Phipps, Sony display systems product mgr., said: “We could make one, but no one could afford to buy it.” GLV has been shown in a front projector with 1,920x1,080p resolution, 3,000:1 contrast ratio and 800 lumens. Sony last year said the first products with blue- laser tuned GLV technology could appear in 2006 in medical and industrial applications. With GLV, pixels form on a silicon chip’s surface and become a source for display projectors. GLV uses microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology and optical physics to vary how light is reflected from each of multiple 0.34 mm long ribbon-like structures that represent a particular “image point” or pixel. Each pixel has about 6 microribbons. The ribbons can move a tiny distance, changing reflected light’s wavelength. Grayscale tones are achieved partly by varying the speed at which given pixels are switched on and off.