NEWS

DP at infoComm

Digital Projection has a lot planned for infoComm 2005 in Las Vegas. Along with our own impressive wide-screen exhibit on the show floor (booth 959) and our SX+ Gallery in the Large Venue Gallery (Room 3), DP products will be making great images in many major partner venues. Some of the notable companies employing our projectors at infoComm include:

Stewart Filmscreen – Will be running a total of 6 DP displays, a combination of iVision, Mercury and LIGHTNING series. The pinnacle screen within their exhibit will be illuminated by DP's flagship Lightning 35HD!

Vista Systems – will harness HIGHlite Professional Series Displays in a seamless, 4 million pixel array. The DP displays will be used to show-off the amazing capabilities of Vista's Spyder processor.

Texas Instruments – As the official projector sponsor for TI's party, DP will provide at least 7 dVision and Mercury displays to deliver screen entertainment, branding and I-MAG in the exclusive venue for their rock-roaring DLP event.

In addition to these venues, you can expect DP projectors to be at work in many other exhibits throughout the show floor… too many to list… but we will give you a hint: Wherever you see bright, razor sharp, high color imagery at infoComm, don't be surprised when you find one of DPI's precision displays behind the scenes!

New - Lightning 35 HD-T

Digital Projection is pleased to announce the availability of the LIGHTNING 35HD-T Pro Series Display. As the latest evolution of the 35HD, the most popular 2K resolution large venue projector in the world, Digital Projection's 35HD-T provides active 3D compatibility at resolutions up to 2048 x 1080 pixels, making the product well-suited for visualization users with high resolution and/or wide aspect ratio applications.

Click HERE for more...

New - Titan 6000 Sx+

The Titan 6000SX+ is the newest and smallest in DP's lineup of rugged, PROFESSIONAL SERIES displays. The twin-lamp TITAN 6000sx+ employs the latest in Texas Instruments' dark metal, 3-chip DLP^TM technology. Compact, robustly built and ultra-quiet for its performance class, the TITAN can be ordered with DP's signature Pro Series rigging and stacking frame, which provides integrated pitch, roll and yaw adjustments.

Click HERE for more...

NAB Wrap-Up

The NAB convention is a wrap and this year's show was definitely the biggest and best yet. Over 104,000 people were in attendance. The aisles were packed for the majority of the event.

Digital Projection could be seen in full force at this year's show. Our sales team and our projectors were all over the convention center, with our flagship models, the LIGHTNING 35HD and the HIGHlite 12000 series, being employed in several high profile booths.

Apple used many DP projectors for a variety of events, including their seminar series in their booth, where they applied 2 LIGHTNING 35HD's to create flawless, 12' X 21' 2K imagery.

AVID harnessed four HIGHlite 12000Dsx+ projectors, edge blended to create a dazzling 5' X 23' display at the “front door” of the South Hall. It stopped convention goers in their tracks!

Vista Systems showed off their new Spyder processors with 3 HIGHlite 12000Dsx+ units on one 20' screen, and 2 HIGHlite 12000HD units on another 20' screen. All the HIGHlites were configured in soft-edge-blend arrays, making ultra wide aspect ratio, 4+ million-pixel contiguous desktops.

Our thanks go to all of our Manufacturer's Representatives and Dealers who scheduled meetings with us. And thanks for the many orders that were generated from our NAB Show Specials. Of course, with NAB in the past and Info Comm speeding toward us, new show specials are in order, so be sure to talk with your RMDM about the promotions DP will be running for Info Comm

TECH TIPS

Mounting projectors above or below the center of the screen

Today's projection technology provides tremendous flexibility for locating the projector with respect to the screen. There are two techniques, applied individually or in combination, which deliver this installation flexibility. They are:

Lens Shift
Electronic Keystone Correction

For Lens Shift, the primary enabling component is the projection lens. The physics of a convex lens dictate that an accurately focused image exiting the front of a lens will “shift”, based on the introduction of vertical or horizontal movement of the focused image entering the back of the lens. In the projector world, this means that if the lens is moved up or down with respect to the source generating the focused image, the fully focused and geometrically correct image also moves up or down on the screen.

With good quality lenses, shifted images still demonstrate excellent geometry and focus over the full lens shift range. The limits of acceptable lens shift are dependant on the size of the image (light patch) entering the primary side of the lens, and the overall aperture of the lens. If the primary side of the lens is very large and the light patch produced by the prism is very small, a large amount of lens shift will be available. If it is a large light patch, like those produced by the 2K DLP TM prism, larger lenses are required and generally, lens shift is more limited. Extreme short throw lenses usually have limited lens shift as well.

When applying lens shift, the light patch can actually be viewed as it moves on the front surface of the projection lens. As the corners of the light patch begin to encroach on the edge of the lens, the image will appear to lose luminance in that area. This is called “vignetting”. Many projectors with lens shift capability are designed with mechanical limits to prevent the lens from being shifted to the point of objectionable image vignetting.

For efficiency, most projectors with lens shift are designed to provide more “up” lens shift than “down” lens shift. This optimizes projector flexibility for the vast majority of applications. As an example, 50% lens-shift up, with only 20% lens-shift down is not uncommon. Although the total shift range is limited, the user still has full lens shift available if shooting from a pedestal at the bottom of the screen, or if shooting ceiling mounted from the top of the screen with the projector inverted.

If your application requires more image shift than is provided by lens shift alone, you will need to consider tilting the projector and applying electronic correction to compensate for the resulting optical “keystone” of the image.

Most projectors include electronic keystone correction. If electronic keystone is not a feature of your projector, an external image “warp” processor can be employed to achieve the same result. Be advised, whether internal or external to the projector, electronic keystone only corrects for geometry distortion and does not compensate for focus irregularities produced by steep projection angles or irregular projection surfaces.

There is no rule as to how much keystone correction is acceptable - it is dependent on the image content, the viewing distance and user opinions. As an example, applying 5% electronic keystone correction may produce acceptable results for video viewing, but chances are, it would not be suitable for high-resolution data. It is also worth noting, the longer the throw distance, the more the projector can be offset without requiring dramatic use of electronic keystone correction.

If you know your application will require more image shift than the lens shift provided by the projector, we recommend creating a scale mock-up of the installation. Be sure to use the same projector type, lens, relative throw-distance and projector-to-screen relationship (offset), as will exist in the final application. First apply maximum lens shift, followed by tilting the projector until the image lands on the screen. Next, dial in the keystone correction as necessary. Lastly, review content that is relevant to the application, and whenever possible, let your customer be the judge.

If the conclusion is that electronic keystone correction does not produce an acceptable result for the content to be displayed, the application will need to be redesigned such that the projector-to-screen relationship is within the lens shift capabilities of the projector and lens you are employing. Alternatively, you can consider specifying a projector with a broader lens shift range.

Digital Projection's dVision, Mercury, TITAN, HIGHlite and LIGHTNING projectors all provide extensive lens shift capability – both vertical and horizontal, as well as electronic keystone adjustment. If you have an application where the projector-to-screen relationship seems a bit challenging, give us a call. We will be happy to help you layout the system with the projector and lens that will best optimize visual performance.

In the Loop

Demo Program: Commercial AV Dealers:

Dealers and Special Contractors may purchase up to two demo units per calendar year
Demo units may be purchased at 5% off of DPI's published end column Commercial AV dealer pricing
(End Column x .95)
Excluding iVision, which already comes standard with a lens, the 5% demo discount may also be applied
to (1) projection lens for each demo projector purchased
Dealers in good credit standing receive standard payment terms - 2% cash with order, 1% 10 days, net
30 days

Click HERE for the DPI Warranty Statement