This demo of an early prototype demonstrated that RGB direct-laser illumination is possible for consumer projectors.
CES is not a big front-projector show, but there are usually a few tucked into various corners. Mark Henninger and I were among a very select group of journalists who were invited to see a private demo of a prototype from SIM2 that is extremely interesting—a laser-illuminated 3-chip DLP model that uses separate red, green, and blue lasers. Other consumer-targeted laser-illuminated projectors use blue lasers that excite a yellow phosphor to glow, and the yellow light is separated into red and green components. The red and green light from the phosphor and the blue light from the lasers illuminate three imagers and then recombine, forming a full-color picture. By contrast, RGB laser engines illuminate each imager with a separate laser.
RGB laser-illuminated projectors are starting to be deployed in commercial cinemas, but this is the first one aimed at the consumer market, and it's quite a bit smaller than commercial models. SIM2 has been working on it for the last three years in collaboration with the Chinese company OV-LaserTec. This was a fairly early prototype with no official name or price, but SIM2 expects to officially introduce it in late Summer 2015; we should see a much-closer-to-production unit at CEDIA, with availability in 2016.
SIM2 claims the technology is capable of reaching the BT.2020 color gamut and reproducing high dynamic range; in fact, the brightness is scalable and currently spec'd between 5000 and 12,000 lumens, while the next iteration could approach as much as 20,000 lumens! And since the laser brightness can be completely controlled, the black levels should be great as well.
One of the biggest problems with laser-illuminated projectors is called "speckle," which you've seen if you've aimed a laser pointer at a wall or screen. It's difficult to describe in words, but the name of the phenomenon is pretty self-explanatory. SIM2 claims to have solved the speckle problem, but the reps at the demo would not discuss how. Looking at red, green, and blue full fields, I saw no speckle at all.
Unfortunately, the demo was beset with problems. For one thing, the screen was damaged during shipment, so they had to use the white-fabric wall of the "conference room" within the Sisvel booth on the show floor. Also, the cooling unit was damaged, so they had to bring in an emergency unit and could only run the projector for a few minutes at a time.
The first thing I noticed was that the 10-foot-wide image was super-bright—SIM2 said the demo unit was putting out about 8000 lumens, and even though we were losing about 40% of the light because it was projecting onto translucent fabric, I immediately squinted my eyes. Otherwise, the compromised conditions made the image not-so-impressive, and there were some convergence issues. Clearly, there was no way to judge the picture quality under those circumstances, but SIM2 insisted that solid-state illumination is the future of projection, and lasers are the most promising technology for high-end models.
The projector uses three 0.95" 1080p DMDs—that's right, this is a 1080p projector. That will be a deal breaker for many AVS members. And it's bound to be very expensive—easily well into five figures if not more. Still, it was great to learn that SIM2 is working on RGB laser illumination, and I look forward to seeing a more mature unit under better conditions at CEDIA.
SIM2 RGB Laser-Illuminated Projector at CES 2015 - AVS Forum
Na razie Prototyp.Na wakacje 2015 ma być w sprzedaży.O cenie nie będę pisał.
Parametry jak w Projektorach z kin stacjonarnych 
