This article was originally published at www.display-central.com
Insight Media stopped by the Panasonic booth at NAB 2014, where we looked at some of its professional products (see video above). The company was showing a lamp-free projector (from its Solid Shine projector line) that it released about a year ago, but it was showing the projector in a novel, signage application on a rotating platform. While the platform moved in circles, the image that was on the projector was part of a larger palette. So, the video processor looked at a large palette of information, and the company carved out a 1080p slice as the projector rotated around. This created a very nice effect. The Solid Shine projector line is laser phosphor-based at about 6,000 lumens.
On the other side of the booth, Panasonic featured about a 200-inch image illuminated by a new 16,000-lumen, 1080p-resolution projector. It was very bright and has the same chassis as a larger, 21,000-lumen projector that the company previously released. It also used the same four-lamp system that’s in the 21,000-lumen projector. But to create this 16,000-lumen product, Panasonic basically under-drove the lamps. Part of the advantage of this is that the projector has a long lifetime of about 3,000 hours, which is much longer than projectors in that lumen class from competitors.
In another part of the booth, the company featured two rear-projected, ultra-short-throw projectors — one mounted below, one mounted above the screen — which have applications in signage and museums. They were stacked and overlapped to show a very nice seamless image. The idea was to demonstrate that you can do this kind of application with projection systems but do not need to use a flat-panel solution. The implementation of this was done nicely, and you will also be able to see this at InfoComm later this year.
Also within the booth, Panasonic was showing a new 98-inch 4K LCD display. That will be joined by an 84-inch that will be available in September (pricing to be determined). They are both LED backlights, and the 98-inch is a direct backlight that’s going to have a full jack package to support 4K/60, including HDMI 2.0., DisplayPort 1.2, and four HD-SDI connector inputs. The 84-inch will be edge-lit and we believe will have the same jack package and the same level of performance.
The 98 inches is very bright, at 500 nits, so it will be in a unique category by itself. No one else has a product of that ilk and brightness for professional-grade applications.