CRT Installation Projectors Give Way to a New Breed

As the 21st century gets underway, it's worth looking back at whatit used to mean to have an installed video projector. Back in themid-1980s, the term "installed video projector" meant a large boxattached to the ceiling, or behind a rear projection screen. That boxhad three big cathode-ray tubes, a mass of analog signal wiring, andsimple control functions.

Perhaps the distinguishing feature of that "installed videoprojector" was its inability to show anything other than interlacedvideo! Sure, you could put a scan converter ahead of it and projectsomewhat fuzzy images from early personal computers. But you'd belimited to NTSC or PAL video from VHS, 3/4", and Betacam players, cheapvideo cards, and primitive electronic presentation systems.

Today's installation projectors, such as the Sharp XG-V10WUinstalled in this auditorium, continue the industry's shift to LCDtechnology.

Move ahead ten years to the mid-1990s. While installation projectorsweren't getting much smaller, some of them did feature a newtechnology--liquid-crystal display panels--and could display bothcomputer graphics and video. In the meantime, the big CRT boxes wereadding multi-scanning capability to handle workstations and even HDTVsources. The CRT hadn't lost the race yet, but LCD technology wasgaining on it.

The shift to LCD technology was followed by another trend--lowerprices. In fact, an avalanche of technology enhancements cut loose inthe mid 1990s, resulting in never-ending improvements in imagebrightness, reductions in weight and size, and increases in nativeresolution. That avalanche hasn't stopped - in fact, it's even pickedup speed with the availability of digital video interfaces (DVI) andnetwork control of projectors.

Lower prices and better performance put more and more installationprojectors into the hands of end-users who were previously limited todirect-view monitors, or LCD panels for overhead projectors. Coupledwith other advancements in presentation technology, it became easierfor more people to design and use conference and training facilitieswith full video/computer display capability.

To The Swiftest

Today? Our "installation video projector" is hardly recognizable,compared to its CRT predecessor. Installation projectors can be assmall as a shoe box and weigh less than 17 pounds. Yet, these 'mightymites' are now capable of over 3000 ANSI lumens brightness--a figure 20times brighter than the average three-gun CRT.

What's more, that compact installation LCD projector will typicallyhave XGA (1024x768) pixel resolution, compared to the average 7" CRT(800x600) front projector. Throw in single-lens operation with no needfor convergence, features like lens shift and digital keystonecorrection, auto-sync and auto?size capability, and compatibility withDTV sources, and you can see why everyone's gotta have an installationprojector these days.

In effect, the installation projector race is over, and the torchhas been passed from the cathode-ray tube to the liquid-crystal displaypanel. Today, CRT projectors are primarily of interest to home theaterand specialized display markets, like 3D and virtual reality imaging.The rest of the installation world has gone 'flat' with a variety ofLCD projector designs for corporate, educational, command/control,rental and staging, and religious uses.