No brightness plateau in sight for projectors

It sometimes seems that the whole modern history of the projection industry has been expressed in the steady, parallel escalation of resolution and brightness in each succeeding generation of new products. That lockstep advance, however, may soon be a thing of the past.

In fact, the curve of increasing resolution is about to flatten out, as the rapidly approaching 1080-progressive standard becomes ubiquitous over the next several years. Brightness, though, isn't about to pause in its steady march to higher numbers.

Barco (www.barco.com) is marketing its XLM H25 projector with maximum brightness of 27,000 ANSI lumens, and Christie's (www.christiedigital.com) Roadie 25K delivers up to 25,000 lumens to the screen. At Digital Projection, Inc. (www.digitalprojection.com), the Lightning Pro Series is good for 18,000.

How long ago was it that 1,000 lumens was considered a pretty exceptional light output? Today, thousand-lumen projectors can be bought for less than a thousand bucks.

There's a fundamental difference in the factors driving increasing resolution and brightness, says Digital's president, Mike Levi. Increasing display resolution is limited by the resolution of the available source material, he notes. Right now, not much is available even in 720-progressive, let alone 1080p. Since the Federal Communications Commission's Advanced TV Systems Committee, back in the mid-1990s, approved a portfolio of digital video specs that topped out at 1080p, it's unlikely anyone will have an incentive to market anything finer than that any time soon.

When it comes to brightness, though, Levi says the picture is much different.

"There's no inherent limit in venues," Levi says of the settings in which high brightness projectors are typically used -- arenas, concert tours, mega-churches, and the like. Conditions like ambient lighting can vary widely, he adds, and having those extra lumens available means stagers and others can create a much more impressive dynamic range in the video they display.

"Certain groups of stagers are doing events of a magnitude that will always benefit from more lumens," Levi says. "As we bring more lumens to the task, we are going to create more opportunities."

If Levi feels there's no arbitrary limit to how bright projectors can get, he also notes some practical difficulties as the lumens get up there. "There are limitations on what you can achieve with bulbs," he says. Prisms and other optical projector components are also vulnerable to being simply overwhelmed by too much light, and some manufacturers are experimenting with alternate light sources like white LEDs.

Every-brighter projectors also present some interesting choices. For example, does it make more sense to use a single 18K projector or double-stack nines? Levi points out that double-stacking projectors doubles consumption of lamps and other maintenance costs, and there isn't that much difference in cost between 18K and 9K lamps.

Stagers, though, may still opt for double stacks in the interest of redundancy, Levi observes.

LED walls, noted for extreme brightness, also present potential competition for high-brightness projectors, though Levi feels projectors are well positioned to win these face-offs on the basis of higher video quality and attractive costs -- particular as screen sizes increase. This is particularly true of indoor applications, he says.