3D Front Projectors Seen Inching Toward Mainstream

The mainstreaming of 3D projectors has started with single-chip 720p DLP designs such as those from BenQ, Optoma, InFocus and others, and will migrate to include three-chip products like LG’s CF3D, which has six 0.6-inch SXRD panels, Insight Media President Chris Chinnock said. The LG projector also has two separate three-chip light engines.

The approach to delivering 3D content via front projectors will vary from company to company. RealD and Lightspeed Design are championing an active electro-optical switch that could sit on a “sled” to slide in front of a projector lens to create 3D when paired with a display screen that preserves polarization, Chinnock said. The switch changes the polarization of the light passing through it. Lightspeed’s modulator fits on the front of its DepthQ single DLP chip front projector to deliver 3D. The projector features 1280x720p resolution.

MasterImage is promoting a rotating circular polarizing filter that’s also placed in front of a projector to separate left- and right-eye images. A drive system rotates the filter at 4,320 rpm to “triple” flash 3D images. MasterImage’s filter is being deployed in movie theaters as a standalone device, but like the electro-optical switch, it could be embedded in a front projector, Chinnock said.

None of the existing microdisplay technologies -- DLP, LCoS and LCD -- have a chipset yet to support the fast switching needed to deliver 1080p 3D to homes, executives said. But DLP is expected to deliver one this year, while LCD and LCoS technologies also are being developed with faster switching, Chinnock said. With DLP, “it depends on what TI’s customers tell them as far as what the market can take,” Chinnock said. “If the market wants 1080p this year, you will see an acceleration for it.” Among other components needed is a six-segment color wheel based on color filtering technology Dolby Labs licensed from Infinitec that’s expected to be available in some high-end front projectors by year-end.

In addition to Lightspeed’s 720p projector, Optoma is fielding the HD66 ($699), which contains a 0.7-inch DLP device with 1280x800 resolution, 2,500 lumens maximum brightness and 4,000:1 contrast ratio. The projector typically operates around 1,999 lumens, but drops to 660 lumens when the 3D mode is switched on, executives said. At the high end, two approaches are emerging for 3D, they said. One is a “dual stacking” approach in which two projectors are placed on top of each other and aligned to deliver separate left- and right-eye images. And LG’s 3D projector ($13,000) has two separate light engines that use a combiner to deliver a single beam through the lens. LG expects the projector’s annual sales to be 500-1,000 units, said Sung Bum Kim, assistant manager in the projector marketing group.

While an LCoS solution for 3D hasn’t formally emerged, HDI has developed a “2D/3D switchable dynamic video projection TV” that delivers full 1080p 3D from two RGB LCoS using Necsel lasers. The system uses passively polarized glasses and can be configured for front or rear projection. HDI demonstrated the system in a 100-inch cabinet with a 10-inch depth. Canada’s Thetalili also is working on a single-lens LCoS-based stereoscopic projector in which left- and right-eye images are delivered at the same time. It has Thetalili’s polarizing beam-splitter to project 3D images using two LCoS panels. The two-panel LCoS 3D solution is likely to arrive in 2011-2012, Chinnock said.

Projection Summit Notebook

Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) phone accessories using Amimon’s second-generation chipset will ship by year-end at around $200, Shay Freundlich, senior director of technology and standards at Amimon, told us. One accessory will be a sleeve with an WHDI transmitter that fits over a cellphone to wirelessly deliver data and video to a receiver attached to a TV or other device over the 5 GHz spectrum, Freundlich said. Freundlich declined to identify potential suppliers. But the accessory has been tested on a Samsung cellphone, he said. Amimon is working on cutting power consumption of WHDI transmitters and receivers, which currently run at 6 watts and 5 watts, respectively, Freundlich said. The WHDI cellphone transmitter consumes 3.5 watts and the goal is to get it down to less than 1 watt, he said. The new WHDI standard will add compatibility with 3D streaming by this Q4, with products based on the new spec arriving in Q3 2011, the WHDI consortium said. WHDI 2.0 also will add support for 2160x4096 resolution displays in Q2 2011, the group said. The standard update will support all 3D formats contained in the wired HDMI 1.4a standard, the group said. WHDI 2.0 also will cut power consumption in half to one watt to make the technology more attractive for portable devices and easier to combine with WiFi 802.11n, the group said. WHDI uses the 5-GHz band to transmit 1080p/60 Hz video more than 100 feet through walls to multiple TVs. WHDI can simultaneously stream from 13 different sources.