Thomas J. Norton

Planar showed an 84-inch UHD set available in a variety of configurations: a straight display, a somewhat brighter straight display, a display with a writable surface (shown here) and more. It can also show four standard HD programs at the same time in opposing quadrants of the screen. Pricing was a little confusing, but plan on at least $20,000 and up, depending on the version you choose.

Planar is the company that bought out Runco a few years back, but if they are still making projectors they weren't showing them this year. The passing of Runco as a distinct entity is notable in the annals of CEDIA EXPO. That company nearly always had one of the largest booths at the show.

ADDENDA: In scoping out the Wisdom Audio demo (discussed elsewhere here) I noted that it was using a 3-chip Runco DLP projector. Under Planar, Runco projectors are indeed still available.

Sony’s VPL-HW55ES HD 3D SXRD projector is the follow-on to 2012’s VPL-HW50ES. It offers a claimed dynamic contrast ratio of 120,000:1 (using Sony’s dynamic, Advanced Iris 3), an advanced cooling system, a stated lamp life of approximately 5,000 hours, and a peak brightness of 1,700 ANSI lumens. It will be available in October at $4000.

JVC’s 2013 launch includes, as usual, two separate lines of projectors, the Reference line and the Procision line. As before, the two ranges are essentially identical in performance, with the biggest difference being that the Reference line is sold only through professional channels and the Procision line through consumer outlets. We will address only the Procision lineup here.

The new Procision lineup consists of three new models: the DLA-X900R at $12,000, the DLA-X700R at $8000, and the DLA-X500R at $5000. The DLA-X35 from last year remains in the line unchanged at $3500.

Custom installations aren’t all about audio and video hardware, and the field in recent years has expanded into peripheral areas such as custom window blinds of various sorts—from decorative to blackout. The Hunter-Douglas Pirouettes shown here, available in manual and powered versions (battery or hard-wired), appear to be of the former variety, though when closed (they’re shown open here) they’ll dim (but not darken) the room.