Audio Video News

One limitation often preventing home theater enthusiasts from installing a front projection video system is the need to place the projector in a particular place in the room to get a proper image on screen. A semiconductor company exhibiting at the National Association of Broadcasters 2002 convention this week in Las Vegas says they can change all that.

San Jose, California–based Silicon Optix says it will be demonstrating how its sxW1 "Advanced Image Processor" chip, featuring what the company calls "eWARP" technology, can facilitate "professional quality video" and extreme off-axis correction in home theater systems.

In addition to demonstrating how extreme off-axis projection will benefit existing home theater projection systems, Silicon Optix adds that it will be demonstrating 3M's new 60-inch "Wall Display" video monitor, which uses the sxW1 for extreme off-axis correction to create what the company claims is a new category of projection systems. "The 3M Wall Display, which incorporates a built-in projector mounted above the screen, is light enough to hang on a wall like a picture frame."

The company's Dennis Crespo explains, "The sxW1 enables a new class of home theater systems by delivering incredible image quality with extreme off-axis correction. Extreme off-axis correction allows for stand-alone front projectors to be positioned with more flexibility within consumers' homes, eliminating the need for expensive room remodeling."

In addition to the off-axis projection correction, Silicon Optix says, the sxW1 can also be used to correct for distortions that occur when standard television content is displayed on an HDTV-capable monitor. "Existing solutions are limited to one blanket image-resizing technique applied to a single video image to correct for this distortion. The result: poor image quality. Only the sxW1 Advanced Image Processor provides for a variety of scaling methods to be applied to a single video image (region-based anamorphic scaling) to produce the highest quality visual output."