CEDIA 2010

The Sharp 3D projector mentioned in our report on Wednesday's press conference was on demonstration on the show floor. Within the limits of the available animated material, in this case Despicable Me, it looked amazingly good. At a projected price of around $5000, give or take, it's one of the least expensive 3D projectors we've seen so far. And with a 250W UHP lamp, it was also plenty bright, at least in 3D terms, on an 87" wide, Stewart Studiotek 130 screen.

Sharp has finally introduced a 3D LCD TV in its Quattron line, which adds a yellow color filter to the conventional red, green, and blue filters. The LE925 will be available in two sizes—52 and 60 inches—for $4200 and $5300, respectively. Several technologies, including the separate yellow color, are said to almost double the brightness of 3D content compared with 3-color LCDs. The demo did look relatively bright, but Sharp's use of Despicable Me as demo material was unfortunate, since the 3D in that particular movie is very unimpressive. A different disc of custom content looked much better.

We will be covering the show live from Atlanta, Georgia.

Aside from a bunch of projectors, SIM2 was also showing its 47-inch HDR47E LCD monitor, which uses Dolby's high-dynamic range LED-backlight technology in which each of the 2206 LEDs are individually dimmable with 20 bits of resolution, leading to a claimed contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1. Normally, I dismiss contrast specs, but I can believe this one—even on the show floor, the blacks were stunning, and bright portions were really bright; according to SIM2, the peak light output is 4000 nits, which is equivalent to 1167 foot-lamberts!

The HDR47E is intended for professional applications, such as automotive and medical imaging, and there are no specific plans to bring anything like it to the consumer market. And $35,000 for a 47-inch LCD is mighty steep. But it sure looked great playing Avatar.

At the high end of SIM2's extensive projector lineup is the Teatro 50 (single-lamp, 5000 lumens, $60,000) and 80 (dual-lamp, 8000 lumens, $70,000). As you might guess from the prices, both are 3-chip designs.

SIM2 Multimedia teamed up with Krell Industries for an elaborate AV demo featuring 3D via SIM 2's Grand Cinema C3X LUMIS 3D projector. Or should I say projectors. This setup uses two Grand Cinema C3X Lumis 2D projectors, each of them 3-chip DLPs, one for each eye image, linked together electronically for synchronization and mounted together on a rigid mount for proper physical registration (as shown in the photo, $79,995 for the projector pair and mounting). This 2-projector is said to help compensate for the loss of effective brightness inherent in 3D. Current owners of a C3X Lumis can send it in to be converted to the 3D version, at a price to cover the cost of the second projector and the needed modifications.

The ripple effect was apparently the theme at this year's Sony booth.