OSRAM exiting Xenon

[Gordon McLeod]

There was a Rumer floatingaround that Osram is exiting xenon lamp production in June has anyone heard anything about this

[Jim Cassedy]

Actually, I heard it was a rumor.
And the rumor I heard was that they were shutting down their plant in Malaysia ( I think ) where they manufactured xenon bulbs for automotive head & tail lights, and shifting to LED's. - - but I'd heard that almost possibly a year ago.

[Leo Enticknap]

If true, it's a significant straw in the wind. As far as I know, that leaves Ushio and LTI in the biz.

I'm tempted to opine/predict that the xenon arc bulb is on the way out, but the vacuum tube (British: thermionic valve) never quite died and then made a small scale comeback for niche applications, and it's already becoming apparent that post houses don't like laser illumination. As the usual economies of scale never applied to the manufacture of these things (they all have to be hand crafted by technicians trained and experienced over many years), hopefully their production will remain long-term viable for even a very small market.

[Carsten Kurz]

As far as I understand, there is still a signifikant non-Cinema Xenon Market. Sports Stadiums etc. I haven't heard of any LED based solutions for those. I would think that OSRAM also build a significant stock before they end production.

[Steve Guttag]

Lasers are very problematic, color wise. I've just done two back-to-back installations using various forms of laser projectors (Full RGB, LP via RBB, and LP via BB). In my opinion, they should not be DCI compliant as they really don't hit their colors well and don't reproduce true-to-life color representation. The RGB hits the colors with predictably narrow bandwidth color spikes on the spectrograph but the resultant image is phony looking. To me, everything is red-cast. Not like faded film but there is this overall redness to it. For other people it is green. I can't imagine post houses using existing RGB laser for color grading because nobody sees it the same, it would appear and it doesn't have a real-life equivalent. There are a lot of advantages on the RGB laser front (even, stable, current generation initial costs are low/competitive to xenon), electrical costs are on the order of 1/3 of xenon and no need for dedicated exhaust in the HVAC plan (or roof construction).

The Laser Phosphors are almost comical on their color attempt when using the phosphor wheel. The RBB LP machine had a Red and two Blue Spikes but a "thing" representing green.

In a cinema, all of them will achieve a "good enough" appearance but xenon still looks better than all of them, except in contrast. RGB and LP laser will look better on contrast.

But in a post house, I don't know how they get away from xenon, at this time. You just can't judge the color with the laser offerings.

[Scott Norwood]

Isn't Superior Quartz still around as well?

[Scott Norwood]

Also, are there actually sports facilities that use xenon? Most sports lighting in the USA is metal halide, although LEDs are starting to become popular as well. (These are purpose-made LEDs, not the ones that you can buy at Home Depot. Supposedly, they meet all network TV requirements for color, etc.)

Outside of cinema, I've only ever seen xenon used in follow spots, but I'm sure that there are more specialized applications for the technology as well.

[Sean McKinnon]

I must be one of the people that don't see red or green tint with laser projectors. To me they just look very flat when it comes to illumination uniformity. The last laser I installed a couple of weeks ago a Barco SP2k-7 had no problem hitting spec. I did two rounds of light level and color alignment results are below. Now before it's said yes it is possible to have individual colors out of alignment and still appear to be in spec on DCI white so its not the end all/be all I am just saying that I have had pretty consistently good results with both Christie RGB Laser and Barco laser phosphor and the new "series 4" machines. To me they look really good but I do believe some people are susceptible to seeing a red or green tint. It would be interesting if someone did a study on this, I wonder if it is related to the different wavelengths of the laser light vs. the size of an individuals rods and cones???3136x-3506y-12.39fl.jpg3148x-3519y-1398fl.jpg

[Marcel Birgelen]

I guess it's hard to make a 100% objective plot of how sensitive someone's vision is to a certain wavelength, without tapping deep into the visual cortex. But I think that even with the small population we have on this forum, we can conclude that we don't perceive color entirely equal.

Actually, I heard it was a rumor.
And the rumor I heard was that they were shutting down their plant in Malaysia ( I think ) where they manufactured xenon bulbs for automotive head & tail lights, and shifting to LED's. - - but I'd heard that almost possibly a year ago.

Apparently, it's only the xenon production at Kulim, Malaysia. Now, that plant makes mass-xenon products, not specialty products, which includes high-powered multi-Kilowatt xenon bulbs.

Those high-powered xenon bulbs are produced by hand by people which require a certain level of skill, that's part of the significant costs of those bulbs. It should be far easier to scale-down production on such a process, compared to a fully automated assembly-line, that needs a far higher base-load to run on a profit. I suspect they can keep producing them for some years to come. There are still thousands of xenon-powered projectors out there and like indicated, those bulbs are still being used for many multi-kilowatt light sources, like sport venues and entertainment lightning, for stuff like spotlights.

The Laser Phosphors are almost comical on their color attempt when using the phosphor wheel. The RBB LP machine had a Red and two Blue Spikes but a "thing" representing green.

I've never really had any "color problems" with LP projectors, other than that I think that pure-white looks awful on a lot of those machines. I can't really put a finger on what it is, but it's like I'm looking at a "bright grey" instead of a "saturated white". I know that this technically doesn't make sense, but it's the best way to describe the sensation.

To me, the 6P Barco machines look fine, the 3P Barco machines look too red for me.

[Steve Guttag]

I must be one of the people that don't see red or green tint with laser projectors. To me they just look very flat when it comes to illumination uniformity. The last laser I installed a couple of weeks ago a Barco SP2k-7 had no problem hitting spec. I did two rounds of light level and color alignment results are below. Now before it's said yes it is possible to have individual colors out of alignment and still appear to be in spec on DCI white so its not the end all/be all I am just saying that I have had pretty consistently good results with both Christie RGB Laser and Barco laser phosphor and the new "series 4" machines. To me they look really good but I do believe some people are susceptible to seeing a red or green tint. It would be interesting if someone did a study on this, I wonder if it is related to the different wavelengths of the laser light vs. the size of an individuals rods and cones???

They do and they don't hit spec. If you look at your spectrograph, Green is hardly just green and Red isn't doing so well either. Compare that to either Xenon or RGB laser (which clearly those displays were not). People take the notch filter out of NC900s to hit their levels but that is like tuning a sound system with your bass/treble when there is a problem at a particular frequency.

I'm also curious, did you do an R, G, B analysis on your "after" calibration? How well are your various colors hitting their corrected colors? White is the easy one...hitting the points on the triangle seem to be more challenging, probably varies based on the laser source being used.

I still find that the grey sweeps look red, not grey.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Removing the notch filter from your NC900c will result in terrible color balance, which you simply cannot correct with any kind of calibration. Your greens will be far too yellow and your reds will be far too orange.

Hitting the points on the triangle should be easy for any 3P or xP machine, but will be far harder for any phosphor machine without a notch filter, especially one with a messed up spectrum like this one, where the green component really is more yellow than green.

[Carsten Kurz]

For the phosphor conversion lasers, green (...) and red are broad enough to create a common visual experience for a broader audience.
I assume that the native blue laser spectrum causes individual differences in perception.
Just a wild guess, but, the red hue that Steve experiences could be the result of individual perception variation of the narrow blue spectrum. I don't have enough viewing experience with phosphor conversion lasers.

[Steve Guttag]

It's worse on real RGB lasers. I'm finding that RGB lasers have a very hard time hitting their corrected color values, particularly red.

[Marcel Birgelen]

It's worse on real RGB lasers. I'm finding that RGB lasers have a very hard time hitting their corrected color values, particularly red.

Do you have any experience with a 6P machine already? And if so, did you see the same "red shift" in those? Because I can clearly see it in the Barco 3P machines, but not in their 6P machines.

[Steve Guttag]

Only at the trade shows...As such, I didn't have any extensive testing/observations. The Flagship Lasers (6P) are down to two models, I think (one with a high-contrast variant). They are priced many times higher than their SP4K projectors, which I would hesitate to call 3P as the spectroradiometer shows multiple peaks on at least two colors (I don't have one in front of me at the moment to show).