Barco/Cinionic is now S4 only (no more lamp based projectors)

[Steve Guttag]

While it was more than hinted at CinemaCon 2021, Cinionic was going to be a laser based projector company going forward, the Barco web site has made it official. The S2 projectors are listed as discontinued and under Cinema Projectors, only S4 projectors are being offered. This also means that their S2 LP projectors are also gone. They also don't show the DP4K-P post-production projectors so it will be interesting to see if post houses will tolerate Laser based color. The Flagship lasers are also no longer listed.

Note, the last price list we received was for October 2021 and the S2 and S2S3 based projectors were still listed so I thought they would make it to the end of the year so, perhaps the website has updated prematurely. Regardless, it is clear that one of the three major players has finally dropped the S2 line, going forward. I think it is incredible how long the S2 projectors have been in continuous production from all three OEMs with almost no significant changes. Sure, there have been some updates here and there but nothing to dramatic and pretty much backwards compatible.

Christie, interestingly, has doubled down on xenon by introducing new CineLife lamp based projectors this year. They are owned by Ushio so there is some logic there. Plus, xenon based projectors still have are more life-like color reproduction, without speckle. I could see post houses still wanting that.

NEC seems to be banking on LP being the light source of choice (Barco/Cinionic is still doing LP on their SP2K projectors) for their entire range of projectors but they are also still offering their tried and true standards NC1200/NC2000, NC3200/NC3240. But I'd suspect that the NC3541L gets the bulk of their "large" projector sales and the the NC2041L for the next one down (LP based projectors). They also have a set of LP projectors where the LP part is a recyclable service part. Look for models with "ML" at the suffix to see them. At present they have 4 (three 2K and 1 4K though I don't know if the 4K is shipping). I wonder how well their Xenon machines are selling in this laser based world.

[Elia Orselli]

I was in Kortrijk for Series 4 training two weeks ago and it was quite clear that S2 production was over. Moreover, the SP4K-55 made the Flagship Laser series impossible to sell.
Now I see that a new line of S4 projector has appeared: "Freya" and "Freya+", DCI compliant, for "cinema at home" and architectural usage (+-90° tilt permitted).
Personally, I think that xenon projectors are still the only solution for post-production or similar environments, even if I was positive impressed by the results of the LP SP2K projectors (compared to SP4K) in DCI-P3 content reproduction.

[Marcel Birgelen]

This was kind of expected, but with the extended support of our DP4K-23B coming to an end, we're now facing a difficult choice of what upgrade path to choose. While I do like the S4 design, laser projectors simply aren't suited for the task of color grading material. NEC is focusing on their LP range and the future of their Xenon range isn't a sure-bet either, so I guess we'll be looking at Christie for a path forward...

[Steve Guttag]

Note, with the ending of the Flagship Lasers (6P), this also kicks Barco/Cinionic out of the non-polarized 3D business...leaving just Christie's dual projector 6P offering. That sort of indicates where 3D is going (well...gone).

[Benjamin Ruder]

Note, with the ending of the Flagship Lasers (6P), this also kicks Barco/Cinionic out of the non-polarized 3D business...leaving just Christie's dual projector 6P offering. That sort of indicates where 3D is going (well...gone).

I am not up to date on the current tech as you guys are (but follow along) and have a question about 3D and laser projection. I am currently running an NEC NC3240S with XPAND 3D and use it frequently in a University screening room. I expect a need to replace this projector at some point and need to retain 3D capability, hopefully without changing the XPAND equipment as well. Can you provide any information, or suggestions to my situation?
Thanks,
Benjamin Ruder
University of Chicago

[Harold Hallikainen]

Since Xpand uses shutter glasses instead of polarization or spectral splitting for the left and right eye, I SUSPECT any projector will work. No separate lasers, color wheel, or polarization wheel or LCD required.

On laser primary projectors, I think that if they could get the wavelengths at the top flat part of the XYZ curves, metamerism would be minimal. From what I've seen, though, the lasers are on the skirts of the curves, so minor variations in the center frequency of the XYZ filters results in a fair amount of shift in amplitude along the filter skirt.

How is speckle doing, by the way?

Harold

[Steve Guttag]

Xpand should still work with a laser based system. Xpand is a shuttered glasses system so it is independent of the light source (or screen material). My apologies for implying that there was just Dolby 3D (the 6P stuff) and polarized (RealD) are the only two options.

[Carsten Kurz]

On the last ISDCF meeting, someone mentioned that Xenon bulbs have risen in price considerably recently. Like, twice as much. Did someone notice this? Supply chain issues, or maybe they drive down manufactured quantities? Quite obviously, with all the lockdowns, they didn't sell a fraction of what they used to sell. High Xenon bulb prices of course make laser projectors more attractive.

- Carsten

[Marcel Birgelen]

What do you mean with "Like, twice as much"? Because, yeah, they have risen in price, considerably, but they haven't doubled, at least not yet...

Xenon manufacturing for cars has been down, but has been going down for years, as many manufacturers were switching to technologies like LED. But the install base of thousands upon thousands of xenon-based projectors isn't going to vanish overnight so xenon bulb production will probably remain viable for quite a while.

[Leo Enticknap]

I've installed XpanD systems with SP4Ks: they work well, and are very easy to set up.

From what I've seen here, xenon bulb prices have gone up between 10-30% or so (depending on the model) over the last year. I'm sure that part of that is the same inflationary pressures that other imported industrial consumables have been subject to, though it does seem likely that as sales volumes fall, prices will go up (because the cost of manufacturing infrastructure will have to be recovered over a smaller total pool of units sold).

Presumably Christie have figured that there will be a small but consistent market for xenon projectors (mainly in post houses, as others have pointed out) going forward, at least for a few years, and now have it to themselves, after Barco and NEC both pulled out.

The big question is how long parts support for Series 2 xenon and BLP/CLP projectors will last. With Series 1 it was for about a decade after new unit sales were discontinued: if Barco maintains the same support for Series 2, these projectors presumably have until the early 2030s for being fully repairable.

[Marcel Birgelen]

The install base of their S2 projectors is way bigger than that of the S1 installs, so I guess there will be a larger "after market" in those parts too.

As for post houses, I guess Christie will be the only player in town for a while... With Ushio as their primary shareholder, I guess they'll continue to serve the professional xenon projector market for a few upcoming years, but even here I expect a roll-off to smaller sized 3P systems.

We've actually been looking at LED wall alternatives, and while there are some offerings in the market that support both a sufficient small pixel pitch and color gamut for screening-room sized installs, none of them is DCI compliant and therefore won't support any encrypted studio content...

[Marco Giustini]

Regarding post houses, if laser projectors end up being the only one available, post houses will want to use laser projectors to colour grade. In the end the content is going to be shown on a laser projector so at some point it won’t make sense to grade on a Xenon when the majority of cinemas have laser light source.

[Marin Zorica]

For me, this was clear same day when day posted about to put xenon projector in same risk class as lasers are now.....plus some EU regulation about xenon lamps etc. As, Steve mentioned, there is more than 10 years S2 electronic has been in production! Entire TI OEM part (formatter boards and ICP) was unchanged for whole that period.

Post will need to adopt laser, as what is benefit to have xenon or other, when majority cinemas eg. presentation of material will be projected from laser. As for xenon, recently i did not notice any big price change, were you talking about lamp price itself, or some material used for lamp manufacturing?

[Elia Orselli]

Only thing I noticed for xenon is the difficulty to get them: we are experiencing problems with Osram and now with Ushio too on many models...

I think that the problem for RGB laser adoption in post production and high end screening rooms is more related to the DCI-P3 limitations, than the source itself (not considering metamerism and speckle...). If the distribution (and DCI rules) will move to REC2020 the laser would not be an option, but a need.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Xenon lamps don't seem to have gone up very much. A CXL21SN3 lists for just over $800. Discounted it's going to be in the $600 range. Anywqay, I'm not a fan of laser yet. Too many strange artifacts and funny color.