New Laser Projector Advice and New Screen

[Steve Guttag]

Why? LP isn't better. It has an inferior color space and has an extra wear item that costs quite a bit.

[Marco Giustini]

What about the LP spectrum? RGB is clearly three(ish) spikes, how does the LP spectrum look like?

[Steve Guttag]

LP is more limited and doesn't really quite have DCI color space. Don't get me wrong, they don't look bad and compared to the film days where no two reels or projectors looked alike, they are fine...but it's like getting CFLs once affordable LED bulbs became available.

[Elia Orselli]

I don't say LP is better, but only that in my perception is nearer to a correctly calibrated xenon projection. This with my eyes and working with a DCI P3 environment.
I like also RGB laser projection, but even with DCI P3 settings, the results is (again, at my eyes) excessively different.
Anyway I'm offering all options to my customers, depending on screen dimensions (and budget)

Different point is for color grading rooms or film archive venues, but we have already talked of this kind of situation in another topic.

[Marcel Birgelen]

What about the LP spectrum? RGB is clearly three(ish) spikes, how does the LP spectrum look like?

Two spikes and a bump

I used to like LP more than those early RGB laser projectors, because all of those had quite some issues with speckle, whereas most LP projectors had almost no visible speckle. I've always considered stuff like screen shakers an ugly, unsustainable hack. Barco seems to have speckle under control in their SP4K series. But some fringe issues still remain, unfortunately.

The Barco SP4K and SP2K laser modules don't produce a single spike in the RGB spectrum per "native color", they seem to produce multiple spikes. Their laser plates contain multiple laser diodes, I guess they're not all tuned to exact the same wavelength, which will be part of their speckle elimination strategy.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I am definately NOT sold on laser, because the colo seems strange to me. Xenon is gonna be around for decades yet because there are so many places xenon is used other than cinema. Also, if you do go laser make sure you know what its gonna cost to re-laser your projector before you sign on the dotted line! Re-lasering is very expensive.

[Steve Guttag]

I think you are wrong, Mark, with respect to Xenon. I have heard that EU is phasing out xenon due to the metals used. I think there will be a 10-year span from when xenon lamp projectors cease production (already happened on Barco, all but a couple of NECs are left with Xenon as well as Christie), the projector attrition rate will mean that lamp production will drop to the point of not being a viable product to make. Who will still be using them?

At present, we have no xenon based projectors going in 2022 or beyond. Christie is the only manufacturer with new xenon projector designs. NEC seems to still produce the NC1200, NC2000, NC3200 and NC3240 but I know of nobody putting in the NC3240...the NC3541L, yes, but not the xenon projector.

[Stefan Scholz]

4k is no question, as 2k was an intermediate standard "To be used as long as the industry needs to supply 4k projectors in quantities." And that's been afaik 2007. From the human vision, around 60 pixels per angular degree, the maximum vision field in theatres 90°, the minimum 36°, your need on any seat is higher, than 2048 pixels horizontally. For the first 2 rows, even a 6k standard would be an improvement, but 8k is of no use in theatres.

LP is more like 709 color space barely reached, or just not reached. Not to think of P3. Something normal patrons do not see. If it's for color, Xenon seems to be the only only alternative.
RGB lasers have an extremely wide color space, which sometimes made me feel, as if the image was oversaturated, and not really what was intended.
The best image I saw so far was on a Christie 4440 RGB, which had least speckle. They did very well on that. But smaller and larger projectors did show significantly more speckle, can be reduced by going 0.8X screen and/ or mechanical shakers. Really a way to go?
Due to the narrow wavelength, the prominent problem in RGB is the different magnification in a single optical system. Resulting in a thicker red line on screen. Not really noticeable in color images, BW and titles do show it quite well.
I assume, the best multi color lasers are those, they sell as "Cinema at Home" or "Residential" series projectors. They can offer 6p and/ or dual modulators, eat a lot of energy, and simply show the best images. Better than the movie theatre counterparts. But that seems to be entering a totally different price range, theaters do not want to afford.

I am a bit confused what to recommend to clients. The Christie 4440 has convinced me of a good RGB laser, but being quite large from the box dimension (5 ft long), it does not fit for me. Plus you need a cold water supply, either from a chiller, or a central A/C plant. Advantage, on most screens, you would run it on low light output, warrantying a long lifespan of the illuminators.
I personally like Barco ICMP, it works rock solid, is very easy to operate, and it was "basically free", when ordered with the projectors (nominal was charged). It can handle high frame rates, 4k without extra licensing fees. Just the usual problems with Barco, connector issues, de-oxit session or in most cases reseating resolved the issues. Nothing really important.

Reliabilty, the Japanese brands so for lead in that so far. Lesest out of regular maintenance calls for me.
The (deceased) Sony needed a lot of attention in realigning colors and shading, to keep the image acceptable. Luckily it's history.

[Leo Enticknap]

...the projector attrition rate will mean that lamp production will drop to the point of not being a viable product to make. Who will still be using them?

From what I can find by looking around online, movie theater projection accounts for most xenon arc lamp usage, with searchlights and some (live) theater and event lighting, e.g. follow spots, being the only other major applications for lamps bigger than 100-200 watts (smaller ones are used for microscope and other scientific instrument illumination). That being the case, the viability of maintaining the infrastructure and expertise to make them will rapidly disappear as xenon-lit projectors are withdrawn from service and replaced with laser.

If movie projectors only accounted for say, 15-20% of lamp sales, I'd speculate that they'd continue to be available even after the business mostly converts to laser; but not when they accounted for most production. This will create a very big problem for arthouses trying to keep 35mm alive, for which there is no other illumination source (except possibly gong back to carbon arc) readily available.

[Marcel Birgelen]

From what I can find on-line, most xenon bulbs by far and large are used as car headlights as HID bulbs. But alas, those headlight bulbs are being produced by machines on another scale than their much larger counterparts, as being used in projectors, so their production process is by no means interchangeable.

I'm not aware of any EU plans phasing out xenon bulbs in the near future, what I do know is that the days for lamps containing mercury are numbered though, which will affect Sony's projectors and smaller projectors like the NEC900C, among a whole slate of "business projectors" and semi-professional projectors, if they're still in operational use by that time.

As we're looking for a replacement for our ageing Barco projector in our screening room, we're somewhat in an interesting situation... Actually, I'd really wish that someone would come forward with a screening room sized direct view solution, as in a 4K LED wall that's DCI certified and fits in your average screening room, but I doubt we'll have any luck there.

As an alternative, since most screening material isn't encrypted or keys are easy to come by, we may go for a non-DCI certified solution and retain a Christie Xenon projector and movable screen on stand-by for anything that does need full DCI certification. How we're going to combine that with proper masking and proper sound is going to be a challenge, but it seems that this entire industry is up for quite a few challenges the coming years...

[Steve Guttag]

It is my understanding that the production of replacement lamps will be allowed but no new devices that use those lamps will be allowed (HMI). So, again through attrition, as NC900/NC1000, DP2K-6E...and the bazillions of hang-n-bang projectors stop being used, so too will the lamps go away.

I'm not too worried about xenon lamps for 35mm (or 70mm) because, by and large, the use of those is so small, consumption of lamps is also very small (which also kills the manufacturing market). I think one reason that Kinoton Digital Solutions dropped support for film equipment is the complete lack of sales to justify even the space, let alone the labor to maintain stock. People will scavenge existing, out of use, equipment before buying new parts. It will be a factor of how many lamps are in the world after the "last buy" is declared for cinema xenon lamps. Who knows, perhaps there will be an ability to do a short-run on xenon lamps but it that is possible, it will likely be like film where they will make a year's supply and that's it until next year.

[Marco Giustini]

The Barco SP4K and SP2K laser modules don't produce a single spike in the RGB spectrum per "native color", they seem to produce multiple spikes. Their laser plates contain multiple laser diodes, I guess they're not all tuned to exact the same wavelength, which will be part of their speckle elimination strategy.

Very interesting! It seems indeed a good idea - wondering how it affects the metamerism when comparing RGB to Xenon.