Sony to Stop Manufacturing Digital Cinema Projectors

[Lyle Romer]

I guess I missed this thread last year. What boggles my mind is how, after basically the same thing happened with SDDS, what possessed AMC or Regal to do a huge deal with Sony?

[Sam Chavez]

It was an almost no money deal by Sony to get a lot of boxes out there. Regal had just changed CEO's with founder Mike Campbell exiting. I attended the last big technical seminar in Cocoa Beach and at that point there was a deal with Barco and Dolby brewing. It all seemed to change in the blink of an eye.

I'm a big Sony fan except in cinema. They definitely stand apart even from other Japanese companies.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I do not know the details of how Regal got them, but AMC got them just for letting Sony collect their VPF's... I was told that AMC got an extra light engine for each machine., but I never verified that in person. May have just been new imager chips for each engine. I assume it was all a similar deal with Regal. Up until COVID, Regal was pulling all Sony and older DLP and installing all Laser projectors in their place. But once they closed and lost a lot of cash over the 2020 year I am sure that all came to a stop,.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Sony's initial draw also was that you could get a 4K machine for the price of a 2K machine. While there initially wasn't a lot of DCP content in 4K, the 4K nameplate did have some marketing advantage.

Sony's downfall in this industry was the problem of the SXRD engine to handle the required amount of light for the newer generation projectors. The general move to laser light sources was the nail in the coffin. Maybe they could've continued their "stacked design", but a stack of 2 or even 4 projectors will never be able to compete with a "single-box" design. Also, Sony projectors were already known to be very maintenance-intensive, having 2 or 4 of them for a single screen and putting them into a stack that needs constant attention itself won't make stuff better.

The big three remaining manufacturers all based their light-engine around the same TI DLP technology, which was able to scale to laser sources. Sony never was a big player in the big-venue projector industry either, at least not in the last two decades. So, they probably had just two options: Either license technology from another player, like TI or exit the industry all together. Developing an entirely new light engine just for the cinema niche and building or adapting a plant to produce those would've never earned their money back.

Them quitting the projection side of cinema is probably understandable. It's a bit of a pity though, they also don't seem to be interested into investing into LED-based solutions for cinema. Their Crystal LED screens are among the best LED screens I've seen.

[Steve Guttag]

A continual problem with Sony is that they are never in it for the long-game (and by long, I mean decades). That bit people with SDDS in the film days and again with SXRD in the DCinema days.

Their model seems more suited for consumer life-cycles or even Broadcast. Cinema is a LONG term commitment or you seem like a thief. Thing change very slowly around here. Look at current projector offerings. In 2021, you can still buy, essentially, the exact same models as you could buy in 2010 (the xenon ones). An 11 year production run (and counting) from three projector companies versus Sony...how long did each model last? Heck, most server companies had longer production runs than Sony and servers were supposed to be the short-lived "computer" things (relatively speaking).

Sony is very corporate...they will support what they've sold for 7-years or so and you WILL be able to get spare parts...just like for SDDS...and just like Mark is likely to point out...you might be waiting a bit for them but they'll still show as an available service part for their duration of support.

Sony has always made a quality product and their fit-finish is care for as much as anything else (it has to "look" Sony). But, for this industry, they just can't be trusted to be there, when you need them. They're good for when you are buying...not as good 10-years from now when you need to keep it going.

The SXRD had its strengths but, to me the colors were not quite right (in the greens) but their contrast beats DLP pretty easily.

I think they should develop their LED displays for cinema as I think that is the future of cinema screens (once sound can come through them). I'm not sure I'd trust them to stick with it though. However, like LG and Samsung, they have a strong consumer division where having a professional cinema screen division that can help promote the consumer equipment could be of value to them.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I agree, Sony has had two bad shows now inside the cinema market. The market is better served with companies that respect the slower life-cycle within the market and the long-time commitments that come with it. Although I'm afraid that "cinema" also needs to accept that the days that you could run on half-a-century old equipment are now gone and will not come back.

But, although I'm not here to defend Sony by any means, maybe they also were a bit unlucky in the decisions they've taken. Can you really blame a company shutting down a business-division if they fail to make a profit after more than 10 years of being in that market? Maybe you can blame them for jumping on the wrong ship some years ago though... some of those decisions are probably inherent to how Sony operates though.

If Sony would've combined their efforts to develop a high-powered alternative light-engine for DLP, together with the likes of JVC, Epson and maybe even Panasonic, their fortunes may have looked differently. Epson, for example, eventually managed to come up with a reflective 3LCD solution similar to SXRD that works with high-powered laser light sources.

But sticking to their own technology is something that's inherent to Sony. I don't think it's always bad, as many of their technologies have lead their respective fields (think about Trinitron for example), but I guess that's also the biggest risk factor. Once THEIR solution loses against the rest of the market, you'll eventually see them pulling out of that market. Maybe a company that operates on that level isn't the best company to serve the cinema market.

I think they should develop their LED displays for cinema as I think that is the future of cinema screens (once sound can come through them). I'm not sure I'd trust them to stick with it though. However, like LG and Samsung, they have a strong consumer division where having a professional cinema screen division that can help promote the consumer equipment could be of value to them.

The OLED screen in my living room, a Sony, has the L, C and R drivers mounted onto the back of the screen. It actually uses the surface of the OLED screen itself as "cone". This works, because the OLED screen itself is a tightly bonded, relatively flexible bunch of layers. I was asking myself if this kind of solution could actually scale to the size of a cinema-sized LED screen and still sound good...

[Steve Guttag]

The Sony approach to cinema projectors was similar to their approach to cinema sound...debut with the higher-end. For sound, instead of 5.1, they went with 7.1 (with 5-stage channels and 2-surrounds)...even though their ability to deliver that many full-range channels taxed their system's reliability. For projectors...while 90% of the movies are 2K...they debut with 4K and for 3D had to back that down to 2K and with such a cumbersome Lens set up that it turned into sub-2K based on how well converged the two images were.

I blame them for not knowing the market they were getting into and thinking that by merely schmoozing the big-boys (and they were very arrogant about it too...they couldn't care less for dealers or getting independent service companies in on it...which is why we, to this day, won't service them). They just about outright stated they were doing you a favor by taking upwards of $6K to "train" one to work on their stuff. No thanks, we'll stick with the three DLP brands.

I consider the SXRD for cinema a repeat of past mistakes. It isn't that the technology didn't work or that it couldn't best the competition but the way it was done and the commitment was such that it failed. That said, another fatal flaw was having a system that was so inherently more expensive to have (again...what market are you in???) that somehow volume would make up for loses on each system? How does that work again?

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Sony is nothing but a marketing company. If a product's sales wear out after a while it is discontinued and replaced with something else, and not necessarily in the same category as the discontinued product.. Many other companies do pretty much the same... although it's pretty odd for it to happen in the cinema industry.

[Steve Kraus]

Say you have a well made 4K DCP. Would you prefer to view it via 4K DLP Xenon, 4K DLP Laser, or 4K Sony? Presume all of them have been recently serviced or re-lamped as needed. You may add Laser LIEMAX to the list *if* you think whatever they do makes any difference.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I've taken the freedom to add some to the list.

1. Dolby Vision; which is 2 x 3P in all public installs I know about, using modified Christie projectors
While the colors of a 4K Xenon machine may be better, without reference it's hard to spot and no other projection setup currently delivers more "crushing blacks" than this setup. The setup is Dolby specific and comes at a tremendous price, speculations are about 7-figure amounts for just the projector stack.
2. Barco 6P 4K Laser
Very good contrast and I don't really spot any color problems. Still, with the projector alone running in the mid-6-figure amount, only available for very special rooms.
3. 4K DLP Xenon
Still the reference when it comes down to color consistency. Most 4K DLP Xenon machines suffer from somewhat bad contrast though. I prefer the higher contrast of most 2K machines.
4. Sony 4K
In my opinion, the colors of this system are never quite right. What I do like though, is that without any moving parts (as in micro-mirrors), the picture itself looks rock-steady and there is almost no pixel grid visible, even at close distances. Those machines suffer at larger screens though.
5. Any other odd laser projector
Most phosphor laser projectors I've seen suffer from "odd colors". To me, white never looks like white, it always has some odd shading. To me, it's like looking at a forbidden color, I can't really describe it.
6. Laser 4K IMAX
I guess this is among the worst things I've ever seen. Massive amounts of speckle, combined with odd, oblong pixels that are still clearly visible on those massive screens, combined with not really great contrast and often very mediocre sound.