Barco new product ~~S4-lite

[Steve Guttag]

Here is the actual drawing on the unit (for size comparisons) You'll find that it is slightly shorter than an "S" (no exhaust flange...slightly taller than an "S" if the S doesn't have an exhaust flange. The length is slightly less than an "S."Screen Shot 2020-10-31 at 3.47.16 PM.png Screen Shot 2020-10-31 at 3.47.49 PM.png

[Carsten Kurz]

The SP2K models are listed as RGB Lasers here:

https://www.barco.com/en/products/sm...logy_rgb-laser

Strange. Why is Barco so opaque about this on their product pages? Previous Barco Phospor-Lasers names all have a specific appendix hinting towards that characteristic (LP/CLP/BLP).

- Carsten

[Dave Macaulay]

Ok, RGB. I was told phosphor by someone who was apparently wrong. I hope the speckle problem doesn't kill the sales, add a screen shaker system to the projector price and it gets expensive.

[Carsten Kurz]

Not sure wether they are really RGB - but, Barco lists them as such, and the spec sheets and everything else available doesn't mention it specifically - except mentioning their laser-plate light sources that had their debut with the SP4K models. Did Barco manage to combine these laser diode panels with a phosphor wheel? Why should they be 'panels' of considerable size then? Maybe the mentioning of laser-plate is a copy/paste from SP4K mistake?

[Steve Guttag]

They are Laser Phosphor. I attended the rollout webinar and they were very clear about them being Laser Phosphor. I suspect that there is something amiss on their web site's filtering.

[Steven De Paepe]

Hi, this was an error on the website, in the meantime, it has been corrected. Indeed we also mentioned this is in the webinar, idea is having the perfect image also on the high gain screens where this technology fits better in combination with the small 0.69" chip.

[Sean McKinnon]

Re: The CP4440 I was under the impression that with Christie Lasers on larger screens you really do need the screen shakers. Are they claiming that you don't need them with the larger Series 3/4 RGB lasers?

[Elinor Chang]

Hi, this was an error on the website, in the meantime, it has been corrected. Indeed we also mentioned this is in the webinar, idea is having the perfect image also on the high gain screens where this technology fits better in combination with the small 0.69" chip.

Is it R&B or B laser？And I noticed that the efficiency was up to 10lm/w, even higher than the S4 series（9.5lm/w）, it’s incredible!

[Tom Bert]

The 2 smallest modest are B-only. The 2 brightest models are R+B laser.
And yes: in the meantime this site is corrected to categorise them as LP: https://www.barco.com/en/products/sm...logy_rgb-laser

[Tom Bert]

They are Laser Phosphor. Any time you put in a green laser, you are going to kick your price up into another category and these are targeted for the lower-end of the market. So they are using the .69 DMDs but with the new hardware platform of Barco S4.

The introduction of a phosphor component was actually driven by compatibility with high gain screens, while using the 0.69" DMD (which in its turn enables the compact size, low noise, ...). As SP4K-C and -B proves: "RGB" is no longer synonym for "expensive".

However, if you want to do RGB on the smallest chip (0.69" vs 0.98" & 1.38"); that is not technically impossible, but you would have to let go of compatibility with the highest gain (silver) screens. We found that free choice of screens important, hence the introduction of LP on Series4 with the SP2K-S models

[Steve Guttag]

It's odd that silver screens would be a large concern on the value priced projectors since silver screens implies 3D. 3D is where light is the most challenging and is also a shrinking market. Silver screens are also known to poorly render color saturation properly and are also considered a very poor choice for anything but polarized 3D and even then there are now some white-screen solutions.

So, Tom, are you saying that putting in an RGB system into the S2K would not have kicked the price up a bit?

[Tom Bert]

It's odd that silver screens would be a large concern on the value priced projectors since silver screens implies 3D. 3D is where light is the most challenging and is also a shrinking market. Silver screens are also known to poorly render color saturation properly and are also considered a very poor choice for anything but polarized 3D and even then there are now some white-screen solutions.

So, Tom, are you saying that putting in an RGB system into the S2K would not have kicked the price up a bit?

The compatibility concern is biggest where the exhibitors has an existing high gain silver screen that he wants to keep on using: many auditoriums were "3D enabled" during the first digitisation wave, and exhibitors prefer keeping their screen if possible. And then you have markets like China were 3D never really dropped and where 2.4 silver screens are pretty standard (also for new installs, including the smallest private cinema screens)


I won't go into detail on price- or cost-comparisons; but with the introduction of SP4K-C we already made it clear that green lasers in 2020 are not what the were in 2015: different technology (direct green vs frequency doubled infrared); different market dynamics (volume ramp-up). SP4K-C was introduced to prove that 4K and RGB did not necessarily have to be synonimous to big and expensive. I believe we succeeded in convincing the market of that.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Tom, how is color consistency between different viewers for RGB laser versus more broadband sources like laser-phosphor or xenon? It SEEMS like it could be good if the wavelength of the laser is on the broad top of the XYZ curves instead of on the somewhat steep skirts where minor variation in slope or center wavelength between individuals could cause more of a shift in color perception due to the change in the ratios between the XYZ sensors in the eye.

Harold

[Tom Bert]

Tom, how is color consistency between different viewers for RGB laser versus more broadband sources like laser-phosphor or xenon? It SEEMS like it could be good if the wavelength of the laser is on the broad top of the XYZ curves instead of on the somewhat steep skirts where minor variation in slope or center wavelength between individuals could cause more of a shift in color perception due to the change in the ratios between the XYZ sensors in the eye.

Harold

I assume you're referring to metamerism? Your analysis on top-vs-slope seems to be correct; but I have no data to confirm this: as with all these subjective metrics, it's hard to grasp & quantify. Also take into account that even if there would exist an ideal wavelength for metamerism; you cannot just (efficiently) produce and use any laser-wavelength. The current selection is also defined by: power-efficiency, lifetime, availability, ...