The benefits of LED based front projectors are quite obvious and have been thoroughly discussed lately.

One aspect may have the biggest immediate impact on the market. The prospects of a basically noise-free, fan-less front projector with plenty of brigthness may raise the acceptance and consumer satisfaction like no other change in the FP paradigm before.

The essential question: Will LED technology allow for strictly passively cooled, silent projectors?

Please discuss.

Presumably they will be efficient enough not to require forced-air cooling and they will not need a (noisy) color wheel.

They should improve things in three areas regarding noise.

1. noiseless cooling
2. eliminating the color wheel (silence)
3. recuction of video noise caused by color wheel (BDE etc).

Unfortunately it will come at a cost. There will be many making more noise like statements of "it's about F'in time they eliminated this 1950's technology!"

It may also depend on whether or not they can keep all the digital electronics cool without a fan. Many upscaling players, receivers, processors, etc. have fans even though they don't have lamps.

My hc6000 is noise free right now. I can't hear anything when I stand right next to it. It does have fans but they're pretty much silent.

There will be many making more noise like statements of "it's about F'in time they eliminated this 1950's technology!"
I wonder who would be leading the parade. Considering the hyperbole, the bias, and the self-serving superficial analysis... it's tough one

IIRC from previous discussions, LED's aren't that much more efficient than UHP, so don't be waving goodbye to fans just yet.

I wonder who would be leading the parade. Considering the hyperbole, the bias, and the self-serving superficial analysis... it's tough one


I dont want to be accused of being one of the sheeple :D

IIRC from previous discussions, LED's aren't that much more efficient than UHP, so don't be waving goodbye to fans just yet.

I think you're right about that.
For example, I seem to recall someone mentioning that their new car (Audi???) has LED headlights and those headlights have a fan on them to keep them cool.

LEDs are not free from heat, however if they are color corrected multi-color LED (i.e. not filtered or minimally filtered) fired sequentially, the increase in efficiency will certainly greatly reduce the cooling requirements (not to mention the improvements in color rendition) of any projector using such a light source. 'White' LEDs on the other hand are probably not that different than UHP or Xenon conceptually, other than they are probably easier to dim faster.

water cooling is solution for PhlatLight LEDs :)

Yep, no fan-free operation just yet. But the efficiency of LEDs keeps improving, if a little slowly, so maybe that will change. Hopefully they'll be able to use quieter fans, at least. My Marantz VP12S4 is quite loud and yet still gets pretty damn hot.