Will low cost LED projectors displace LCD and plasmas?? - Page 4

there have been no steady improvements in leds-what osram is crowing about was surpassed 4 times over 5 years ago,by luminus with the pt-120 led- used in 20 high end
PJ,s.The new pocket pjs @ 500 lumens sold by acer, veiwsonic and optoma are all just rebrands of the same pj-no one is taking any chances.

That a plasma is to heavy is a non issue,If you can afford it you can get it moved,some of us own pianos so.....

Ok I get you point about bulk not so long ago about half the households in the UK had a piano, rich and poor alike. But that plasma is heavier than most grand pianos.
A small upright piano is 300-400 lbs
A large upright piano is 500-800+ lbs
A grand piano is 500-1200 lbs
That plasma is 1300 lbs

Given the size of the TV 153", only about 133.4" width and not much depth, the upper story floors of a modern house might not be able to take the weight, even if you could get it up the stairs.

Do not get the point about cost, second hand pianos are cheap in the UK. Probably due to the bulk of them in size, weight and number of pianos sitting idle. Also pianos were not exclusive luxury items for the wealthy and I thought the idea was for huge displays for the mass market. Are pianos seen as prestige items in the USA rather than quaint relics.

@Airion, projectors that work all day and night are not happening. I'm sorry, it just isn't. Any surface that's reflective enough to display the image is reflective enough to display the light in the room. This is not some inconvenience that will be overcome. I'd be curious, but I doubt most people would find even a 10,000 lumen projector to be adequate as a TV on a Sunday afternoon with some sun coming in, etc. Get a screen and things change. Get an exotic screen and they change more. (Even basic screens can limit angles of reflection.)

I think your belief that there's a market for people to buy $500 projectors for their dorm rooms is amusing. Maybe such a market exists at order of magnitude 100k units/year. I doubt it, but maybe.

@dovercat, at no point in this conversation did I even suggest that (1) 152" panels were ever going to be mainstream anywhere (2) current technology is what we should limit our discussion to (if we did that, we could rule out projectors forever). I suggest you actually read my post. I also suggest you note that today's 65" plasma weighs less than my 5 year old 50" plasma. Today's 70" LCD weighs less than today's 65" plasma. There is actual, real progress there. Not fictitious progress, which is mostly what LEDs are "delivering".

The fact that a viable 75w LED standard bulb is still not on the market (coming this fall, allegedly) speaks volumes about how fast the theoretical progress is vs. what's actually happening. As eat meat says, there's a disconnect between hype and reality. I really don't care what you all think is going to happen any more than you care what I think is going to happen. My prediction is out there, a prediction that's 10x as high is out there.

When DLP started to die off in RPTV, the DLP people desperately tried to recast it as a gaming solution, with twin-view displays for two gamers. Then it was 3D. The projector people do the same thing. What's old becomes new again -- and again. It's pretty funny. I found an item from 2001:

"InFocus has stated that in 2001, 1.1 million business projectors will be sold worldwide, but only 70K to 90K front home theater projectors will sell in this same period. Almost all of these sales are going into expensive installations....

What will open up the home theater, or Living Room Theater market, is the big question that everyone is asking now. After talking with many players in this field, there is consensus for three things:

1) The price of projectors needs to be less than $3,000
2) Ordinary consumers need to be educated about living room theater and its benefits
3) Consumer distribution channels need to be established to move systems into homes

If this can happen, the prize could be huge. InFocus sees 2002 as an introductory year for lower-price products targeted for a mass market, but by 2003, 500K units could be sold, growing to 1 million units by 2005. If that happens, the home theater market will be as big as today's business projection market. That's why so many companies are scrambling to figure out a strategy to capture market share.

The $3,000 price point is believed to be the point where middle-income consumers begin to look at front projection systems seriously. This price is toward the high end of the sweet spot in big screen rear-projection TVs, so the idea would be to offer an alternative solution.

The benefits of a front projection solution include a much larger screen size and no big TV system taking up valuable floor space. The potential down side is the cabling and set up that can be required and the need for an expensive screen.

Clearly, ceiling mounted systems that require digital video feeds and power are beyond the comfort level of most consumers. A coffee table solution is preferred, but cabling is still an issue. Wireless solutions are being discussed and may come to market. But these will add cost.

Educating consumers about Living Room Theater will be challenging too. Most consumer stores that sell big-screen TVs today are not well suited for displaying and selling front projection systems. In the home, the room is darkened where the projector is used, which is not the case in large electronics stores. So how can it best be demonstrated - in specially built living room showrooms? Perhaps, but this has been the territory of the high-end AV dealers and custom installers.

How to bring home projectors to market is another question. Business projectors are sold through the PRO A/V and PC channels. Home theater products through specialty AV and custom installer channels, and big screen TVs through electronics super stores and other outlets. Direct sale via the Internet is also becoming viable.

If Living Room Theater is to be a mass consumer market, many think it will likely have to be sold the way big-screen TVs are. The problem is that most manufacturers of projection products have little presence in these distribution channels. If companies come to market using some of the specialty AV dealers, it will take a lot of manpower to manage these small-scale outlets. But using distributors quickly stacks up margins. Solving these issues will take time."

Boy, does it ever take time. First of all, the price blew through $3000 (1). As for (2), education, I think people know the stuff is out there -- they just don't care. As for (3), well, TVs are sold on the internet, in specialty retail, they have no problem selling. Projectors are there, but, again, no one cares.

So how did thinks materialize in terms of home use matching business use? I'm so glad you asked! It's been 10 years since the above report, so what's news?

"According to Quixel Research, the projector industry will experience a 6% drop in revenue this year - but there are some bright spots.

Opportunities Dot Slowing Front Projector Market
By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 6/20/2011

NEW YORK — So far this year, the market for hometheater- focused front projectors, like many other CE categories, is growing at slower-than-expected levels, but analysts and manufacturers are seeing pockets of new opportunities emerging in certain markets, namely the highend market and the low-end combo DVD market....

Quixel said the home-theater projector market last year shipped 150,899 (units) for $306 million in factory dollar value. It is forecasting dollar volume to drop 6 percent to about $287 million in 2011...On the home-theater projector side, Tamaryn Pratt, Quixel Research principal, said unit sales are up about 3 percent over 2010 levels at this time.

That article goes on to talk about LEDs, and "significant adoption" if LED hits $6000-7000. So by "significant adoption", they mean 10s of thousands of units, of course. While I'd be foolish to say today's $8000 LED projector can't be $800 in 5 years -- heck, I showed the 97.5% price declines for plasma -- it's worth noting that average selling prices for projectors haven't fallen nearly as far and it's pretty clear a good part of the reason is that lower prices don't meaningfully stimulate demand.

So in 10 years, the market for home theater projection has doubled. It currently represents <1/2% of the U.S. TV market and if we were to include those college kids watching TV on their laptops, that percentage would be smaller still. (Aside, the dollar value of the home theater projector market has declined every single year since 2006.)

Could this market share double to 1% over the next few years? Yes, I'm sure it could. I've said it could. Of course, sales are currently going in the opposite direction. "Home-theater sales are going down" said Frank Romeo, Casio's Vice President for projectors. Quixel had sales up 3% year over year, which is better than a kick in the pants, but over 5 years, even 5% compounded is <30% over 5 years. The trends don't look favorable.

Epilogue: Before going bankrupt, Infocus was taken private in 2009 for $39 million. It has ~110 employees at this point and is a tiny shell of its former self. The non-emergence of the home projector market did not help matters, obviously.

Epilogue 2: It appears sales spiked up a bunch, unit-wise, in 2010 when lower-cost 1080p became available. Since there is no follow on this year, it's reasonable to conclude a lot of those sales are replacements for dedicated rooms/spaces with permanent mountings. So unit growth softness from here is not entirely surprising. I'd say 2012 data would be interesting, but it really won't be unless for some reason there is a breakout to the upside of 30%.

Epilogue 3: From Display Search, "the pocket projector market is currently dominated by stand-alone devices, which can be connected to other devices, and allow for additional integrated functions. DisplaySearch forecasts the stand-alone pocket projector will reach 45 million units and $8.9 billion in 2018." Good news! $200 projectors will sell tons of units worldwide in 2018 according to people who also predicted great things for other technologies that failed to happen... But wait. Are these TV replacements? I suppose some of them could be. Not many, but some.

Epilogue 4: But wait, Pacific Media seems to think Display Search is onto something (not clear exactly what): "PMA estimates that the 8.5 million units sold during 2010 will increase to more than 39 million units during 2015. The forecast includes all projectors, from tiny pico projectors used as companion devices for mobile gadgets to the brightest projectors found in high-end corporate settings, home theaters, and digital cinemas."

"PMA divides the industry into three brightness ranges, each associated with its own set of buyer types and applications: New Era (under 500 lumens), Mainstream (500 to 4999 lumens), and High-End (5000 or more lumens)."

"The Mainstream range comprises models of types that have been used for many years in classrooms and corporations. These projectors range in size from ones small enough to be carried by road warriors to ones that are mounted on a ceiling or a wall. This range also includes the fast-growing interactive projectors and ultra-short-throw projectors The Mainstream range is expected to grow from about 7 million units in 2010 to about 11.5 million units in 2015, a compound annual growth rate of 10%."

D'oh!. Clearly sub 500 lumen units are not replacing TVs. Again, I'm not saying that market is zero, but it's asymptotically approaching zero (you want 100k units annually? I think you're nuts, but I'll give it to you). Too bad the mainstream units are only growing 10% and that includes all sorts of non-home uses.

One real takeaway from these overly optimistic forecasts by DisplaySearch and PMA (they get paid by mfrs. so they often overstate massive markets, especially when using such small starting data), no one is talking about a TV replacement market. There are scores of projector mfrs., several market research firms, big juicy future forecasts (well, some, the home-theater forecasts could only be described as bleak) and yet no one is talking about replacing TVs.

[ sarcasm]
Clearly, though, the above analysis continues to prove two things:

a) I have no idea what I'm talking about and I engage in nothing but wild speculation
b) Nothing that's happened over the past decade backs me up

[ /sarcasm]

I agree price is not the problem. I disagree about public awareness. In my opinion it would not occur to most people in the UK to want to buy one for home use. They assume they are expensive, inconvenient to setup and have poor picture quality. Most people have only seen projectors in pubs, at business presentations or at the cinema. The internet is good at supplying projectors to people who already want them, but not at increasing demand. People need to look up projectors in the first place and need to be interested enough to figure out the jargon and specs and not be immediately put off by them appearing to be more complicated than just buying a TV and having poor picture quality due to less extravagant claims.

As long as cheap home projectors are not seen on day time TV home makeover programs and soap operas, and you do not see them working in a favorable light in major high street retailers, they will remain something it never occurs to people to want to buy. The reason they have a niche market in home cinema in my opinion is because they were able to get advertisements and articles in home cinema magazines.

Dovercat, excellent points. I would add this, however: If properly arranged retail setups of projectors are required for them to really take off, we can rest assured it will never happen. Retail is going in the opposite direction. On "High Street," you at least have access to electronics. In the U.S., we only have electronics in a few specialty retailers -- almost none of whom have viewing rooms any more -- and shoved into warehouse or big box stores. The notion of Best Buy devoting more space to Magnolia to pimp $500 projectors seems completely ridiculous. The notion of Fry's doing it is that much more absurd.

I think you put it really well: "...they will remain something it never occurs to people to want to buy." And 10 years from now, that will still be the case.

I understand you think so, but I was talking about adoption of projectors in the case of a hypothetical ultra-bright projector. Saying they wouldn't be adopted because projectors aren't bright enough doesn't get the discussion anywhere. Please take care to respond to what people are actually saying. Which brings me to:


No one is suggesting sub 500 lumen units will replace TVs. I'm saying cheap 5000 lumen units could replace some TVs.

Thanks for pulling up those articles though, very interesting reads. I'm trying to predict where things could go 20-40 years from now, so those predictions are comparatively short sighted.

I would say 20-30 years from now, we are looking at super size OLED fabric TVs, filling whole walls. Perhaps even an "image surround" experience will be the bomb, kinda like IMAX 360.

I'll admit I'm not too aware of how or how fast OLEDs might develop, so I can't really comment. I hope you're right though!

PMA should examine the criteria for determining their brightness ranges. Bulb lumens are no longer the single determinant. Low power LED/DLP projectors have different "guts" which don't dim their output.

When j6p consumer somehow sees (not in the BB stores) these little guys (LED/DLPr's) the tide will rise.

A new TV for the basement/bedroom/???? can now become a LED/DLP pj, definitely an inexpensive and dramatic experience. Regards.

meh. I'm waiting for the Cerebral Implant Technology to mature...

@Airion, those projectors are even less likely to happen in 20-40 years. I have no doubt that within that time frame, some sort of ultra-lightweight flat panel that can cover a wall and uses minimal power will be real. When I say this ultrabright, cheap projectors won't exist, they won't be "invented" for a market need that will never really exist.

Bytehoven is likely correct about the future.

@teac, this thing where only if people could just see them they'd all want them.. Typically, that's the last bastion of technologies that people really don't want. I do believe the basement (and to a much lesser extent the bedroom) are promising areas for projectors.

I think foreign markets will decide, last time I heard they sell the majority of 3D capable DLP projectors in China and India, kids going to see it at the school, maybe they will have their own DIY classes how to build quality ambient light rejection and screens, and western HT traditions will be outpaced.

Portable stuff will be full of picoprojectors, it wont take long until they notice that white surface and bright projection aren't really synonymous.

The Direct TV guy was working on the rcvr the other morning in the **** (small home interior theatre) with east window wall and wanted a tv to check things out. Told him the PJ was all I had. Turned it on and in a few seconds it was projecting the menus. DT guy response, that was quick and it looks ok, where is the pj? Showed him the toy on the ceiling and he said you are kidding me, how much was it? Said less <$500. He said I'm getting one for my basement. The tide is rising. Regards.

I'm wonder which projector alternative might have made the DT guy say "WOW!" ...

I know there are some good used projectors which can be bought for $500-1000, maybe even below $500, which would cause a 1st time viewer to consider the leap. However, what would it take to have this projector newbie still lovin' the image after a few months?

Limiting his access to a place like AVS might be one of the keys.

But seriously, I ask any projector aficionados to chime in. What would be your minimum quality recommendation?

I think there are a few more options available if the viewer can handle DLP, otherwise, maybe the JVC RS1/Sony HW10 or better?

Not sure I'm following your logic on this one. It was quick because it was already set up and one Direct TV guy does not a market make. Could sales increase slightly over the next few years, possibly, but not at the point of "displacing" plasma and LCD sets as the main source for television viewing. If there is a market gain at all I see it as in addition to their existing flat panel sets. I also don't expect the technology to advance near as fast as what has been projected by the OP.

I wouldn't recommend a used non LED bulb projector for any price after my experiences with two Infocus 4805's. They were noisy, hot, destroyed themseves in short order and didn't have the contrast of the LG LED/DLP.

[quote=HTguru3;20718699]Not sure I'm following your logic on this one. It was quick because it was already set up and one Direct TV guy does not a market make. [/QUOTE=HTguru3;20718699]

Definitely not market research, just an isolated case; however, it may indicate a new class of users who have avoided the uber projectors in the past, like me. Regards.

After getting QUMI, the answer is no. Maybe 1080p, 2000-lumen laser projector will do the job. QUMI has a serious non-uniform focus issue that's a deal-breaker right from the start, and that's only the first in a list of big problems.

Thanks for the review vtms as it appears the small projectors might be a ways off before they can truly compete as a product to be used for every day TV viewing.

Chuckle .... .....I use my "toy" LG HS 201 "for every day TV Viewing". Why, big screen, low power consumption, cheap to name a few. Regards.

As long as you're satisfied then that's the main thing.

How much would a 10,000 lumen projector cost?

yea ,chuckle,500$ for a 800x600 200lumen pj -cheap is not what comes to mind

Sheeesh, ........ I need help ...... what to do ...... where to go ...... AVS!

...... any suggestions? Regards.

The technology of LED projectors is improving, with new models being developed and coming to market: Vivitek Qumi now, and new models from Optoma, Acer, and Viewsonic announced coming to market in later in 2011, all with higher resolution and light output than models costing the same a few years ago.
There was a time when fragile, hot-running vacuum tubes were replaced by solid-state transistor semiconductor devices. In the early stages of solid-state technology, transistors couldn't carry the capacity of tubes, but that changed as the performance of solid-state devices progressed. Wait for them to warm up, wait to cool down, tolerate waning, dimming performance over time, and hoping they don't pop . . . . UHP lamps seem a lot like the old vacuum tubes. Right now, the advantage UHP lamps have is brightness, when that is matched by LED (or some other technology), a very welcome technological changeover will occur. The market for ever-higher performance LED projectors will grow, and at some point, the concept of replacing a costly UHP lamp after a relatively brief amount of time will seem as cumbersome as replacing vacuum tubes was in old CRT sets.
There will be doubters, pessimists, and those who hang on fanatically to some current hardware, (flat panel displays, et al) as the "now and forevermore" best technology. I want whatever technology that can put a clear, high-def widescreen 120" or larger image on the wall with high reliability, and low cost of maintenance. It's the results that matter, not the means.
Currently, $1500 - $2000 or so, buys a 1080P 55" to 60" flat panel, but the comparatively small size of these flat-panel displays just isn't enough for large gatherings in auditoriums. The 30 people in the first three rows might enjoy the presentation, but the other 70 further back aren't going to see much detail. Are people paying movie ticket prices to sit in a room to watch movie premieres on a 60" flatscreen? No! At least not in the huge numbers who are paying to see films in theaters with two-story high screens. Flat-panels are best suited for home video viewing (TV shows and such) for a very small group, while 100" and larger screens make for home cinema. But, this a matter of person preference; there are people who prefer sitting 14 feet across the room watching movies on a 46" or 55" screen. Sitting 14 feet from a 120" screen is far more enjoyable to me.
The current and upcoming under $1,000 high-def LED DLP projectors are a breakthrough for those who want a home cinema experience.

Solve the 3 issues I listed and I'll stick my neck out for PJ like I stick my neck out for OLED

In reality led pjs have not moved any where_the 4 or so 720p pjs that are coming out cant hold a candle to the 20 or so 1080p led that have been around for a bout 3 years

http://www.projectorcentral.com/proj...sort=pop&sz=15

Isn't that a list of 2D 1080p capable PJs that maybe capable to run at 720p per eye for 3D?

just 1080p led list mostly