RED 4K 3D laser projector = $10K - Page 4

The Red Ray projector is now showing up on their products page, with technical descriptions.

More of a teaser, really, but FWIW...here's the link:

http://www.red.com/products/red-ray#product-overview

Hmm... page not found

I only found the Red-Ray player, I could be wrong but I thought that was their 4k playback device?

That's weird. Link works for me.

Just go to red.com and click on "products." You'll find it there.

Delete the #product-overview and the link works.

But the product is not a projector, but a player, as shown by the product description:

On set, in the lab or at the Cinema Multiplex, REDRAY PRO offers the ability

to play, in real time, 2K and 4K RAW R3D files recorded on the RED ONE or EPIC, through its (4) HD-SDI or DVI-D connectors, directly to projector or panel. (emphasis added.)

Am I missing something or am I correct that this has nothing to do with their laser projector?

Whoah...

I understood the new projector is called "Red Ray" hence I presumed the "Red Ray" product was the projector. I guess not. Sorry folks.

Agreed. The mock up drawing doesn't look like any projector I've ever seen. No lens.

Yeah that's just a player. Red Ray is the new format they've created to go up against blu-ray. Red Ray is supposed to be superior in visual and audio quality but at a much smaller size of data compared to blu-ray. We'll see.

This is how the RedRay Pro player looked like a year ago. It was a working prototype playing 4K material at 20Mb/s to a Sony 4K projector continuously at NAB 2011.

The next possibility to see the progress of the RedRay players and The RED Laser projector (and a lot of other 4K displays) will be at the Reduser Party hosted by LightIron at the Tropicana Hotel Sunday april 15 in Las Vegas during the NAB 2012 exhibit. (Red also have a booth at NAB this year).

There will also be a HT version of this player.

I've read a few times in various places that a true laser projector doesn't need a lens, because it's always in focus, no matter what you're projecting on or what the throw distance is. I thought it would at least have a protective "lens" or piece of glass in front of the final light output area of some sort just for protection sake, even if it wasn't doing anything.

It does look very futuristic though, almost like a terminator eye

Many different laser projector systems for different use. Only Kodak and Barco has managed to make useable Laser projectors for movie content. They are DLP based.
Nothing is known about the RED Laser projector, like what type of projection method (DLP, Lcos, Scanning mirrors), only that they aim at a $10000 price (recently confirmed).

No pictures of the RED Laser projector has been released yet.

News from reduser.net considering NAB 2012...








I'm pretty sure that RED's Laser Projector will be LCOS based.

I, instead, still hope it will be a Scanning Laser machine!
A definitive Scanning Laser machine.
( Real infinite CR (dots not required to form the image will stay lit OFF more punch, incredible increased CR and Ansi CR perceived), no need to match the throw / zoom specs to generate a desired big screen picture... (specially useful for short throw installations )

Let's wait and try to find out more tech specs during NAB show.

I think they plan to start shipping their laser projector in Q1/Q2 of 2013.
RED has already announced that they will double their men power by next year. They have right now around 500 emploies.

Sorry, I misread read a few lines in this post. I thought that picture was a projector, but it's now obvious to me this is a rack mounted hard drive player. I do keep reading about the infamous red projector 4k 3d laser demo though, most of which the posts are dated around sept. 11 or so of last year.

If anyone knows or hears about what tech they are using I would love to know. How many lasers. What type of 3d they use etc... I can't wait to find out.

Laser can be focus free
I don't know under what circumstances they can be made focus free. If you read the comments, you will see that "focus free" does not mean "no lens required".

While I find the idea of a scanning laser projector intriguing, they apparently do not come without some compromises.

You need continuous wave (CW), single mode lasers. Those are apparently more difficult to make and consequently more expensive than pulsed multimode lasers.
Single mode lasers are about 1/2 the wall plug efficiency of pulsed multimode lasers.
Single mode are the ones with the worst speckle.
Direct scanning requires an analog power modulation, which will consume more power. I don't know if there is a way to use a switching power supply or not.
I think they are also difficult to get into the correct wavelengths (particularly green).
pulsed are still so quick that your eye will never see it but I don't know if they pulse quickly enough to be used in a, say 40x dlp unit. I suspect they are.

You can confirm (or dispute, if I got it wrong) any of the above info through that Karl Guttag site I referenced above.

I may have someone going to NAB hopefully
They will be able to get in and see the unit

Modulated scanning of the chips could have similar benefits.

I just hope it is better than the Red One Movie Camera. Their movie camera makes human skin look like yellow or orange wax. I can spot a Red One Camera 99% of the time. The colors are awful and it always looks ugly and thin compared to film. I think those people must have bad eyesight.

I recently watched SUPERMAN RETURNS shot with the Panavision Genesis digital camera and it looked 100% as good as film (maybe better), so I know digital movie cameras can look as good or even better than film. It was also used for ZOMBIELAND, which also looked as good as film.

http://www.panavision.com/content/genesis?l=1&c=1&p=109

If RED decide to offer this less a lens, but with a 35mm baynet fitting, would one be able to use a DSLR lens Zoom or otherwise with it?

I read a lot about the debate of Genesis Vs Red and really wish this will be out of this topic, plus I don't care too much about it, because:
While your concerns could be right and must be warned and verified on a device aimed to records Source Materials, it's less important, IMHO, for a final display, where you can act using a good CMS, tuning the display to the right color space !!! (REC709, DCI or whatever you want )

Your point is valid, but I sure would not buy that projector without seeing it in action first.

BTW

Does anyone know the expected lumen output? Will it be in the 5,000 lumen range (I hope), or the typical home theater range of just 2,000 lumens?

That projector may have serious competition from 1080 LED-laser hybrid home theater projectors as well, that may sell for just $3,000. or even less.

Then you have the complexity of both a scanning mechanism and a chip; why not just scan directly on the screen?

The first RED One sensor had the orange wax issue under tungsten lighting. That isn't the case with the second gen sensor.

The colors aren't awful. They are very precise in rec709 specification and you can do tests and check it for yourself.

The biggest issue last few years was RED post production knowledge and how to handle RAW files. The first two sensors aren't good under mixed lighting and you can get strange and "awful" colors as you said.
New RED sensor will fix all of these issues.

If you wanna have 100% correct skintones colors with any digital cameras you need to have correct color balanced lighting without any tint and proper white balance which you can do in camera with a brand new 18% gray card.

Take a look at The Hobbit (RED Epic) trailer and You will spot nice looking and organic skintones. After that take a look at The Avangers (ARRI Alexa) and compare the skintones and you will see what I am talking about.

Back to the RED laser projector subject.

I will buy this projector for my mobile DIT van setup.

Granted.

However, for HT use I feel we will see chip scanning, there will be marketing benefits.

Lcos camp, Dlp camp etc.

I have seen Microvision's laser projector the Showwx+, and it is often plague by laser speckle. Hopefully Red's effort do not suffer the same problem.

then again,

If you are going to modulate a laser anyway, what is the point of including an lcos or dlp module?

If you are not going to modulate the laser, what is the point of scanning?

As I pointed out above, scanning requires lasers with lower efficiency, higher cost and gives you worse speckle. Seems like lots of downside, and no upside for scanning AND dlp or lcos.

If there is any benefit to doing both, please point it out to me because I can't figure it out. I can't see any company increasing the cost and complexity just for marketing.

Direct scanning for commercial theatres. Chip scanning for HT, safety, market differentation, speckle reduction internally using DNP holo chip or similar.....I'm speculating of course. We'll soon see.