New construction, new home theater... what projector...? - Page 3

I don't think DPI's LED platform is the same as SIM2's. SIM2 uses a liquid-cooled light engine and DPI thus far has been using an air-cooled engine (Delta...I think). Did you see any brightness spec for the DPI?

This is old stuff Chi Lin vs. Delta. Unless DPI started sourcing this platform from Chi Lin or a supplier that's not Delta.

It may very well be a new and or improved platform. All manufacturers/vendors claim to have been able to improve on the original 400-550/600 lumens of the first units, within the same platform.
Edited by donaldk - 7/11/12 at 5:00pm

I believe I was told that it projected 1,000 lumens, but I have an email in to the local rep to get some clarification. He talked about perceived illumination with LED and my recollection is hazy. I know they have a current LED model, which I have not seen and this new one is supposed to be brighter - similar to recent Sim2 LED evolution.

The projector was not calibrated for the demo, but looked very good out of the box with a little tweaking done by eyeballing.

It certainly had no problem lighting up my screen with light to spare.

The prospect of having a nice, bright picture like that over the life of the bulb is quite appetizing!

I know that it is air cooled not liquid cooled. Makes me wonder why the M.150 needs liquid cooling.

I'm very curious to see the M.150 now.

DPI has always claimed 1000 ANSI lumens for the Delta based LED projector, from the start, when it maxed out at half that number. So, this spec is nothing to go by, unfortunately.

Chi Lin has been using watercooling since the 2008 prototype, from the news report I read later.
Edited by donaldk - 7/12/12 at 10:00am

Hi Donald. I may be incorrect but in Europe at least we (genesis) promote the LED at 600 lumens at the instruction of DP.

The confusion may be that they feel the perceived brightness of the current units is close to 1000 lumens.

Hth

There are two sources for DPI projectors...Delta and Projection Design. I don't think Delta would be all that interested in designing and building a whole new LED light engine...not one bright enough to support 3D. SIM2 does use a Chi Lin liquid cooled engine, but they marry it to their own electronics and somehow manage in the end to get 900 Lumens after calibration (according to the AVForums review). With the added "perceived" brightness of LED, that's enough to handle 3D on the average HT screen.

That is just straight up BAD ASS Alan. WOW.

The DPI published spec has always been 600 lumens AFAIK. That's on the sales brochures and website.

It does look brighter in person

Sorry, in the dome at ISE, I saw the black billboard next to the unit 100000 hours of lifetime on the projector (so not just the LEDs wich Luminus indeed claimed upto 100,000 hours, depending on implementation), and 1000 ANSI lumens. And that was not the first time I saw official DPI material claiming 1000 ANSI Lumens. I have commented on it at the time, as all the DELTA based units were doing something in the 400-500 lumens at the time. And I noted how it was not (or barely) bright enough for the small screensize used in the demo.

Perceived brightness, hmm, I always noted how lacking the brightness of LED projectors was. Delta, PD, and even the Sim2 50. The 150 was a bit better, but even in the dark room on a Black Diamond screen with some gain the Mico 150 did not look particular bright, this year, Personally I would have used a slightly smaller screen, the concertmaterial shown was a bit dark to begin with, so at they they did not choose the easyest demomaterial;-). Runco was showing the dual unit that was looking brighter, but that was on a gain 2 screen. The Runco ultrashort throw LED unit (LS100?) was in the regular LED range, so fairly dim on that 90 (100?) inch diagonal screen. Perceived brightness on LED projectors has never been something I have been cheering about. The first time I saw a PD LED the green was indeed quite saturated, but that did not lead to it looking bright, and it was demoed on a tiny tiny screen. The other first generation units have never impressed in brightness. The only one I thought was brighter than expected was the 70" 1080P Cube from Planar I saw a year and a half ago, Planar claimed 700 lumens.
Edited by donaldk - 7/13/12 at 3:20pm

Like I said in the past DPI claimed 1000 ANSI Lumens, online and on print and pdf/image spec. sheets. I still have leaflets on the GV series, somewhere, but more recent material has been disposed off, so I can not show you.

Unless TI contracts them to do so, like with the initial platform design.

To be clear I would very much like to see brighter LED projector's the Sim 2 looked good, but I still like it brighter. The Runco dual LED it showed at ISE this year was offering a nice cartoon image. Never got the opportunity to see the Wolf or TruVango that also claim 1000 Lumens or more. It was clear that the first round of projectors was not too bright, so not to concerned about marketing info, as the truth was clear to see. I think 1500 or more is what I would like to see.

To my eyes, the Digital Projection prototype threw a very bright picture on my 9'6" wide microperfed Firehawk.

It was certainly a lot brighter than my C3X1080 with a few hundred hours on the bulb.

It seemed a little bit brighter to me than my C3X1080 even with a new bulb.

Why does the Sim2 (Chi-Lin) need liquid cooling?
Edited by rsbeck - 7/14/12 at 9:17am

Good to hear that.

The black levels and gray scale offered an improvement over the C3X, too.

It'd be great if the M.150 offers similar brightness and even better black levels.