Audio Video News

Last week, at the Torrance, Calif., headquarters of Stewart Filmscreen, Digital Projection demonstrated its first 3D home projector--sort of. While the $140,000 Lightning three-chip projector the company used for the demo is actually designed for use in digital cinema, George Walter, DP's VP of Home Cinema, said the company sells about 10 of them into the home market every year.

Truth be told, the demo didn't require incredible feats of technical derring-do. Walter said that converting the projector to 3D required merely some alterations to the video processing and the input section, as the projector's DLP light engine is already capable of producing 3D images at 120 Hz. The 3D images were sourced from Samsung's BD-C6900, and the demo used Monsters and Aliens, the 3D Blu-ray Disc that comes with the player. (Another projector showed some 3D video scenes of a parade, but this was less impressive.) Standard LCD shutter glasses were used, with an infrared timing signal emitter mounted in the back of the room and reflecting off the screen.

The demo, on a screen that looked to be about 11 feet across, really knocked me out. The 3D effect, blown up to this larger-than-life size, was even more compelling than it is on a flat-panel TV. To my surprise, I didn't get the dreaded "3D headache" despite the image's size. I did notice what looked like some unnatural, stuttering motion when large objects moved across the screen--although whether this was due to the program material, the projector, the large screen, or my own vision, I can't say. A dealer I know who also attended the presentation told me he noticed the same artifact, though.

Walter says we can expect the 3D feature to trickle down into DP's other home projectors--i.e., the ones that someone might buy if they have an income greater than average but less than, say, Justin Bieber's. Expect to hear about the new models, including a 3D version of the LED-driven M-Vision, around the time of September's CEDIA Expo.

---Brent Butterworth