Scott Wilkinson

I've seen demos of Dolby's HDR (High Dynamic Range) LED local-dimming technology for LCD TVs for over a year, but it's finally about to be released in a real product from SIM2. The Solar 47 is a 47-inch, 1080p LCD TV with 2206 white LEDs arrayed behind the imaging panel, and unlike other local-dimming sets, each LED is individually addressable. It should be available by the end of the year for—get this—$25,000. Sure, it looks great, but 25 grand for a 47-inch LCD? Yikes!

Yet another entry in the LED-illuminated, single-chip DLP projector sweepstakes is the Mico 50 from SIM2. Said to deliver 800 lumens, the PhlatLight LEDs have an expected lifespan of over 30,000 hours. It's name means "sparkle" in Italian, but I saw no sparkles in the demo on a Da-Lite Affinity screen, which is a good thing. Not so good was the demo material—a clip from a concert video featuring singer Seal. The colored stage lighting was not conducive to evaluating color accuracy, though Seal's dark skin looked about right when he was in white light. The Mico 50 should be available in November for $25,000.

Another new "entry-level" DLP projector line introduced by Runco at CEDIA is the VX-3000, which replaces the RS-900. Three models will be available—VX-3000i ($9000, internal processor), VX-3000d ($12,000, DHD 3 external processor), and VX-3000d Ultra ($20,000, DHD 3, five lens options, can use CineWide with AutoScope anamorphic system). The color wheel in these projectors has been designed specifically for reproducing D65 white, and calibration reduces the light output much less than most projectors.

One of the big buzzes at this year's show is LED illumination in front projectors, and Runco is in the thick of it with the Q-750, marketed under the QuantumColor moniker. This projector uses Luminus PhlatLight LEDs and recalibrates the color every time it's turned on, which guarantees no color shift over the life of the projector. Speaking of color, it can reproduce a gamut 135 percent larger than NTSC, and it comes with several preset gamuts, including Rec.709, SMPTE C, DCI (the digital-cinema standard), sRGB, Adobe RGB, and the native gamut of the LEDs.