Tom Norton

The so-called Future Technology Pavilion was open for a press tour on Wednesday, press conference/setup day (the show formally opens on Thursday September 8). Much of the content here was of limited A/V interest, but will be of interest to custom installers who often add home automation and similar services to their repoitoire. The most interesting features here were those that offer a wide range of medical monitoring facilities, providing health and well-being warnings that can be transmitted to the appropriate agencies and individuals if needed. In other words, just the ticket for a granny-friendly house.

The magic behind the curtain for the Future Technology Pavilion's big rear projection screen (above) consisted of six Digital Projection D-Vision 30-1080 DLP projectors, each responsible for filling one sixth of the image, combined with edge blending to hide the transitions from one projector to the other. These projectors offer a short throw, permitting a short, 9-foot distance from projector to screen.

Once you divide the high definition source image into six segments, each of those segments will be far smaller in pixel count. Each of these segments must therefore be upconverted to match the projector's native resolution. The processing is further complicated by the fact that the screen used here is 2.35:1, not the 16:9 that would be a direct multiple of the six projectors' native resolutions. In addition, allowance must be made for overlap where the images meet. An overlap of about 13% is needed to provide for the edge blending. And the edge blending itself requires major processing power.

In addition to its range of anamorphic lenses, Schneider Optics introduced its own single-chip, 2D DLP projector, fitted with an anamorphic lens. The trick feature here is that the motorized mechanism that moves the lens in and out of position is built into the lens case, with no need for outboard sled hardware. $23,500, including ther anamorphic lens. Available early in 2011.

Pioneer showed three new 3D Blu-ray players, including this Elite BDP-43FD and an Elite BDP-41FD (the latter lacks the 43's extra mass damping). No prices or launch dates were announced.