April , 2014, NAB, Las Vegas—Epson displayed their industrial and business projectors with new features and capabilities. These latest device are increasing functionality and flexibility for the business user. Capabilities like extreme short throw allow for smaller rooms and can eliminate user glare when near the screen.
One evolving feature is on-screen capture for annotations and highlighting discussion points. The function is much more difficult in a display system that is physically separated from the uses a camera to locate a special marker. This function is available in projectors that can do whiteboarding without any attached computer. These projectors can interface to various sources and have built-in flash drive readers for display without a PC. Connectivity options allow connections to various sources, including PC, tablet, USB drive, and even multiple PCs simultaneously.
Some versions of the projectors can light up any surface including curves and around corners without noticeable distortions. Multiple projectors can be concatenated and an edge blend function integrates the images into one seamless image. Multiple projectors are aligned with sub images and additional functions provide for multiple images from a single projector, even with offset imaging surfaces.
For large venues the Pro 2 series provides 4-7,000 lumens and include the built-in edge merge function. The series can be used in portrait mode as replacements for other digital signage functions. A 3,000 lumen box sells for $800. Lamps are warranted for 10,000 hours and replacements cost ~$100 and the warranty has been updated to reflect the increased reliability and operational capabilities.
These products use a different projector technology, they use a 3 LCDs per projector arrangement rather than the alternatives of an internal color wheel or multiple micro-mirrors. This change allows all colors to be projected simultaneously, increasing perceived brightness without reducing resolution. In comparison, alternative technologies need a brighter lamp to account for the sequential color display, or will need to use three expensive digital light processors which will increase the total projector cost. See www.epson.com for additional details.
