The headline news from CES was all about pico projectors — 10 lumen class projectors that can act as stand alone projectors or can be embedded into cell phones, PMPs and other CE devices. But behind the scenes, we saw evidence of the next wave of projection products. LED-based ultraportable projectors with over 1000 lumens of light output could come to market in 2009 at competitive prices. This is big news as it means this class of projector will soon be able to compete in the mainstream ultraportable projector market where lamp-based projectors now dominate.

Chris Chinnock
Senior Analyst and Editor
for Insight Media

In reality, we see a near continuum of new LED, and later, laser-based projectors covering the ultraportable projector class. We define this class as under four pounds in weight. Currently, most projectors in this category are 1500 to 3000 lumens and can be purchased for as little as $500 to $600. But solid-state sources offer advantages over lamp-based products including better color gamut, much longer lifetime, instant on, ruggedness, lower power consumption and the possibility to create real battery-powered projectors.

So far, we have seen 50-lumen models (Dell), 100-lumen models (Acer), and 150-lumen models (Samsung and LG) enter the market. 200-lumen models will follow soon. For example, Innoswell has reached 180 lumens using LEDs from Luminus Devices and 3LCD panels. Plus, the number of products and suppliers will increase.

To support this range, 3M showed us a new module designed to combine the light from red, green and blue LEDs. It offers both high efficiency (3 lumen per LED Watt) and small size. Typically, you can optimize for high efficiency or small size, but not both together, so 3M’s innovation is very clever. It is initially aimed at DLP platforms in the 150-200 lumen range and will help enable smaller and lower cost projectors.

But the most interesting developments were in the 800-lumens and above range. In a joint development effort between Luminus and TI, a prototype projector using a new 4:3 LED source (PT121) and a 0.7" XGA DLP chip was demonstrated in the Luminus suite. This prototype achieved 1000 lumens and looked great. With further improvements, 1200-1400 lumens projectors are not out of sight for 2009. Two major OEMs are working to commercialize this concept. This is really impressive, folks.

Most DLP projectors that use a 0.7" XGA projector are heavier than four pounds, but there are some models in the market that offer 2500 lumens for about $1000. Luminus said the RGB LED set can cost under $100, not much more than the cost of a lamp, but you will need a more expensive LED driver. The point is, a cost competitive, but lower lumen LED projector should arrive in late 2009, and this can begin to take some real sales in the traditional business class projector market.

And this is not the only innovation we saw at CES. YLX showed us a DLP projector that achieves 800 lumens from 260 Watts of LED power. The company’s approach uses two massive sets of blue LEDs that illuminate a color wheel with three segments. One segment is clear for the blue light, while the other two feature red and green phosphors that are activated by the blue light. The advantage of this approach over conventional LEDs is much better linearity (red LEDs are very nonlinear). This means the architecture is more linear and more suitable at high power levels, with less sensitivity to thermal variations, drive current and blue wavelength (no binning needed). No details on cost were provided, but the company said it would be close to UHP costing.

And on the home theater front, we saw very impressive prototypes from ChiLin and Vivitek. Both feature 0.9" 1080p DLP chip sets and are packaged in large boxes, but achieve 700-750 lumens today with superb image quality. Vivitek says it plans to come to market in June at an MSRP of about $20K.

And if you want to know more about the prospects for LED and laser-based ultraportable projectors, check out our new report on this subject — the 2009 LED- and Laser-based Ultraportable Projector Report. An update on our pico projector report will come this spring and a sister report on home theater projectors will follow this summer.