Sony seeks mojo reboot with 147-inch 'honey-you-can't-afford-me' 4K home projector Certain products exist to burnish a company's image rather than fatten its bottom line, and Sony's new 4K Ultra Short Throw Projector, able to project ultra-high definition video images of up to 147 inches on any wall, is a shining example. Sony 4K Ultra Short Throw Projector Entrapped in stultifying minimalism, Fido dreams …
I guess that depends on the amount of all other photons emitted/reflect from the wall.
In other words, if the wall is emitting photons then imaginably it might also NOT emit them, thus giving you nice deep blacks. On the other hand if the wall is just reflecting photons then the best blacks you can have in the bright of the day are going to be, well, grey at best.
That of course does not matter if the scene being shown is full of light and does not require deep contrasts. However imagine having a virtual window to deep space ... or any geographical location in the antipodes.
>>You are right, projection will never take off.
Your attempt to be a smart alec falls short when you remember that they turn all the lights off in the cinema to get the best results. With a projector the darkest you can ever get is the ambient lighting from the wall. That means in a well-lit room, it might look pretty but it's not going to be realistic.
'Since when has quality mattered when dwarfed by sheer mega-ness, though! :)'
Quality would be why I have a 2014 55" Samsung 'dumb' flat screen and not the 70" Vizio 'smart' version -> Samsung looks like being at a stageplay, so real, while the Vizio looks like, well, you're looking at a big honking analog TV...
YMMV
"With a projector the darkest you can ever get is the ambient lighting from the wall."
Well, that's a rather simplistic view. If you stand there with a light meter or a tele-photometer, or a tele-spectrometer for that matter, you could prove your point, but then I could set up a rather simple projection system whereby your instruments will report a bit of wall as being "red" and most rational observers will tell you, quite correctly, that it's actually green.
So if by darkest you mean "lowest reflected energy" then √ but if by darkest you mean "blackest" then it's a big X.
I owned Sony's special screen. They don't work nearly as well as you'd like to believe. In artificial light they're passable, but if you have even the most indirect sunlight (i.e. coming through drawn shades and reflecting off another wall) the projector image is severely washed out.
You pretty much need to put it in a windowless room, or a room where the windows are so well covered it can be dark in there in full daylight.
Of course, if you do that, then your room is dark so you no longer need the special screen...
There are several reasons why a direct source of light is preferable to a diffusely reflected one, One is that the quality of the image is highly dependent on the projection surface. Unless it is specifically designed for projection with neutral qualities and, especially with projection so far from the normal, absolutely flat, the image quality will be compromised. It is very prone to colour shifts, loss of contrast etc. Indeed the contrast ratio will be severely impacted by the use of a white wall unless projected in absolute darkness as the black level will be severely compromised by reflections of ambient light,
The second is brightness. With diffuse reflection, light will be scattered in all directions and, consequently a much lower proportion will reach the viewers eyes. With a "normal" projection onto a screen at right angles, it's possible to engineer the surface of the screen to reflect most light back to a narrower angle and therefore make the image brighter with more contrast, That's simply not possible with a painted wall and where the light is projected to arrive at such a shallow angle.
Of course, it's possible to overcome some of this by making the projected image much brighter by using ever more powerful sources of illumination, but as those who are used to such systems will know, they are power hungry, get hot and invariably require cooling fans, which emit noise.
There's a reason why direct emission display systems dominate in normal households over projection systems, and that is simply they are more efficient, brighter, usable in ambient light conditions and don't impose major environmental constraints. Keep these sort of systems for those that can afford dedicated home theatre spaces.
> Keep these sort of systems for those that can afford dedicated home theatre spaces.
pppfffffft.
All you need is a room with a nice unobstructed stretch of wall and the ability to draw the shades.
There's no reason the space has to be "dedicated".
In fact, all of the dedicated media room spaces in the local McMansions all seem to be total pants.
My "finished attic" is better than all of that oversized/overpriced nonsense.
4K projectors are a welcome addition to the market. They are absurdly priced now but they won't always be so. These things will allow you to fully appreciate the format unlike really small TVs in spaces not well optimized for them.
"All you need is a room with a nice unobstructed stretch of wall and the ability to draw the shades"
Absolutely. looking at the new home designs in Oz, they all seem to include a dedicated media room, long shallow windows with huge blackout louvres, so that, even with them open, it's like feeling your way round a cave, and barely the room for a long sofa and your mega TV.
My media room was supposed to be a games room. Nice big square room (so speaker placement was a breeze) with one clear wall and blinds for the windows, so I can have my 'media room' and still have a 'normal' room for conversation and Scrabble when there's nothing on TV (which, given this is Oz, is 90% of the time)
Given the little boxes us plebs have to live in (and getting smaller every year) pretty soon anything over 42in is going to seem huge.
So, SONY, how about that then?
Oh silly me. Devices like this are only for Premiership footballers, Google Directors and MP, none of whom pay sod all tax anyway.
> Given the little boxes us plebs have to live in (and getting smaller every year) pretty soon anything over 42in is going to seem huge.
I think the whole point of this tech is that you don't need a bat cave in order to throw a large image.
A conventional projector is what forces you to have a cavernous expanse in order for the image to expand.
Hi,
1) To benefit from the high resolution, you will need a proper screen. Just a "basic" painted screen surface won't be flat enough to reflect the light in an even manner.
You can easily see a huge difference of quality between "on screen" and "on wall" projection at any resolution, but this would be like putting a very good old pure malt wisky in a diet coke....
2) Sony already has "normal" throw 4K projectors (the VPL-VW600, VW1000 and VW1100ES) but crucially lack of support and interest from Sony in Europe.
While the US benefits from a cheap and impressive upgrade path from the VPL-VW1000ES to VPL-VW1100ES: Mainboard upgrade, new bulb, 4K media player, Vaio tablet for $2500, Sony Europe offer the mainboard upgrade only for more than £3000.... and more importantly still has absolutely no plan for any 4K content in Europe (Video Unlimited 4K is available in the US since last summer).
As for the recently announced Playstation Now, also an US exclusive, it seems that Sony is undecided to do any investment in the European market.
Such a shame to see a good brand loosing so much over here by lack of management, vision and/or investment.
It's hardly surprising they would trial PS Now in the US first - there are a handful of dominant ISPs, more advanced broadband, very large population centres, billing is easier and they only have to support one language both in the service itself but also in the content they offer through it.
It'll come to Europe eventually but clearly the effort is that much harder.
Just a thought - however top notch your projector screen, it's going to be designed to reflect light hitting at 90 degrees, isn't it? How well would a normal projection screen work when the image is being thrown from below at such a shallow angle?
Don't know, just hoping there's a commentard more knowledgeable than me on these matters (shouldn't be hard!)
OTT maybe, but still very cool.
4K is not only good for video but exceptional for still images.
Imagine having a high quality projection of your favourite artwork sitting on your wall and having it change to another painting every hour or so.
Like one of those crappy digital photo frames only waaaaaayyyyy cooler.
(1) Colour is not a function of wavelength or the composition of light from a point source, but a construct of the brain derived from areal integration of received light. Have you ever noticed how a grey CRT screen can reproduce a full black?
(2) Not if you turn the lights off.
"In that case, I suggest a window would be a cheaper option."
Depends on the wall perhaps, load bearing walls in large buildings might be a little pricely. I can genuinely see this being attractive to those with internal walls (block of flats maybe). Have a 4K webcam stream from somewhere nice, project onto the wall. Although in a few price generations maybe. It's a bit silly but still looks cool.
That is actually not bad idea, as long as the colour temperature and intensity projected from such window (more precisely, reflected by the wall) compares well enough against the real thing (actual window). I guess that would require really, really strong lamp - or lasers and special screen?
Really hurt them, I hope this is a return to premium products at a reasonable price.
Yes I do consider £1500 a reasonable price for a good LCD TV, compared to say £500 for a rubbish one.
I also still perceive Walkman to be better than IPod, yet they are cheaper. I have always felt you get what you pay for with Sony, pay too little you get little, pay a decent amount you get a decent product.
If you want to see engineering and design, go back to 1983 and look at their top of range VCR, everything built for quality, even the 4 year later top end VCR did not have the fine reel control of its predecessor (I own the portable version of the first and I do own the 1987 VCR).
Basically Kaz needs to bring back the premium feel of the 1970s and 80s before their descent into cheap crud and people will buy it again. Just think how many ex Trinitron owners have a Bravia, I bet it is not 100%.
I am still sad that Pioneer cut back on its ranges, and I am still worried that Panasonic may take the cheap road to junk. We need premium consumer level kit, so stop always chasing the cheapskate.
Before people mention PS4 prices, the PS4 is the cheap fix to get you hooked into the games where the profit is made.
Someone needs to invent the formats. Sony develop good ones but they often do not take off.
ATRAC is good, better than MP3, worked very well with Minidisc.
Memory stick is OK, there are a lot of card formats anyway, best thing about MS is it is easy to hold.
Betamax was first to market, and was technically better than the opposition and is what got me interested in Sony kit in the first place.
Formats developed with other companies however. Do you use CD? DVD? DV/MiniDV/HDV? BluRay?
The Xperia waterproof phone seems pretty good too, camera better than anything except Nokia and waterproof, although in a scary, block-the-holes-and-keep-the water-out way.
I would be worried every time, especially after the warranty period (I wonder how they know you have taken it too deep, pressure markers perhaps, presumably, a salt water detector is simpler).
For Android users it seems a far better proposition than a Samsung, looks nicer to me too - not plasticky.
I think 4K is here to stay on the basis that it's very useful for computers and costs of scale make it more efficient to manufacture one type of panel for all uses.
I know you might think that antialiasing solves the resolution problem because you can no longer see the pixels, but it's effectively a high-pass filter. You lose detail and things don't look sharp. Compare any of the first generation tablets to the modern lot, even at a distance.
"Otherwise you risk ending up with a 148, which is clearly cheating."
I hate to do this, but the maximum score in Snooker can be higher than the 147 maximum break.
From wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_break#Breaks_exceeding_147 - "A break higher than 147 can be achieved when an opponent fouls and leaves the incoming player snookered on all 15 reds. The player can nominate one of the other colours as a red, known as a "free ball", which carries the same value as a red for just that shot. By potting the free ball followed by a colour, then the reds with colours and the colours up to the pink or black, the player can compile a break of more than 147."
I now need to wash the revolting pedantry off, as I clearly have too much.
This thread taken some strange turns. Lots of debate on the merit of direct light against reflected projected light.
The debate would have merit if we were talking about 80" TVs. But we are not, we discussing 147" screen which to my knowledge there isnt a LCD/OLED/Plasma/etc equivalent home 4k screen.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
