Christie shows off game changing OLED-like projector at CEDIA 2022. Only costs $400,000!

[nikescar]

 

 

Summary

The Christie Eclipse 4K HDR laser projector has 2 banks of 3 DLP chips used to create OLED black levels and contrast while maintaining 25,000 lumens.

 

Quotes

Quote

industry vets who emerged from this same demo, declaring it the ultimate in projected picture quality that they’ve seen so far.

 

My thoughts

This might be a better solution for Linus' theater room than the Samsung video wall.

 

Sources

https://www.soundandvision.com/content/i-just-saw-best-projector-demo-ever-cedia-2022

https://www.christiedigital.com/products/projectors/all-projectors/christie-eclipse/

[IPD]

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of deep black levels.  Projectors are never going to be the true hotness for this though--it's just physics.

 

I doubt very much the appreciable difference between this projector and a black diamond screen with a "regular" laser projector. 

 

https://www.screeninnovations.com/materials/black-diamond/

[Doobeedoo]

Yeah while neat it's for like theaters and special shows and conference like rooms. It's nowhere near consumer thing. 

Would be fun to see this thing in a vid though. How it operates and looks inside.

[Stahlmann]

So who does this thing exist for? If you're into big screens and want OLED-like contrast, why not go for OLED? You can get 100" OLED TV's at a fraction of the cost.

 

We've seen many claims of "OLED-like" black levels in all display and projector technologies and they were never true in reality. OLED black levels are exclusive to OLED displays.

 

Sadly i lack the context to know how bright 25.000 lumens is.

Is it like a 500 nit TV? 1000 nits? I have no clue.

I always hated that projectors and TVs use different units for brightness...

[leadeater]

On 10/3/2022 at 7:42 AM, IPD said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of deep black levels.  Projectors are never going to be the true hotness for this though--it's just physics.

 

I doubt very much the appreciable difference between this projector and a black diamond screen with a "regular" laser projector. 

 

https://www.screeninnovations.com/materials/black-diamond/

Eh room light has way more to do with black levels for projects that anything else, by a LONG way.

 

Black levels in a proper room are more than adequate and quite honestly the texture and look of the image/screen on a projector is just so much nicer than any direct emitting panel screen. Just something about it that is more pleasing, and not just the lack of searing death glare of light haha

[leadeater]

38 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Sadly i lack the context to know how bright 25.000 lumens is.

A good, and reasonably expensive, consumer home theatre projector is 2,000.

 

Thing is lumens is essentially meaningless, especially for projectors. The actual important measurement is the light per area of screen actually achieved and this is based on the output lumens, screen size and room ambient luminance.

 

Safe to say though you don't want to use this projector for below 100"

[CTR640]

3 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

So who does this thing exist for? If you're into big screens and want OLED-like contrast, why not go for OLED? You can get 100" OLED TV's at a fraction of the cost.

 

We've seen many claims of "OLED-like" black levels in all display and projector technologies and they were never true in reality. OLED black levels are exclusive to OLED displays.

 

Sadly i lack the context to know how bright 25.000 lumens is.

Is it like a 500 nit TV? 1000 nits? I have no clue.

I always hated that projectors and TVs use different units for brightness...

This thing probably exists for morons, I guess. "OLED-like"... Truely terrible marketing bullshit.

 

At night I'm enjoying my portable OLED monitor, the Asus MQ16AH. Finally Asus did something good! Picture is damn beautiful too! What "OLED-like"??

[TetraSky]

Projector? That's a TANK.

[Arika]

23 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Projector? That's a TANK.

Stick it on a tripod and you have yourself a sci-fi movie gun-turret

[IPD]

4 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

So who does this thing exist for? If you're into big screens and want OLED-like contrast, why not go for OLED? You can get 100" OLED TV's at a fraction of the cost.

 

We've seen many claims of "OLED-like" black levels in all display and projector technologies and they were never true in reality. OLED black levels are exclusive to OLED displays.

 

Sadly i lack the context to know how bright 25.000 lumens is.

Is it like a 500 nit TV? 1000 nits? I have no clue.

I always hated that projectors and TVs use different units for brightness...

Kinda like how vA is what all UPS are rated in, but we need usable wattage.

 

I don't think this is for 100" screens.  This is for commercial use.  Like movie theaters, exhibits, etc.  100" is stupidly tiny for a movie theater.

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

Eh room light has way more to do with black levels for projects that anything else, by a LONG way.

 

Black levels in a proper room are more than adequate and quite honestly the texture and look of the image/screen on a projector is just so much nicer than any direct emitting panel screen. Just something about it that is more pleasing, and not just the lack of searing death glare of light haha

You should look at that link.  ALR is how you achieve the removal of ambient light, thus removing glare, etc.  You can spend over 10 grand on setting everything up perfectly, but if even dim light will wash out the image--your screen just sucks.

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

A good, and reasonably expensive, consumer home theatre projector is 2,000.

 

Thing is lumens is essentially meaningless, especially for projectors. The actual important measurement is the light per area of screen actually achieved and this is based on the output lumens, screen size and room ambient luminance.

 

Safe to say though you don't want to use this projector for below 100"

Depends on your use case.  $2000 is not reasonably expensive, imho.  It's actually on the cheap end of quality for laser illumination.  And UST will cost more than LT.  Consumer grade UST laser projectors start from about $2500 and go up to nearly $8000.  If you're buying something less than $2500 (as of me writing this) you're really gambling with your money.

 

You're correct that the true measurement is light actually reaching the screen, but you forgot the biggest factor of all; distance from the aperture to the screen.  Light attenuates with distance.  That's why a UST of equivalent ANSI luments will usually produce a brighter result at the screen (of equal size) than a LT projector.  Because the distance photons are traveling is 2' instead of 15'. 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, IPD said:

You should look at that link.  ALR is how you achieve the removal of ambient light, thus removing glare, etc.  You can spend over 10 grand on setting everything up perfectly, but if even dim light will wash out the image--your screen just sucks.

Nope my screen is very expensive. Every screen that makes claims about not needing to control ambient light to get good movie watching experience is bogus haha. Like I'm sure it's better than mine, but it's not better than no light in the room.

 

You can achieve decent viewing, however compared to closing the curtains in the controlled room (such as I have) or in a room with no windows at all the difference is extremely obvious.

 

My projector screen is an ALR, from Ambertec. It's also 2.35:1 with variable shutters on sides to make it 16:9 when needed. They don't make my one anymore though. The screen costs more than most projectors 

 

Light in the room for a projector will always, always greatly impact the image, just the way it is sadly. Projectors simply aren't a good fit for everyone.

 

1 hour ago, IPD said:

You're correct that the true measurement is light actually reaching the screen, but you forgot the biggest factor of all; distance from the aperture to the screen.  Light attenuates with distance.

haha yea, oops. I assumed that was implied since it's not something I naturally have to say when I look at them myself. Things in head not making it to page.

 

Also because distance is very important to the lenses and practical usable distance. Problem I had was getting mine far enough away.

 

1 hour ago, IPD said:

Depends on your use case.  $2000 is not reasonably expensive, imho.

The question was asking about lumens not price 

 

Also 2000 in ECO mode, simply to control fan noise. But I bet newer projectors are much quieter now.

[IPD]

Gonna make me post vid links because you won't click on links yourself.  Ok then.

 

 

This isn't just some random ALR screen.  This is like 7 layers of light filtration stacked on top of each other.

[IPD]

https://www.projectorcentral.com/ambient-light-rejection-screens-2.htm?page=SI-Black-Diamond

 

Your "Ambertec ALR" isnt' even on this list.  And Black Diamond is #2 in both comparisons.

[NF-A12x25]

10 hours ago, leadeater said:

Safe to say though you don't want to use this projector for below 100"

 

[wanderingfool2]

9 hours ago, leadeater said:

A good, and reasonably expensive, consumer home theatre projector is 2,000.

 

Thing is lumens is essentially meaningless, especially for projectors. The actual important measurement is the light per area of screen actually achieved and this is based on the output lumens, screen size and room ambient luminance.

 

Safe to say though you don't want to use this projector for below 100"

I would say a reasonably expensive projector would be about 5000 lumens for color/white (I run it in 3500 mode due to it being quieter).  I only paid $1500 for my projector that does that (albeit it was a factory return...but new ones were only $3000).  Always found it interesting that listing the lumens for color is super rare...but that I think is generally because it's quite a bit lower than the white as you normally are filtering the light out...since this uses lasers and 3 dlp's I'm assuming it's likely color = white lumens.

 

I do agree with the whole sentiment of your post though, at 25000 lumens I bet you would need at least 150 inches to make it comfortable to view.  Even at 3500 lumens, I've accidentally gotten in the end path (near the screen) of the projector and it's super bright; at 25000 looking towards the projector even at the screen if it's 100" would be very dangerous.

 

10 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

Sadly i lack the context to know how bright 25.000 lumens is.

Is it like a 500 nit TV? 1000 nits? I have no clue.

I always hated that projectors and TVs use different units for brightness...

They use a different unit because it's not practical using the same measurement.  For TV's they for the most part subtract any inbound light, so when they emit their own light you can see the image quite a bit easier than a projector where all the light that hits the screen becomes essentially part of the picture.  So if lets say you measured it in lumens, a projector would win, but the monitor would look brighter.

 

You can't measure a projector in terms of a nit, because it is so room dependent, screen size, and screen material dependent.  An example, my 3500 lumen projector at 10 feet screen size with the lights on looks washed out, hardly any contrast (my room is lit with 3 LED 100 watt eq. bulbs).  You can still do stuff and watch a movie, but it's not a great experience.  Flip the switch so the lights are out and you now have an experience that things such as oleds and leds can't beat...literally explosions on the screen make you blink due to the sudden change of brightness.  The only thing better is being in an actual movie theatre.

 

To put this in perspective, at 3500 lumens I get a good experience with a 10 foot screen (I have darker walls, but my room is still pretty reflective).  My old 1500 (white) lumens, work well when in the dark (but with the lights on it was almost unusable).  To get the same experience I would need project only to a 6.5 foot (78 inch) screen.  At 25,000 lumens, to get the same experience I would have to get a 26.5 foot screen.  At a 10 foot screen, I wouldn't be surprised if it was hard to look at even with the lights on.

 

Actually, to give a scale of this kind of thing.  Imagine the room you are sitting in, if it has 3 standard lightbulbs in the room.  That's about 800 lumens a bulb (directed everywhere)...or 2400 lumens total.  Now imagine that you add in 27 more lightbulbs into the room, imagine how bright it would be.  I think that hopefully expresses just how bright 25000 lumens is...and take into perspective that a projector doesn't light the entire room but only a single wall

 

To put this in another perspective.  On an bright overcast day where there is fresh snow on the ground...look at the snow; that is how bright it gets on a 10 foot screen.

[Dr_Whom]

2 hours ago, IPD said:

Gonna make me post vid links because you won't click on links yourself.  Ok then.

 

 

This isn't just some random ALR screen.  This is like 7 layers of light filtration stacked on top of each other.

I'm not sure what point you were trying to make with this video but you're basically agreeing with leadeater here. ALR screens are not magic. Yes, they are a drastic improvement over a plain white screen or non ALR screen, but even in this video you can clearly see the ALR screen is still washed out. Watchable? Absolutely, yes (whereas the other screen absolutely would not be), but it would still be even better in a light controlled room, which is exactly what leadeater said. ALR screens are great for making content look good for casual viewing with some ambient light, but when you really want to sit down and have the best experience, you're going to cut the lights out, ALR or not.

2 hours ago, IPD said:

https://www.projectorcentral.com/ambient-light-rejection-screens-2.htm?page=SI-Black-Diamond

 

Your "Ambertec ALR" isnt' even on this list.  And Black Diamond is #2 in both comparisons.

Yes, because lists like this always include every single manufacturer and model in existence, especially region-specific ones like Ambertec appears to be (searching it seems to only produce Australian/NZ results).

[Stahlmann]

45 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

-snip-

Thanks for the explaination! So basically a decent projector with 3500 lumen is already enough to outperform a high-end LCD TV when the room conditions are ideal?

 

Sadly i've never seen a decent projector in real life. The only stuff i've seen about projectors so far has been youtube videos. These obviously don't do any good display justice, but projectors always look extremely washed out, no matter how high-end they are. For example this snap out of Linus' new $5000 projector. It looks flatter than a frickin TN panel from 10 years ago.

 

[IPD]

True.  But consumer grade projectors aren't about beating the best a flat panel can offer.  At least not for me.  They're about having a display size that would be cost prohibitive otherwise. 

 

https://www.bosshunting.com.au/lifestyle/technology/lg-97-inch-oled/

 

In USD, that 97" is about $31,000.  So I could downgrade by 13" diagonal and septuple the cost.  Maybe That level of nit-pick isn't really justified.  Granted, I could go back to a 55" flat panel and put my footrest 1" from the panel--and I might get similar results.  But I'd rather just keep my UST for ease, convenience of setup, brightness in a not-that-dark room, ALR functionality that rejects overhead light (where most of it is), etc.

[wanderingfool2]

26 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Thanks for the explaination! So basically a decent projector with 3500 lumen is already enough to outperform a high-end LCD TV when the room conditions are ideal?

 

Sadly i've never seen a decent projector in real life. The only stuff i've seen about projectors so far has been youtube videos. These obviously don't do any good display justice, but projectors always look extremely washed out, no matter how high-end they are. For example this snap out of Linus' new $5000 projector. It looks flatter than a frickin TN panel from 10 years ago.

Well I would say that 3500 is about my personal limit when it's a 10 foot screen in a decently dark room.  An ideal room you could likely get away with less lumens.  Projectors aren't all about lumens though, there are multiple factors that come into play.

 

An example, the cheaper 1500 projector projected at 10 feet didn't look good in the sense that I could see the rainbow effect (as it renders the colors in different passes).  The new one I have uses 3 lcd filters so it renders all at once (so no rainbow effect).  The other things is the lenses, some of them when you project to 10 feet have a tendency to make portions of it "blurry".

 

Ultimately like all the technologies each one has it's perks.  I wouldn't say the projector is better than a high-end LCD, but for watching movies there really isn't any equivalent...it's almost like watching it in the theatres when you get to the 10 foot size...you can't really buy TV's that size, or at least none that would be economical.  There are aspects as well that it beats, like the fact it's a reflected light (instead of source) so I find it actually easier to watch in a dark room for extended periods.

 

Projectors have a lot lower of a lifespan as well, especially with everything going to laser projectors where you can't switch out the lightsource.  For the looking flat, it really depends...it's hard to describe, but a lot of times I find pictures/videos of projectors don't to it justice.

[IPD]

This is one of the reasons I'm such a huge prophet of UST.  They are much closer to the screen, so lumen output will always be better than the same illumination source in LT form.  And you don't need mounts or cabling; mine is sitting on the stand where my TV used to sit.  I didn't move a damn thing.  Hardest part about installing it was the "measure twice, cut once" aspect of making sure the screen was located in the right spot; UST is quite a bit less forgiving than LT.  But I had it manually aligned to my screen in 15m.  Cannot recommend enough.

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, IPD said:

Gonna make me post vid links because you won't click on links yourself.  Ok then.

 

 

This isn't just some random ALR screen.  This is like 7 layers of light filtration stacked on top of each other.

I have clicked it on it, it's still not as good as controlling the light in the room lol.

 

I'm sorry but this is simply true even for that screen. I'm not saying it doesn't work well, I'm saying it's not a replacement for, nor itself does not benefit from controlling ambient light. Ambient control is by far the most effective, I'm really not sure why this is a problem statement for you.

 

I've been down this path before, I have seen a lot of ALR screens with a lot of claims, none actually are a replacement for light control if you actually care about getting best image quality. In fact most ALR screens trade off image fidelity for the ALR control.

 

And frankly as I've had to repeatedly say, but I'll make it clearer, the image in the video is still BAD! Better than but still bad is still bad. Turn off the lights 

 

4 hours ago, IPD said:

https://www.projectorcentral.com/ambient-light-rejection-screens-2.htm?page=SI-Black-Diamond

 

Your "Ambertec ALR" isnt' even on this list.  And Black Diamond is #2 in both comparisons.

 

2 hours ago, Dr_Whom said:

Yes, because lists like this always include every single manufacturer and model in existence, especially region-specific ones like Ambertec appears to be (searching it seems to only produce Australian/NZ results).

As above, Ambertec is only in my region and is actually a distributor. I'd have to go digging to actually find out what my projector screen is since Ambertec sells and constructs screens using many different suppliers to fit the purpose and requirements of the customer.

 

Like I said I'm sure it's better ALR than mine, I'm also 100% sure it's not better than light control so...

[dilpickle]

This is a commercial projector that they also sell to the home moneybags that can afford it.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Stahlmann said:

For example this snap out of Linus' new $5000 projector. It looks flatter than a frickin TN panel from 10 years ago.

Filming the image of a projected screen is actually really hard, so is a normal screen mind you. It's one of those need to actually be in the room issues, plus for LTT videos we actually need to see the people and the camera operators need to safely work so there is often more light in the room on purpose due to this, Linus said this in one of those videos for projectors.

[IPD]

I doubt very much that there's more than 2-3 manufacturers of the screen materials for most consumer-grade projector screens; especially ALR UST ones.  It would not surprise me at all to find that XY Screen is the Clevo of the projector screen world.

[wanderingfool2]

2 hours ago, IPD said:

This is one of the reasons I'm such a huge prophet of UST.  They are much closer to the screen, so lumen output will always be better than the same illumination source in LT form

...uhm no.  If you have a UST that's capable of 2000 lumens, and a LT projector capable of 2000 lumens and you project both to a 10 foot screen, they will produce the same brightness (okay you lose a tiny bit to it hitting air molecules, but visually it's going to be the exact same FTL measurement).  i.e. 2000 lumens is 2000 lumens, it doesn't matter whether it comes from a UST or a LT; you will end up with the same FTL

 

The biggest difference is where everything gets mounted, and the flexibility.  If space is an issue, then UST can be good, but I find you need more expensive screens (as any ripple you will notice).  LT doesn't have that issue, you also get greatly variable sizes...with UST you often get very fixed focal lengths so you get in general less flexibility.

 

Cabling isn't as big of an issue as well, as you can move most of your devices nearby ...if you are setting up surround sound, you literally can have everything now on the back wall, so all you really need is a single long HDMI cord...so when you look forward you don't see any of the lights from misc devices, only the beauty that is the projector screen.

 

If someone has the room, and knows people won't be walking in front of the throw zone I think LT beats out UST...you get more bang for your buck.  The issue with LT is that most people end up purchasing a LT that has digital lens shifts (and keystone corrections).  If you have an optical lens shift, you don't really sacrifice anything.

 

The tl;dr UST when you start incorporating the cost of a better screen you are going to pay a whole lot more than a good quality LT, with a cheaper screen.

 

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

I've been down this path before, I have seen a lot of ALR screens with a lot of claims, none actually are a replacement for light control if you actually care about getting best image quality. In fact most ALR screens trade off image fidelity for the ALR control.

 

And frankly as I've had to repeatedly say, but I'll make it clearer, the image in the video is still BAD! Better than but still bad is still bad. Turn off the lights 

Couldn't agree more.  I've seen a $10,000 screen, paired with a $10,000 projector.  Is it good...yea it's pretty good.  Would I recommend it as a solution to people?  Absolutely not...it's only acceptable because it's in a room where lights need to remain on.  The $20,000 setup gets beaten by my $1500 projector, $300 10 foot screen, $50 in black out blinds, $50 in darker shade of paint and a light switch (I didn't go black because the room gets used and I'd prefer just a darker shade of blue than pure black)

 

I think a big issue is that the projector field has a lot of audiophile vibes to it, getting told things like needing ALR which means spending a ton of money, needing certain types of projectors for bright environments, and all this stuff...while completely ignoring that you can get just as good quality with careful considerations and a well controlled environment.  With that said as well, a bit of light leakage won't ruin your day either...it's like spending a ton extra to attempt achieving full performance, when it's in reality just cheaper purchasing a bit better of a projector and leaving stuff on the table.