During a pre-launch interview, Gavin Downey, group product manager for large venue projectors at Epson, shared some insights with AV Technology's content director, Cindy Davis.
[ Press Release: Epson Launches Pro Series High Lumen Projectors ]
"Three or four years ago, when we started to conceive of this line, we were starting to see in higher education, house of worship and live events, that people were starting to use blended imagery and non-traditional aspect ratios," Downey said. "That's only accelerated in the past two or three years with the immersive economy and the experience economy taking off. With large data visualization and planetariums in higher education, you're seeing large non-traditional aspect ratio displays becoming more and more popular. We also see data visualization in corporate lobbies. We're excited about that because we invested in developing these products with that in mind."
Higher lumen projectors are no longer just for live events. "We've always thought about higher lumens for fixed installations, and that is reflected in making them really easy to use." Ease of use starts with the installation. The 20,000-lumen projector is 64 percent smaller and 50 percent lighter than its predecessor. "We wanted to move from a two-person lift to a one-person lift."
"Epson is part of Seiko Epson Corporation; watches are in our DNA, so everything has got to be really small, compact, efficient, and precise," Gavin Downey, group product manager for large venue projectors at Epson.
One of the ways Epson was able to make the projector smaller was moving to a liquid cooling system, but that was not the only consideration. "We did a lot of work in terms of efficiency," Downey said. "Epson is part of Seiko Epson Corporation; watches are in our DNA, so everything has got to be really small, compact, efficient, and precise," he commented. Downey added that there had been a tremendous amount of innovation in the footprint of the light engine. "Those continue to get smaller and brighter and more controllable."
When it comes to control, Epson builds its own panels and 3LCD chips in its fabrication facility in northern Japan. "Everything is 3LCD; it's all 3-chip full-time color," Downey said. "We believe that full-time color when you're spending this kind of money on a 13- 16- or 20-lumen system, it is really important."
Epson is dedicated to keeping the same lens range whether you buy an interchangeable 6,000- or a 20,000-lumen projector. "When you look at it from an end-user perspective, if I'm a larger organization and I want to reconfigure rooms or repurpose projectors, you don't want to have to figure out entirely new lens ranges over the lifecycle," Downey said.
Ease of Deployment, Installation, and Calibration
With NFC, MAC addresses can be uploaded and custom settings configured without even taking the projector out of the box. "Lager clients have been particularly excited about this," Downey added.
For installations using two networked projectors to create a larger canvas, Espon has made the calibration process more than easy—it's automatic. "To make blending and color matching easier, you can add an optional camera that will establish where each projector is in the room," he said. "The camera will 'see things' and automatically adjust color, contrast, and brightness, and it takes just three minutes per projector."
[ Visual Artists Add Action to Paintings with Projection ]
The cameras can also use powered lens shift to pixel stack. "You can double the brightness, and you don't need to have a technician. With tiling, it will match them up perfectly. You can also use the remote to pixel stack," noted Downey.
Creating immersive experiences and data visualizations have always required a higher level of technical proficiency to make them work, but with the new Pro Series of high lumen projectors, Epson has aimed to change that. "What you'll see when we talk about the platform is that we've tried to anticipate these trends and make it easier for people in higher education, house of worship, and live events to do the things that they need to do today and tomorrow," Downey said. "We're excited to see what folks are going to do with the combination of features, and at 13,000 lumens, these features are pretty sophisticated."
