Cool Gizmos – Gizmora

If you have gone to your local cineplex lately, you may have started noticing some interesting DLP splash screens being played right before all those advertisements for popcorn and soda. Texas Instruments has been on an aggressive campaign pushing the benefits as well as the potential of DLP technologies. One of their campaigns is in the digital cinema market where they recently announced that over 3000 digital cinema screens are now using DLP projectors; up from only 1000 screens ten months ago. Manufacturers like Christie, Barco, and NEC are leading the DLP digital cinema market and are replacing the old film projectors with new HD digital projectors. The next time you go to the movie theater, check to see if they’re using a DLP projector and if they are, see how different it is from your movie experiences in the past.
      Texas Instruments isn’t only looking to the cinema to push DLP’s benefits, though. Last week we mentioned Microvision’s PicoP cell phone projector, and now Texas Instruments have announced their own cell phone projector. Using a miniature DLP chip and three different colored lasers, Texas Instruments hopes to project DVD quality images from your cell phone onto any surface. While only in development stages, they do have a working prototype of their cellphone projector and intend to deploy it commercially shortly.

Microvision today announced that it will unveil at CES an ultra-miniature full-color digital projection display approximately the size of a Thin Mint candy, designed to be embedded into handheld electronic devices such as cellphones, PDAs, or multimedia handhelds.
      While having the ability to play videos on your cellphone is cool, who really wants to watch anything longer than a few seconds of video on such a tiny screen? Being able to project the image onto a nearby surface, such as a wall, whiteboard, desktop or your friend’s face, would make it much more watchable and easy to show to others.
      While there’s no pricing or availability yet — this is just a prototype, after all — I’m sure cellphone manufacturers would love to add this to their high-end handsets, and you can be sure it won’t be cheap. And as soon as it hits the market and suddenly consumers are able to show their torrented TV shows with everyone around them, expect a wave of MPAA lawsuits to ensue

Ion it seems is going to announce about their iProjector at CES 2007 but Ion has not mentioned about it on their website. We can get you only a small picture of this one. It will be a standard projector with resolution 800X600 capable of 24-bit colour images 90”X30”. It has one good feature in the form of an iPod dock which allows it to project the videos and photos from your DAP and simultaneously charge it too.

The usual pack of sockets are provided so that you can use this with your games console, DVD player or anything and it’s compatible with the iPod Nano, iPod Photo and iPod Video. The price and availability information is not yet provided.

             Runco International is now shipping its Video Xtreme™ line including the new THX Certified VX-22d, VX-44d and VX-55d 3-chip 1080p DLP™ projectors and the new THX Certified VX-2000d and VX-6000d single-chip 1080p DLP projectors. As the first 1080p HD video display products to achieve THX certification*, the new VX-22d, VX-44d and VX-55d, along with the VX-2000 and VX-6000 have been tested to the rigorous standards outlined in the THX Certified Display program. The THX program promises that HD and standard definition content will be presented with the correct color, luminance levels and video processing capabilities.
     Runco is the launch licensee for the THX video program and the companies have been working closely together on the finalization of these products. Along with THX certification, Runco’s Video Xtreme models have been designed for outstanding picture quality and performance.

     Light Blue Optics’ PVPro technology for miniature projectors is now available to potential partners as a demonstrator unit, which is only 62cc in volume, and is similar in size and shape to a typical matchbox. Projectors based on PVPro technology can be used to display images from a range of mobile devices, including laptop computers, personal media players such as the video iPod, digital cameras and even mobile phones.

     It has developed unique laser-based projection technology, which uses computational algorithms and novel optical techniques to allow miniature lasers to display video images in real-time using the diffractive nature of laser light. This overcomes the size limitation of conventional projection techniques, allowing projectors to be smaller than ever before.

Toshiba has unvieled the TDP-535U projector that has comparatively lesser features than its T45U counterpart, but is cheaper for all ya people out there looking for a reasonably good projector with a cheap price tag. It is a light weight mobile projector, that comes complete with an SVGA resolution, 2000:1 contrast ratio, DLP Technology, 2000 ANSI lumens and wireless remote to boot. It supports composite/ s-video connectors, audio inputs/outputs, dual VGA inputs and a VGA passthrough to forward the signals to an additional display.

And more importantly, it is priced at only $699 and begins shipping later this month.

Sanyo is all geared up to release a followup to its PLV-Z4 projector soon, with the new PLV-Z5 projector with better specs than the previous one. It has a resolution of 1280×720, a contrast ratio of 7,500:1, 1,100 lumens brightness, and a second HDMI input in addition to s-video, and VGA. It will be available later this month in both black and silver variations for a price of €1,799, that is about $2,300.

Sony has just announced its Pearl VPL-VW50 1080p projector, with two HDMI inputs and the ability to crank out frame rates of 60p, 50p and even 24p. But the only thing missing is Sony’s up-rezzing technology, called the Digital Reality Creation, or DRC, so the Pearl’s standard definition sources may not look as pristine as its more-expensive older versions.

It is expected to hit the stores on October 20.

The Epson PowerLite Cinema 400 Projector is a successor of last year’s PowerLite Cinema 550. This new model is priced at $1600 ($900 dollars less than the old one), with the same 720p resolution.

Epson has managed to pack some serious punch into this new projector. The home theater unit can push a 5000:1 contrast ratio and 1,500 lumens in a convenient 16:9 widescreen format. The 3 LCD unit also includes HDMI connectivity, along with a few Epson features such as Epson Cinema filters and Dynamic Eye Iris to adjust the picture for optimum viewing. The Home Cinema 400 is expected to hit the market around mid-September.

If you’re looking for high-end home theater DLP projectors, Runco is the right choice for you. The company has now introduced seven 1080p (1920×1080) projectors that will debut next month at CEDIA Expo 2006. The RS-1100 (shown here) features Runco’s CineWide with AutoScope technology. It has Runco’s SuperOnyx light engine and a selectable lamp intensity control. You can also choose from six different lenses to fit your home theater dimensions.

The lowest-priced projector starts at $11,995 , and for a three-chip video Xtreme machine with all the options, you need to pay $115,000. But if you’re looking for a home theater whose projection quality is excellent, look no further. There’s a lot of special technology at work here. The projectors will be available in October.