07.01.2007 — projectiondesign (PD), the first company to demonstrate a 1080p single-chip DLP front projector, will soon be rolling out its first three-chip DLP.

And as with its single-chip versions, the three-chip projector won't look like its competitors' either, at least not on the inside. The company is changing everything about three-chip projectors including the way the chips fit into a projector chassis and how those chips are aligned.

At the same time, PD is rolling out the Action! M25, touted as the "world's smallest 1080p projector."

"TI was going to discontinue the single-chip DLP," says projectiondesign CEO Jorn Eriksen. "I said, 'Let's give it a try.' It gave them, very late in the cycle, a burst."

Today, projectiondesign continues to work closely with TI on the development of new video technologies.

The company, which also OEMs product to Christie and Digital Projection Inc., generated about $56 million in sales in 2006.

PD invited a few lucky members of the press—including myself—to its headquarters in Fredrikstad, Norway, to learn more about the company. All of us, I believe, were duly impressed by this up-and-comer.

Under the PD Hood

Norway is hardly the hotbed of manufacturing, but that's where Projectiondesign builds its projectors. Virtually all manufacturing is done in-house in a factory so efficient that it can compete with the best of its Asian counterparts.

"We're actually on par with costs from China," says director of operations Sture Berg.

PD can do that for a very good reason: Its technology design, industrial design and manufacturing process are integrally connected.

The industrial design firm, Eker Design, is run by PD co-founder Bard Eker, who also designs and builds the highest-performance cars (Koenigsegg) and boats (Hydrolift) on the planet. Eker designs products with the manufacturing process in mind, meaning the ultimate product not only looks good, it can be manufactured efficiently in the PD factory.

And the PD factory itself is built for efficiency, with a streamlined process that is unrivaled, considering "we have more electronics in the board than other manufacturers," Berg claims. Raw circuit boards go in one side of a monstrous surface-mount line, and come out completely finished PCBs, with nary a hand touching it.

It's the human handling that usually precipitates errors, Berg says, adding that PD has a lower failure rate than its competitors.

And while the circuit board makes its way through the long-and-winding machine, custom-designed hardware and software can pick up the tiniest deviation, and alert technicians to any problems. "Typically you check the board after it is completed," says Berg. "We do it in line so you change things right away."

Besides the raw circuit boards and some plastics and cases, projectiondesign manufactures and assembles virtually everything in-house (even the power supplies "because they're optimized for the system," Eriksen says). For that reason, the company can build "whatever is ordered," Berg says. That means 562 variants of projectors, about 1,000 of which are shipped every month.

Every one of those projectors is tested and burned in at the factory. Newer products are burned in for 20 hours, and that time gradually decreases to no less than two hours.

Three's a Charm

Now the factory is getting geared up to produce a brand new product, the F80, which is PD's first 3-chip projector.

In true PD fashion, the company even built a machine to automatically align the chips.

"The challenge with three-chip projectors is to have excellent convergence," says Gary Plavin, president of projectiondesign North America. "The machine was designed in parallel with the product."

Berg adds, "We designed it here. …It's absolutely one-of-a-kind."

I'm an automation girl, so I don't know much about video, but the folks at projectiondesign assured us that their 3-chip projector is different from the others. And all the video-geek reporters on the trip nodded their heads fiercely, so it must be so.



Eriksen says the F80 features a "more compact and flexible architecture" than competitive products.

The DMDs (digital micromirror device) are located at the top of the machine, which makes the projector "more suitable for manufacturing and servicing," Plavin says.

The location of the chips also makes it easier to apply filters for different environments and applications.

We got a demonstration of a prototype product which delivered a stunning 50,000:1 contrast ratio. Why so high if the eyes cannot perceive the subtleties?

"Because we can," Eriksen says. "People buy on spec. If they have a choice between a 5,000 or 50,000:1 contrast ratio, they'll want the 50,000." So true, and so sad.

In any case, that's one of the reasons projectiondesign is adding HDMI 1.3 support to all of its projectors, however reluctantly. It's a marketing thing, Eriksen says. "You cannot not do it."

One-Chip Wonder

Not surprisingly, projectiondesign is doing wonders with its single-chip DLPs, too. The new Action! M25, based on the company's well-reviewed F1+ platform, is the world's smallest 1080p projector, the company claims.

PD stuffs a 0.95 1080p DMD, TI's BrilliantColor technology, seven-segment, 5x color wheel, and more goodies into a petite 3.7 x 9.2 x 10.8 inch case.



One of those goodies is an internal scaler from Pixelworks with 10-bit processing. There's even built-in equalization to accommodate longer runs of HDMI—up to 100 feet, according to Eriksen.

Like the other products in PD's lineup, the M25 is based on PD Framework, a new proprietary operating system developed by projectiondesign that is scaler-independent. The OS "provides for much more feature-rich control of the projectors we produce," Plavin says.

It also features another recent PD invention, RealColor (not to be confused with TI's BrilliantColor, also included in the M25), a color management system that yields "perfect color reproduction," the company claims.

Specifically, according to PD:

RealColor technology perfectly tracks gray scale throughout the dynamic range and results in perfect video color reproduction. By uniquely characterizing and calibrating every projector as it leaves the production line, the company ensures every projector can reproduce true D65 video.

Quite a claim indeed. Again, during the demonstration, the video geeks nodded their heads enthusiastically, while I smiled politely, pretending to understand.

Of course, there's the F1+ light engine that "lets us get a kickin' image," Eriksen says. Now that I understand.

Talk about Control

At last, finally something I really did understand: how PD projectors can be integrated with third-party control systems, and managed remotely.

Integrators will love ProNet, PD's remote management and diagnostics tool.

Naturally, it has an RS-232 port and drivers for the most popular control systems. Later the company will offer a tool to enable developers to write their own drivers.

On top of that, every projector has a built-in Web server that installers (or consumers themselves) can access remotely. Virtually anything that dealers can adjust onsite can be done remotely.

They can check on the lamp, for example, and warn clients they may need a new one before the Super Bowl.

They can monitor the heat and other environmental factors around the projector, upgrade firmware, even set parameters for notifications if anything goes awry. Temperature getting too hot around the projector? Find out via email or text message. Projector can't connect? Perhaps it was stolen. Schedule an alert for yourself and your client.

Set up the projector to turn on at 7:00 a.m. and off at 7:00 p.m. – a nice feature for digital signage. Or configure it to deliver a brighter picture during the daytime or automatically switch between ISF night and day modes.

Can you say recurring revenue?!

PD provides ProNet free of charge for single projectors, and charges a per-seat fee for multiples.

Plavin says that other projectors have similar tools, "but in my opinion, none as sophisticated. They're either too expensive or too cumbersome, like requiring hardware or programming."

Other PD Tidbits

-- Being young and all, PD has fewer than 100 dealers right now, but that base is "growing rapidly," Plavin says. "First we need a complete product range so dealers don't have to switch lines. They can be loyal."

-- Plavin is working on a new calibration tool that can be had for less than $3,000 including the test pattern generator and colorimeter.

-- PD maintains a database of stolen projectors on its Web site. Come across an iffy reseller? Check the site.

-- PD is working on a single-chip active stereo 3D projector. "It's extremely fast in how it modulates color," Eriksen says of the patented process. "Yes, you can do 3D on one chip. In the past you couldn't do it because of a lack of creativity."

-- According to the company: projectiondesign was the first to introduce an SXGA resolution (1280x1024) single-chip DLP projector, the F1 SXGA, in 2002; the first to introduce SXGA+ resolution (1400x1050) single-chip DLP with the F1+ sx+ in 2004; and the first to introduce the brightest single-chip DLP projector, the F3, in 2004 (now the F3+ sx+ with 6,500 ANSI lumens).

-- Learn more about projectiondesign's RealColor (pdf) and TI's BrilliantColor (pdf) technologies.