10.01.2007 — Miramar, FL—September 2007—SIM2, the Italian manufacturer whose striking high-performance HD home theater projectors are known worldwide for their pristine video and dramatic cabinet designs, has introduced the exciting next-generation design of the award-winning Grand Cinema C3X projector. Debuting at the 2007 CEDIA Expo in Denver, Colorado, SIM2’s C3X 1080 is one of the first to utilize Texas Instruments DLP Product’s latest DarkChip4 chip to integrate superior contrast plus benchmark-quality 1080p video display with the functions and features required to power today’s sophisticated home theaters, all within the dramatic industrial design for which SIM2 is justly famous.

“In 2005, the original C3X model revolutionized the home theater market,” says SIM2 USA president Giorgio Corazza. “For 2007, we are taking the C3X concept to the next performance level. The new C3X 1080, as its name suggests, is a full HD 1080p projector, but shares the same compact form factor as the original. It is totally unique to SIM2.”

In the best SIM2 tradition, the 17-inch-square, 22-pound C3X 1080 is housed in a stunning, high-gloss sculpted cabinet designed by Giorgio Revoldini with the company’s trademark, flowing lines. Revoldini, who has designed several SIM2 models, has received several prestigious international industrial design awards, including a 2006 Good Design medal—a coveted award in industrial and graphic design administered by the Chicago Athenaeum.

Although diminutive in size, the C3X 1080 conceals truly powerful abilities and a great deal of technology. The projector is based on a trio of the latest 0.95-inch, 1080p DLP chipsets from Texas Instruments, whose centerpiece, the DarkChip4 DLP device, catalyzes an important increase in picture quality with improved blacks and superior brightness. DarkChip 4 helps the new 3-chip DLP SIM2 product achieve a combination of contrast, color, brightness, and resolution that repositions the digital imaging benchmark for a compact high-performance projector.

“With DarkChip 4, DLP has reached an imaging ‘sweet spot’ for front projection,” says Nancy Fares, Manager, DLP Cinema and 3-chip projectors at Texas Instruments. “It’s a point where the balance of lumens, contrast, color accuracy, and resolution mesh together to yield jaw-dropping imaging.”

The three-chip SIM2 design further exploits improved all-glass optics in SIM2’s proprietary ALPHAPATH light engine to form a system able to deliver full-HD, 1920x1080 progressive video of stunning clarity and definition. The combination’s superb contrast (>10,000:1, typically) matches its impressive color depth and remarkable brightness capability, for a net result of breathtaking, almost three-dimensional picture performance from high-quality source material.

With the C3X 1080, SIM2 has created more than a mere reference-grade projector. Full-depth 10-bit video processing, with HD scaling and deinterlacing capabilities, maintains 1080p/24fps full-HD purity under actual content-playback conditions, and does much to upgrade the delivered perceived quality of lesser formats. What’s more, SIM2’s newly developed, advanced color-management software is available to permit installers and calibrators to precisely match each projector to its home theater environment, with near total control over color, and white-point coordinates, gamma correction, and more, for unprecedented power to refine and improve real-world installed performance.

Of course, the latest SIM2 achievement incorporates the functions and features demanded by custom-theater designers and installers. The C3X 1080 delivers two selectable HDMI inputs (both fully HDCP-compliant), as well as inputs for legacy formats component-, S-, and composite-video, as well as RGB connection. Both RS-232 serial and USB ports are included to ease connectivity for control and software/firmware communications, and even an optical digital-audio, and 12-volt-trigger outputs and IR-sensor inputs are on board for total flexibility of installation and control.

C3X 1080: The Next Generation

Availability: November 2007

Finish Options: High-gloss Gunmetal (standard), Black, Red, and Gold color options available to order.

Suggested Retail Price: $29,995