cyberpunk said:
apologies if somebody's already brought this up ...
Sanyo's new projector has a mind-blowingly short throw distance
Ok, so it's US$6,000. When DVD burners first appeared in Wired magazine's fetish section they cost US$10,000.
Read the spec. You won't believe it.
For those who did not read the link, this new patented technology appears to break all the rules of optics.
Sir Isaac Newton's jaw would be dropping to the floor and doing a
Wile E Coyote with the way the lens on this projector works.
The technology allows a projector unit to throw a 80" diagonal wide image from a distance of a few inches away. And, the image can be corrected digitally for "keystone" effect, so that you can mount the projector on the ceiling, essentially three inches away from the wall it is projecting onto, and it will work.
Or do the same on top of your tabletop. And yes - from beneath it too.
Sanyo has changed all the rules of optics at a stroke. The unit will retail for about $5,000.00. That buys you a 1024x768 2000 lumens image that will fill your gaming table - when mounted a few inches beneath it, safely out of the way of anybody kicking it.
Yes, the projector with this technology would be perfect for projection beneath the tabletop. It's mount and forget technology. Absolutely perfect for tabletop gaming.
The sad thing is that the technology is also patented up the wazoo, so it will be some time before it becomes available at a lower cost. But it will come.
However, the news on patents is not all bad. It is now only about 4 months or so to go before the principal patent involved in all modern projection technology expires.
Texas Instruments patent on the DLP chip, the tiny mirrored processor that powers all DLP projectors expires in early 2008. The expiry of that patent together with the pressure in the marketplace for new HDTV technology should drive the cost of projectors down in 2008 and we should see price drops in 2009 from increased competition.
