To survive, says Pacific Media Associates, any industry needs to innovate and change. Like a sports team, our industry needs a strong offense. Product innovation is one type of offense: for example, in our case, short-throw projectors, interactive projectors, PC-free presentations, and solid state illumination (laser, LED, and hybrid).

But a sports team also needs a strong defense. PMA’s Dr. Coggshall will make a presentation at the Projection Summit 2012 conference entitled Playing Defense in the 2012 Projector Business.

Some--or many--projector manufacturers probably need to seek better defensive strategy and tactics than they now have.

His thinking goes like this:

1. Unlike most other industries, where prospective new entrants to an industry do their homework by looking at the size of the market and the number and strength of competitors before jumping in, but a lot of companies apparently neglected this step, leading to too many big fish in too small a pond. The natural response to this over-competition is to cut prices, so that many manufacturers are now making less-than-desired profits.

Mitsubishi designed the 7000 Series LCD projectors for applications in large meeting rooms and lecture theatres, as well as for other pro uses (rental, digital signage, etc).

Launched at ISE this year and now shipping in Europe, the 7000 Series LCD projectors are available in three resolutions.

• XL7100U / XL7000U (1024 x 768 pixel XGA)
• WL7200U / WL7050U (1280 x 800 pixel WXGA)
• UL7400U (1920x1200 pixel WUXGA)

Based around a long-life, inorganic liquid crystal panel, the 7000 Series offers light output of up to 6000 lumens at 2000:1 contrast ratio. Lamp life of up to 4000 hours and less than 0.3W power consumption in standby mode.

Mitsubishi combines here a number of performance-enhancing innovations: Dynamic Contrast Correction feature analyses the dynamic range of the input signal and automatically makes contrast corrections in real-time to ensure shadow and highlight details are not lost. The advanced Super Resolution image processing algorithm dynamically interpolates missing data from the source material for improved clarity. Combined with Mitsubishi’s Natural Colour Matrix, the result is an image that offers what Mitsubishi calls “ superb sharpness, high dynamic range and natural-looking colours.”

Bouncepad Bounce promotes itself as the ultimate interactive enclosure for tablets.

Bouncepad Bounce features a flexible stalk that allows for playful interaction with the screen. The flexible mounting arm means that your tablet, when securely locked inside the casing, retains all of its intuitive and flexible ease of use.

Users can share content with people to their left or right by simply tilting the screen. Users of different heights can easily tilt the screen up or down to give themselves the best view. Then, when released, the screen will always flex back to its original position, ready to engage the next person.

The flexible stalk features a cable channel so that your tablet can be continuously powered from below (no exposed cabling on show).

Your tablet is mounted inside the secure tablet enclosure. Access to the tablet, for installation and maintenance, is via a lock and key. Sells as either a landscape or portrait screen orientation.

Go Bouncepad Bounce

The first offerings of a new 3LCD product platform, the Christie LX501 and Christie LX601i projectors debuted at the NAB show in Las Vegas.

The Christie LX501 is a 5000 lumen XGA (1024 x 768 resolution) projector with up to 3000:1 contrast ratio and is designed for small-to-medium sized venues in higher education, corporate environments and government agencies.

The professional-grade Christie LX601i XGA projector offers 6000 lumens and is suitable for similar venues requiring higher brightness. Designed to fill the needs of ProAV integrators and end users, the Christie LX601i includes features to simplify integration during setup and troubleshooting, as well as providing a quick and easy messaging display for users.

“This new platform introduces two new products that provide customers with solutions that address both budgetary and professional needs without compromising feature sets – with four additional widescreen options to follow soon,” says Frank Anzures, senior product manager, Business Products, Christie.

The Slingshot makes it possible to shoot messages at buildings. Users can type a message on this device and-- after pulling and releasing the elastic cord-- the message launches itself on the building and can be viewed by passers-by.

The device from Vision2Watch is shaped like a portable slingshot. It has an embedded display, keyboard and laser for aiming. After a user finishes typing their message, they can use the embedded laser to aim the slingshot at a certain spot. After flexing and releasing the elastic cord the message is displayed on the building in a variety of shapes.

The shape of the message can be customized, for example in the shape of your company logo. The messages are displayed as long as you like. In addition, the background can also be customized to fit any particular marketing purpose.

Vision2Watch in Netherlands says it is the only company that has the Slingshot. We have developed this within our company. The Slingshot can be used on promotional events, expositions, festivals or even any surface imaginable.

The world's largest mobile 360-degree projection dome is known as “Magic Globe” because of its enormous size of 25 meters in diameter and a 360° all-round projection.

It’s used for events, promotions or as a stand-alone object for corporate events.

Thanks to its transparent material, Magic Globe is an attraction from outside and especially natural from inside.

Magic Globe offers room for up to 400 people depending on size of magic globe you order. It is available in different sizes ranging from 6m up to 25m in diameter!

Its lit exterior attracts visitors towards its glow, visible from a distance.

Magic Globe can be individually customized to accommodate your client’s advertising message or design.

Magic Globe creates HD picture worlds with special effects via 3D animation, videos and also live video-input like TV. Thanks to sophisticated software technology, the depiction takes place via a virtually distortion-free, 360-degree, all-round projection.

Maker Vertigo Systems is a spin-off of FhG (Fraunhofer Gesellschaft).

Go Vertigo Systems and Its Magic Globes

The European market for Public Displays hit a new record level in Q4 of 2011. Meko's DisplayCast service for public displays showed sales of 91,429 in Q4, bringing sales to 311,000 for the year, up 25.4% in volume.

Meko's research indicates growth was driven by a maturing industry and a developing understanding of the value of digital signage applications.

"There were a number of reasons for the record result", says Bob Raikes, principal of Meko Ltd."Key brands such as Samsung and NEC hit record levels and we got better coverage of data this time. Installations for the Olympics and for the Euros have helped in 2011. This level of growth stands out in the current difficult climate of doom in TVs and monitors".

55" panels saw the highest percentage growth over the year, although 40"/42" and 46"/47" displays remain the mainstream. The trend towards larger sizes helped to keep ASPs relatively flat and value grew by 23% in the year, almost keeping up with volume.

Germany was the biggest market in Europe, going past the UK which has been the biggest market for some time.

Go Meko Reports on European Market for Public Displays

Edge-blending has been a luxury effect that comes with larger, more costly event projectors. Now ViewSonic offers an affordable solution allowing for medium-sized events and average users to enjoy widescreen projection and special image effects.

The ViewSonic EB series is a standalone processor implementing up/down scaling, format conversion, video walls, 3D decoding, curved surface display, sophisticated image edge blending, and geometric adjustment up to WQXGA input and WUXGA (full HD) output.

The EB series requires no PC for installation and operation… just connect the HDMI cable from the content player and projectors to set up the screen effect and projector position. Content players are also easily replaced for maximum flexibility.