Offering a new level of versatility and performance to the education and corporate markets, Hitachi Home Electronics (America), Business Group will be exhibiting the CP-A100 LCD projector at InfoComm 08. This revolutionary new model features a very short throw distance, eliminating the problem of presenters obstructing the projected image by standing in front of the screen. Additionally, the CP-A100 offers networking capabilities, allowing multiple projectors to be controlled and monitored from a single location. Read on at The Briefing Room

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Planar Systems (formerly Clarity) booth (N6332) is showing its rear-projection alternatives to those 103in. plasma giants. The Clarity x100HD is a 100in. HD DLP flush-mount rear-projection display is a unit designed with conference rooms in mind. You really wouldn’t know it was a rear-projection system with the flush-mount design, which could be a little more problematic of a build for older rooms. Like other rear-projection system in the Planar line, the display is serviceable from the front. The x100 HD will be shipping in Q4. more…

The InFocus IN5100 series of installation projectors provides integrators and installers with a powerful 4000 to 5000 lumens in wide or standard XGA resolution. At 5000 lumens, the IN5100 series only uses a single lamp, making it both simple and economical. Horizontal and vertical lens shift, four optional lenses and many connectivity options make the 5100 series adaptable to a broad range of installations. Read on at The Briefing Room

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I kidded George Tsintzouras, Senior Product Manager for Business Products at Christie, today that he should make infommercials for a living. That joke was based on George’s incredible enthusiasm for Christie’s new M Series line of dual-lamp, 3-chip DLP projectors, directed at the AV market. Manufacturer representatives, after all, are supposed to be enthusiastic and I’ve heard some great sells over the years. But George was positively mesmerizing while discussing what Christie views as major breakthroughs with the M Series. George’s point is that the innovation inside the M Series units revolves around impressive advances in optics, allowing two lamps to produce 10,000 lumens out of a single projector.

But he also loves the weight (just 55-lbs.), swappable lamps, intelligent lens system with encoder-based motors, and much more. He was particularly jazzed, for instance, about the filter-free, dust-sealed engine design on the system. more…

The Epson booth is swarming with new products and interested parties today as the company shows its new portables for presenters on the go. These little pearly white machines with soft corners have several new features that I can certainly appreciate for high use environments. While they still can accomodate the usual analog formats, digital has moved in and the great thing is that you can have direct USB conveyance from the computer to the projector with no configuration or source hunting at all. Turn on the projector and the computer. Connect the two with a USB cable and your image is up on the screen. No more fumbling with the function key combos. The new models have A type USB, HDMI and SD card slots as well, so you can have your presentation on just about anything.

These new projectors were made to meet the format and learning curve challenges that have been colliding on so much equipment and it appears that a lot of careful though and customer feedback went into them. It was a great demo.

Barco, a world leader in advanced digital projection, is pleased to announce the latest addition to its portfolio of projectors: the NW-12. It features a native WUXGA resolution (1920×1200), offers users a greater pixel canvas, allows them to display more sources than ever in full resolution and is fully compatible with modern high-end laptops. Read on at The Briefing Room

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I wandered into the screening room at the 3LCD booth yesterday. Happening inside was a presentation by a representative from Lumita, a research, consulting, and product dev firm that focuses on color science. Earlier this year the firm put out a report that proposed a new metric for projectors: color brightness.

The 3LCD consortium has touted this report for obvious reasons: the color wheels of 3LCD projectors do not incorporate a white light section. DLP models do have that section. So though white light certainly pumps up a projector’s ANSI lumens count, it would do nothing to enhance a projector’s “color brightness.” more…

Elite Screens, an innovative company that specializes in affordable high quality projector screens, announced the Kestrel projection screen. It is a premium grade mobile electric floor-rising screen designed for executive presentations, formal functions or residential home theater rooms that require a flexible alternative to fixed wall or ceiling-mounted installations. Read on at The Briefing Room

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A company known for its imaging prowess, Canon was already making its own glass for AISYS optical systems that are found in its Realis line of LCoS projectors. But now Canon has taken another piece of the imaging puzzle in house: The panels themselves. The results of that move should hit the market soon after the show with two new Realis projectors, the WUX10 and the SX80.

The WUX10 is a WUXGA projector (1920×1200) with the native 16:10 aspect ratios found on most computers. Not only will it project the native resolution of 1080i HD video, but the WUX10 will also the desktops of the highest resolution computer monitors pixel-for-pixel. The projector offers 3200 lumens and a 1.5X powered zoom lens. At around $12,000 MSRP, the WUX10′s the target market is the higher-end corporate boardroom. more…

Sanyo really wanted to impress; somehow the four-piece orchestra didn’t seem to fit though, but it was a nice relaxing touch at the end of the day. After a delayed start and ironically multiple mic checks, the presentation got under way. Company VP Keiichi Yodoshi gave the storied history of the company’s projector timeline; Sanyo released its first projector model in 1989, and last year, the company released its first super-short-throw projector, with many milestone models sprinkled throughout. It really signified how far the company and the technology has come, and just where the company is headed: 8.8 million Sanyo units are projected to be sold in 2010, working from a steady 15 percent yearly increase average of projector market saturation the company has seen. more…