Projector Shoot Out- Christie v's Barco
Last week saw Production:av have a bit of a shoot out between a couple of projectors to help a client decide which way they wanted to go with their proposed installation. We decided to aim for a base level of 10,000 Lumens, the field was open to DLP and LCD machines, and tried to keep around the £20K RRP price tag.
So with those two options presented themselves-The Christie LX120 (12,000 lumen Tri LCD XGA resolution) and theBarco CLM R10+ (10,000 Lumens Single Chip DLP SXGA+ Resolution). The two machines were later joined by a Barco SLM R12+ kindly lent to us by Andy Cook from DB Systems.
To try and make the shoot out as fair as possible we fed both machines at the native resolutions (first XGA, then switching to SXGA+) by using the Barco Screen Pro II HD/SDI (SPII). We fed Component Level DVD footage and DVI computer data to the SPII to give a view of the video and data formats. The SPII was feeding a Kramer 1:4 DVI DA with the projectors linked via Kramer DVI cabling. The Projectors we firing onto 10'x7'6" Da-Lite Fastfold Deluxe screens with the standard front projection surface, and then to simulate the more likely screen size (about 16'x12') we projected onto the back wall.
The CLM R10+ is a new machine on the Market, designed to attack the market share that Sanyo and Christie have taken with their XF45 and XF46, (12 and 12K lumens) and Christies rebadged Sanyo's, the LX100 and 120. Barco have approached it with the desire to create a machine suitable for the Rental and Staging market, where as the LX120 has grown out of the large format install side of things. The difference in design philosophy is market through details such as the body and chasis construction, optional rigging hardware, filters and sealing that has been designed into the CLM. Both share a similar principle of using 4 x 300w Lamps to gain the light output and nearly identical weight. The CLM is slightly taller, and shorter, with the LX120 being nearly square in plan but about 400mm deep.
In terms of conectivity both machines sport a DVI and 5 BNC input panel. The LX120 also has CV and Y/C inputs, but these are available via the 5 BNC input on the CLM. The remote control on the CLM can be attached via an XLR cable with both the projector and remote having XLR's, whereas the LX120 uses 3.5mm Mini-jacks. The CLM also has a DMX input to control Zoom, Focus and the shutter amongst other functions.
Power up is achieved with the usual push button, the LX120 spinning up the fans and striking the lamp, whilst the CLM takes a bit more thought and runs through a slightly longer startup process. Once running both machines have a simillar noise floor, the LX120 being slightly louder than the CLM, but neither is particularly obtrusive. The menus system on the CLM uses the near standard Barco menus system, so if you've ever used a Barco projector you'll feel at home. If you haven't, it's not too hard to navigate through. The LX120 uses the near standard menu found on most Sanyo/Christie machines, so again if you've ever used this you'll feel at home. It does however use images for the top level menu, so scrolling is required to see what each option is for, where as the Barco uses text to describe the sub menus contained under each option.
Image Quality. This is the big one- theses tow machines use differing technologies to achieve the creation of the image. The LX120 uses the Tri LCD technology, with the CLM using a single DLP chip. LCD is generally deemed to give better data imagery, whilst the DLP is regarded as better for video and moving images. The LCD splits the light three ways, sending the Red Green and Blue light to an individual LCD that creates that portion of the image. The Single Chip DLP uses a filter to send each colour in sequence to the DLP chip, which then creates that protion of the image. The filter is spun at high speed infront of the chip, the speed being enough to take advantage of the human eye's inability to spot really fast changes to the image.
The end result in the actual image seen on the screen is that the LX120 gives more of a saturated image, with the colours appearing to be almost of a carton esque feel. The CLM has a less saturated feel, but the colours appear to be more real. The CLM also exhibits a blacker black. DLP creates dark pixels by sending the light away from the scren, whereas the LCD creates black by turning all three pixels fuly on, meaning they try to block the light, but some still passes causing the blacks to be a dark murky grey. Both appeared to be perfrectly capable with both the video and data images, though the client prefered the picture quality of CLM for both the video and Data images. The brightness, on paper, wasn't evenly matched, with the LX120 being 2000 Lumens brighter than the CLM. That said the two machines appeared very evenly matched in terms of brightness. The CLM had several hundred hours with the LX120 being at a grand total of 9 hours.
We did then intorduce the SLM R12+ which is a three chip DLP machine. This gave a more saturated colour, but kept the image quality of the CLM, giving a more natural image compared to the LCD machine. The R12+ did appear significantly brighter than the LX120, which is mildly surprising considering they are both 12,000 lumens. Some of the difference could be down to the better contrast level of the SLM R12+'s three DLP chips. Both DLP machines exhibit a lower gate between pixels compared to the LCD machine- basically the black lines between each pixel are thinner on the DLP machines.
We did take some video on a digital stills camera which we'll try and link to at somepoint soon. It doesn't give the best quality, but gives and idea of the differences between the three machines.
So which one did the client go for? They prefered the CLM's build quality and approach to the rental and staging market, as well as the feature set that it has. Ultimately the image was the most important. Despite being rated 2000 lumens brighter the LX120 didn't appear significantly so. So combined with thieir opinion that the CLM gave a more real image, and the level of brightness, discussions continue based around the CLM R10+.
So with those two options presented themselves-
To try and make the shoot out as fair as possible we fed both machines at the native resolutions (first XGA, then switching to SXGA+) by using the Barco Screen Pro II HD/SDI (SPII). We fed Component Level DVD footage and DVI computer data to the SPII to give a view of the video and data formats. The SPII was feeding a Kramer 1:4 DVI DA with the projectors linked via Kramer DVI cabling. The Projectors we firing onto 10'x7'6" Da-Lite Fastfold Deluxe screens with the standard front projection surface, and then to simulate the more likely screen size (about 16'x12') we projected onto the back wall.
The CLM R10+ is a new machine on the Market, designed to attack the market share that Sanyo and Christie have taken with their XF45 and XF46, (12 and 12K lumens) and Christies rebadged Sanyo's, the LX100 and 120. Barco have approached it with the desire to create a machine suitable for the Rental and Staging market, where as the LX120 has grown out of the large format install side of things. The difference in design philosophy is market through details such as the body and chasis construction, optional rigging hardware, filters and sealing that has been designed into the CLM. Both share a similar principle of using 4 x 300w Lamps to gain the light output and nearly identical weight. The CLM is slightly taller, and shorter, with the LX120 being nearly square in plan but about 400mm deep.
In terms of conectivity both machines sport a DVI and 5 BNC input panel. The LX120 also has CV and Y/C inputs, but these are available via the 5 BNC input on the CLM. The remote control on the CLM can be attached via an XLR cable with both the projector and remote having XLR's, whereas the LX120 uses 3.5mm Mini-jacks. The CLM also has a DMX input to control Zoom, Focus and the shutter amongst other functions.
Power up is achieved with the usual push button, the LX120 spinning up the fans and striking the lamp, whilst the CLM takes a bit more thought and runs through a slightly longer startup process. Once running both machines have a simillar noise floor, the LX120 being slightly louder than the CLM, but neither is particularly obtrusive. The menus system on the CLM uses the near standard Barco menus system, so if you've ever used a Barco projector you'll feel at home. If you haven't, it's not too hard to navigate through. The LX120 uses the near standard menu found on most Sanyo/Christie machines, so again if you've ever used this you'll feel at home. It does however use images for the top level menu, so scrolling is required to see what each option is for, where as the Barco uses text to describe the sub menus contained under each option.
Image Quality. This is the big one- theses tow machines use differing technologies to achieve the creation of the image. The LX120 uses the Tri LCD technology, with the CLM using a single DLP chip. LCD is generally deemed to give better data imagery, whilst the DLP is regarded as better for video and moving images. The LCD splits the light three ways, sending the Red Green and Blue light to an individual LCD that creates that portion of the image. The Single Chip DLP uses a filter to send each colour in sequence to the DLP chip, which then creates that protion of the image. The filter is spun at high speed infront of the chip, the speed being enough to take advantage of the human eye's inability to spot really fast changes to the image.
The end result in the actual image seen on the screen is that the LX120 gives more of a saturated image, with the colours appearing to be almost of a carton esque feel. The CLM has a less saturated feel, but the colours appear to be more real. The CLM also exhibits a blacker black. DLP creates dark pixels by sending the light away from the scren, whereas the LCD creates black by turning all three pixels fuly on, meaning they try to block the light, but some still passes causing the blacks to be a dark murky grey. Both appeared to be perfrectly capable with both the video and data images, though the client prefered the picture quality of CLM for both the video and Data images. The brightness, on paper, wasn't evenly matched, with the LX120 being 2000 Lumens brighter than the CLM. That said the two machines appeared very evenly matched in terms of brightness. The CLM had several hundred hours with the LX120 being at a grand total of 9 hours.
We did then intorduce the SLM R12+ which is a three chip DLP machine. This gave a more saturated colour, but kept the image quality of the CLM, giving a more natural image compared to the LCD machine. The R12+ did appear significantly brighter than the LX120, which is mildly surprising considering they are both 12,000 lumens. Some of the difference could be down to the better contrast level of the SLM R12+'s three DLP chips. Both DLP machines exhibit a lower gate between pixels compared to the LCD machine- basically the black lines between each pixel are thinner on the DLP machines.
We did take some video on a digital stills camera which we'll try and link to at somepoint soon. It doesn't give the best quality, but gives and idea of the differences between the three machines.
So which one did the client go for? They prefered the CLM's build quality and approach to the rental and staging market, as well as the feature set that it has. Ultimately the image was the most important. Despite being rated 2000 lumens brighter the LX120 didn't appear significantly so. So combined with thieir opinion that the CLM gave a more real image, and the level of brightness, discussions continue based around the CLM R10+.
Labels: Barco CLM R10+, Barco Screen Pro II, Barco SLM R12+, Christie Digital LX120, Projector Shoot out
