OLYMPUS TECHNOZONE Vol.49 2001-03
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Vivid colors even in bright room setting, plus easy remote-control operation
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Novel design
of the HDPS100 screen.
(Click
on image to expand it) |
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----About how much will this model sell for?
At this stage we believe we will be selling them for something
in excess of 20 million yen each. One competitor product comprises a single projector
with a luminous flux of 10,000 ANSI lumen (the unit used by the American National
Standards Institute) and a resolution of 1.3 million pixels. That particular
product sells for about 35 million yen. The HDPS100 delivers the same level of
brightness with a resolution of four million pixels. We're hoping that we can
sell enough of them to bring the price down to around the 10 million yen mark.
Since both the projector and the computer are sourced from
competitor firms, it's really quite difficult to reduce the cost of the product.
Reducing the price to the current cost of production is a tough goal, but we
already have a production system in planning at the Okaya site--so we're already
ahead of ourselves.
----And where will most of the sales likely be?
With this giant screen, the bigger market
for it will be the United States, rather than Japan. But we're
making preparations to sell it both at home and abroad.
----Where should it be set up?
Since the projectors we are using are designed
to be used indoors rather than outdoors, that's where the display
needs to be set up. But I guess you could also use it temporarily
for outdoor events as well. In an outdoor setting, the effect of
sunlight is always present, so luminous displays such as those
found at many baseball stadiums or on top of buildings are much
more suitable.
The HDPS100 system is the right choice for
indoor settings that are comparatively bright. It is designed to
produce a picture that is sufficiently vivid under such an adverse
condition. We've designed it so that the area on which each projector
throws light is relatively small. Each projector has a brightness
of around 1,100 ANSI lumen, and shines onto a small area just 40
centimeters square. This makes the projectors that we use overwhelmingly
brighter than the effect that would be generated by a single projector
designed for a 100-inch screen. The upshot is that you can use
the HDPS100 in a normal room with standard illumination.
Partly because it is so much brighter than
competitive products, it was a big hit at the DreamTech show--plus
the fact its picture is so pin-sharp and fresh.
----Can you move it; and if you do, do you need to set up
all over again?
It's been designed so that it can be moved
around quite easily with no need for re-adjustment. And once it
has been moved, installation is not hard at all: altogether, you
can complete the set-up within two or three hours. Anyone can operate
it-- if he/she can use a digital camera.
You do need to calibrate the system, but this
can be done using the remote control rather than the computer.
Once you have finished the installation and booted up the system,
you simply set up the calibration camera and the dark curtain and
then it can calibrate itself automatically while you watch on the
remote control screen. You will not find that you cannot use this
product even if you are unable to operate a PC.
"Olympus is a company where we really
care about the details and the quality. This product was based
on the same approach that we take in developing digital cameras
--realizing the superior image resolution that conventional silver
halide photography can provide. Imagine this as a machine that
is designed to print out a series of enormous photographs onto
a screen. That's how we achieved the very high definition. And
because it's an Olympus product, and we have grown up immersed
in photography culture, the picture quality of the final product
is superb.
The screen is huge, like in a movie theater, so digital pictures will soon replace
films. With that goal in mind, I guess the HDPS100 has just taken this thinking
to the ultimate step. Even so, there's still a lot we could do in the future
with this range. Since the system uses projectors that produce high-definition
images, it is possible in theory to raise the picture quality even further simply
by using more projectors. It's marvelous, expandable technology.
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