In September InFocus will release its ScreenPlay 5700 projector in Australia. Could this be the perfect home theatre projector? It uses what is apparently Texas Instrument’s newest DMD, the Matterhorn. I say apparently because TI has seen fit not to mention it on its DLP web site. So much for up to the minute promotions!
I have long maintained that for PAL countries XGA is a very good resolution for projectors. That’s because they offer 1,024 by 768 pixels. If you are playing ananamorphic PAL DVD, then you can work out the vertical resolution of a 4:3 projector this way. Multiply the horizontal resolution by 9 and then divide by 16. Do this to 1,024 and you get 576 pixels vertically. Since PAL delivers a 576 line picture, that makes a perfect match with no rescaling. Potentially this is a much better picture.
The problem with projectors until now is that they have been designed with computer applications in mind. Or, in the case of widescreen models, with either high definition or US-style NTSC resolution in mind. See NTSC is 480 lines. The maths to upscale to the 720 lines available on DLP projectors based on the Mustang chip is easy: multiply by 1.5. But PAL, while it works well, receives a 1.25X increase. I am not sure that this doesn’t actually detract from picture quality.
The problem with XGA has been, despite the mathematical nicety of the system for PAL, it seems like a shame to throw away the 200,000 pixels at the top and bottom of the screen. The Matterhorn apparently offers a native 1,024 by 576 pixel resolution which should be simply perfect for PAL DVD playback (and NTSC viewers will, for once, get the compromised performance of modest upscaling!)