New projector announcements

[Brain Sturgeon]

It's CEDIA time, which usually means a slew of new front projectors; so I thought I'd start a thread on new announcements.

JVC has announced the RS-15, RS-25, and RS-35. The RS-15 and RS-25 appear to be very similar to the RS-10 ad RS-20 in performance, with light output and other measurables (on/off contrast) virtually identical. The new units appear to have improvements in the CMS and have added "Clearmotion" which is JVC's implementation of Frame Interpolation. There is also a mention of improvements in the lens with improvement in ANSI contrast. The RS-35 will be a "select" version of the RS-25 with hand picked/matched optics/polarizers/chips and improved convergence. These will reportedly have better on/off performance as well.

MSRPs are $5495 for the RS-15, $7995 for the RS-25, and $9995 for the RS-35. Jason Turk has a great early review of the units here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1174409

Sim2 has announced the Mico 50 single DarkChip 4 DLP projector incorporating an LED light source with expected lifespan of 30,000 hours (!). Lumens output has not been announced, although it sounds like it will be about 1000. Contrast ratio stated put to 100,000:1, although I'll believe it when I see it. Here's Sim2's page on the projector: http://www.sim2usa.com/home/us/grand-cinema-mico/mico50

MSRP has not been announced.

Sim2 has also announced the C3X Lumis, which is basically a single unit version of the Lumis HOST (which placed much of the electronic innards in a separate box from the projector itself). I would expect performance to be identical to the Lumis HOST. MSRP has not been announced.

Sim2 may also be announcing an addition to it's high end line. Reportedly the HT6000 will be north of $100k.

Epson will be announcing 4 new 1080p units, including the 8500UB which will reportedly sport a 200,000:1 on/off contrast ratio (again, I'll believe it when I see it), as well as an upgraded frame interpolation system, which was reportedly one of the weaknesses of the 7500UB. The European version of it (TW5500) will be listing at €3200 ($4640). Here are a couple of pages on these:
http://www.aboutprojectors.com/news/...new-flagships/
http://www.aboutprojectors.com/Epson...projector.html
http://www.projectorreviews.com/blog...ails/#more-461

The Epson 6500UB has been EOL'd and will not be available much longer.

Panasonic has announced the PT-AE4000, which adds a new "rich red lamp" and an improved dynamic iris, reportedly increasing on/off to 80,000:1 (yada, yada, yada). MSRP appears unchanged from the AE3000. A couple of other details:

• a new optical system
• 100Hz Intelligent Frame Creation
• an enhanced Lens Memory 2 system, able to store up to six zoom/focus positions
• automatic switching between 16:9 and 2.35:1 content using signal aspect detection
• Advanced Gamma Adjustment
• intelligent power management system, able to reduce lamp output in scenes where full brightness isn't required

Here's a page on it: http://www.trustedreviews.com/home-c...or-Unveiled/p1

Any others you guys have heard? I'm pretty sure Sony has some new models coming. I'll post these and any others as I hear/read them.