Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/07/17
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I thought I'd report on a relatively tiny market niche that
Leitz/Leica is supplying: high-res, large-screen video/data projectors.
Here at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, we are a fortnight away
(argh! panic!) from opening a $47million University Center. The 450-seat
auditorium therein will contain two Hughes/JVC ILA-technology projectors
(for side-by-side images). Each has three (for red-green-blue) Leitz
lenses. A third H/JVC will be located in the Grand Ballroom.
ILA (Image Light Amplification) is currently the Rolls-Royce of
projection technologies (I say "currently" because TI's DMD (Digital
Micromirror Device) technology is coming along very fast and has the
potential to blow all previous projection technologies right out of the
water). Anyway, these H/JVCs can display better than 1280 x1024 at very
high brightness, and NTSC video, quadrupled in scan to 1024 x 768,
knocks your sox off, especially from a viddisc or Betacam tape. They
cost a mere $65k or so a pop and weigh in at a feathery 350#.
Actually, Hughes' first projectors of the mid-80s, the monochrome
700s and 800s, also used Leitz Canada projection lenses.
The three H/JVCs are part of about $1mil of resident media
technology we are installing in the Center.
BTW, "Hughes" is indeed Hughes Aircraft, of which the projector
division is a tiny corner, plant in Carlsbad, CA.
Stan Yoder
Media Technology Consultant
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh