Panasonic Debuts High-Contrast, 16:9 Micro-portable Projectors For Wide Screen Viewin

[Gregg Lengling]

PT-L300U and PT-L200U targeted at home theatre, business communication and public entertainment applications

 
 
  Feb. 27, 2003 -- Panasonic has introduced two micro-portable projectors equipped with native 16:9 LCD panels ideal for viewing wide-screen video presentations including DVD and HDTV productions.

The PT-L300U and PT-L200U projectors are expected to find broad acceptance in home theatre, business communication and public entertainment applications. Both models offer advanced digital processing technologies that include Digital Cinema Reality(tm), digital noise reduction and 3-D Y/C separation.

The flagship PT-L300U incorporates three 960 x 520 pixel panels (1,555,200 pixels total), a high brightness of 800 ANSI lumens and 800:1 contrast ratio to deliver wide-screen pictures. The companion PT-L200U provides three 858 x 488 pixel panels (total 1,240,000 pixels), a brightness of 700 ANSI lumens, and an excellent contrast ratio of 700:1.

The PT-L300U also offers exclusive image-enhancement technology that utilizes a double refraction crystal device to minimize black separation between pixels, which has been a common problem with non-CRT based home theatre projectors. In addition, the PT-L300U offers a Digital Video Interface (DVI) terminal that allows it to directly receive digital signals from Personal Computer systems.

The PT-L300U provides both vertical and horizontal keystone correction to compensate for image distortion when the projector is used at an angle to the screen. Thanks to an extra short-throw lens, the PT-L300U can display an 80" wide-screen diagonal image from a distance of just 8 feet.

The PT-L300U and PT-L200U offer an SD Memory Card slot for display of JPEG and MPEG-4 images recorded by an SD Memory Card-equipped digital still or digital video camera. Both projectors can display image sizes ranging from 40" to 200", with easy adjustment using the manual optical zoom. They are HDTV-capable and can accept 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i DTV images, plus NTSC. PAL and SECAM analog video formats. The 6.4-pound units offer an abundance of input terminals, including RGB (D-sub HD 15-pin), 4-pin S-video, video, YPBPr, and audio.