Solving Projection Challenges with Barco Residential

Challenges. That’s the word that most people think of when considering two-piece projection for their home or business. Probably the most concerning thing that comes to most people’s minds is “where will I mount the projector?” Lately, our answer to that question has been with greatly simplified mounting mechanisms, or even an ultra-short throw projection system. Still, some customers (mostly business) prefer not to have any cabinetry or projection systems below their screen at all.

Luckily, companies like Barco Residential have been hard at work, innovating some creative solutions to the challenges that are sometimes faced in projection. Most recently, they showed their Wodan Theater Series at the ISE show in a short throw application with an extreme offset. Wodan is a UHD projector suited for environments with large screens or high amounts of ambient light. It’s the real deal, and is capable of up to 15,000 lumens output from a 2.5 kW Xenon light engine. True to fashion, Barco made this unit available in over 9 different lens types making it one of the most versatile projection chassis on the market.

The warp engine that resides at the heart of the Wodan, borrows technology developed in Barco’s Simulation labs. It’s unlike any other offering in the residential space, providing more freedom in projector positioning by allowing the integrator to use their advanced “Image Geometry Correction” (IGC) tools to deliver an image with perfect geometry on the screen even when the projector is outside of the offset range of adjustment. Guess what designers and architects? Barco’s Wodan frees you from projector positioning prison (PPP), making it possible to put your projector where it needs to go, not where it has to go – hiding everything but the image. Why do we love this? Oh, I dunno.

The screen was a custom built frame with our Unity material (reference 1.0 gain) at 13′ wide. We chose this material because we knew that Unity would have the best image reproduction in the controlled lighting setup that they were implementing in their booth. It’s important to maintain as even of a viewing surface as possible, especially when considering such an extremely close and offset application such as this. If there are any imperfections, or alterations in gain, those will become immediately visible in the projected image in the way of hot spotting, sparkling, or loss of resolution.

Being that it’s a 1.0 super matte-white gain with almost no distinguishable texture (the ultra-fine texture is probably the most important key here) and the room was light controlled, we knew Unity would be the perfect solution. The results were beyond what we ever expected.

Barco Residential has accomplished an incredible feat and the best part is, you would never even know it. Because the projector has essentially become a “second thought” in the viewing experience, most reactions to the display have been “I didn’t know Barco was selling TVs.” A few people caught on asking, “where’s the projector?”

Barco Residential has accomplished an incredible feat and the best part is, you would never even know it.

That’s the golden ticket in custom integration. When you can integrate your products, and solve challenges in such a way that your customer isn’t even fully aware of what is actually happened, then you’ve fulfilled your purpose and delivered an incredible experience. This is one of the things we focus greatly on at SI, by removing unnecessary elements from screens such as masking material and making the screen itself an actual design element. Reproducing high-quality images is only half the battle, the rest is how that image is presented in the room.

If you’re already aware that this setup is a two-piece projection system however, it’s a unique experience that can be seen and felt only in-person. Walking up to the screen, you expect to see an outline of your shadow on the screen surface as you would be used to seeing in standard projection systems. Because Barco’s optics were thrown from such a short distance with such an extreme offset, you can stand incredibly close to the viewing surface without any shadowing at all.

This is not the first time we’ve gotten creative with Barco Residential. At CEDIA last year, we partnered up with them firing an image across aisles from their booth into our booth. Over 50′ of throw was involved, projecting onto a relatively small Solo screen of only 100″. It was hilarious when customers would come to our booth thinking we had gotten into the “TV” market. “No, check it out – the projector is way over there.” We would respond, pointing way in the distance to our neighbors.

If you’re a customer, what are some challenges you need to overcome in your space? If you’re an integrator, what are some solutions? We would love to hear from you. This is our call to the wild: “go forth and create awesome experiences.”

Let’s do this.

Since the beginning, it has been our mission to bring you the big screen experience – with the lights on. Let’s work together.