Projectiondesign's Remote Light Source projector puts the lamp in a cool, faraway place
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted January 28th 2010 1:27PM
posted January 28th 2010 1:27PM
If you're gonna dedicate your life and livelihood to projectors, you'd better be able to deliver something beyond the same old, same old. That said, Projectiondesign -- who's offered up devices for "harsh environments" and 3D in the past -- has clearly outdone itself with the FR12 Remote Light Source (RLS) projector. This bad boy places the lamp and cooling fan in a rack-mounted enclosure, which you can then put someplace safely out of the way (and easily accessible). The light source is then free to be mounted on the ceiling somewhere, where it's fed images via 30m liquid light guide (similar to a fiber optic cable, but, you know, with liquid). No longer will you have to grab a ladder when it comes time to change a bulb! No word yet on price or availability, but you can expect to get all that at the big reveal during ISE 2010 this February.
Cool idea... the important question is, how far away can the light source be?
@KAL326
What would really be sweet is if this would become a standard. Then you can just swap out the projector unit or light source as needed (read "as the new hotness hits store shelves").
It states that it has 30meter cable. Plus as a side note it surely looks like the chasis from an older Christie DS30 projector.
@TMoney2007
"30m liquid light"
30 meters, or about 98.5 feet for us stateside folk.
@compubasic I missed that, the missing "a" threw me off.
That's a long damn way...
@TMoney2007
Yeah it sure is, pretty neat idea. I can definitly see its uses. Let's hope the price doesn't make it a luxury feature, although at launch I'm sure it will...
@credo What would be sweet is if some bloggers took criticism a bit better and didn't delete posts indicating their journalistic short comings that confuse the reader.
Hum... that's funny. Who do you think makes that Christie Chassis?
@rackman
projectiondesign is the manufacturer of this design. While it looks like a Christie, in reality, the Christie looks like a projectiondesign for a reason... Check out www.projectiondesign.com for all of the professinal products these guys make in Norway or www.avielo.com for the home theater products
This would be really nice for large lecture halls were they have to use rear project setups in the front of the room to avoid having a regular projector hanging down in the middle. Being able to basically mount and forget the projection side while being able to do the regular bulb replacement maintainence without having to get a ladder 25-30' in the air to get to the projector would be nice.
I wonder why they would do something so innovative and then not take advantage by redesigning the form factor of the projector itself.
@phlavor They would probably had to redesign the projection side from the ground up then as well. The light source input is roughly where the bulb would be. Also given the nature of optics some things need to have a certain focal distance to display the image properly. So its possible they could have gone with a pico size chassis but they might not have been able to get the display size or other image qualities they wanted.
@phlavor
it's not an ipad for hipsters to flaunt about
it's an actual device built for purpose :) beauty in function and not in simplicity.
BAM
@neonn Wow. Apple bashing in a non Apple thread. That's a new low. I was just thinking that not having a bulb to ventilate or contain would make designs like this http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/lgs-wall-mounted-projector easier to implement. Not design for the sake of design, design for people with twelve foot ceilings.
@phlavor Judging by the size of the light source, the projector unit actually is pretty damn small. There are still plenty of heat generating components on the projector side that keep this from being ridiculously small.
@phlavor What about us people with 10' ceilings? HMM?!??!
More importantly, the noise of the fan is far-far away. That was my biggest complaint with my old projector.
@NXTwoThou
amen to that! Fans are the curse of home theaters!
Very cool, but this will be frakking amazing when they ship the wireless version.
@Bosco
Haha wireless remote lighting, good one...
@Bosco I hope your joking. From the way its described the cable guides the light to the unit.; without the cable it wouldnt work.
@majortom1981
you could have a laser through the air carrying the light
I agree with 007
Laser in the back, projector with wide angle in the front - great for burning moths that fly in between.
I like the fact I don't have to have the projector acting like a 200 watt heater in my viewing room (no AC in the summer).
Could be cool. Depends on how many Lumens their magic cable can push.
Mmmm, liquid light. Delicious.
- Similar to fiber optic cable, but liquid -
Fiber optic cables are liquid... glass is a liquid.
Early on in fiber optics, a large ski hill had fiber optic cables brought up from the base to the station at the top (for telecom). The installers couldn't figure out why the fiber kept breaking. They thought it was the cold or grooming machines or packed snow shifting... then they remembered that glass is liquid. And that the height of fiber pull without loops was stretching out the fiber cable (draining) and then would simply snap.
@ChuckM
Glass being liquid is an urban myth.
@Wwhat True, glass is considered an amorphous solid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphous_solid
@Wwhat
My bad and you are correct... But I don't think I would call it an Urban Myth though... it is a solid, but has liquid properties... moves, stretches, drips, etc...
I did check and there is a patent on Fiber Optics with Liquids as the core, not sure if they're being used.
Again, my bad.
@ChuckM Anything will start to lose shear strength near its glass transition temperature. At room temperature, glass doesn't flow.
The urban myth about old glass windows being thicker at the bottom because of flow is not true. The shape of the glass actually has to do with the manufacturing process. Plate glass used to be made by spinning a blob of molten glass on a table, so it would end up thicker on the outside of the plate.
Modern plate glass is made by floating the molten glass over a pool of molten tin so it is almost perfectly uniform in thickness.
"30m liquid light guide" (aka cable)
*"30m liquid light guide" aka cable
Also note the Massive "RLS link" on both - I bet that huge cable is required as well.
so do the images go through the tube aswell, or just the light? so all the actual projector needs is a lense
@007
The inputs all being on the lens end is probably something of a clue here.
Wow, that's really smart. Do you think I could hook up an iPad to this?
So will this work with the iPad?
I would like if they could make projectors with high efficiency LEDs instead.
@jamesFF There are LED projectors coming out now, still super expensive but promising a lot of enhancement over lightbulb projectors, not least when it comes to maintenance costs. Still good old DLP tech in them though.
why not using a LED bulb?
they don't run really warm and you don't need to change them as often.