Sanyo Gains New Retail Distribution for Front Projectors

The PLC-Z3000 has three 0.74-inch LCDs and delivers 1,200 lumens and a 65,000:1 contrast ratio. It was priced at $1,995 at introduction before Sanyo cut it to $1,600, Holt said. Still-lower pricing is possible by the holiday selling season, he said. BrandsMart officials weren’t available to comment right away Thursday. But Nebraska Furniture Mart expects in the coming weeks to bring the Sanyo projector into a 12-model line that includes Epson, Mitsubishi, Optoma and Sony brands, CE Merchandising Manager Mark Shaw said.

“We're trying to bring selection to the line and we're looking to broaden the assortment and round things out,” Shaw said. Nebraska expects to install in the next 30 days a display in its Kansas City store that will feature nine screens to demonstrate front projectors, Shaw said. “We'll prove it out there” and then consider bringing to the retailer’s Omaha, Neb. location, he said.

Holt said he plans to meet with Sanyo factory executives Friday to discuss plans for a new home-theater front projector that won’t be a “radical change” from the Z3000 in terms of performance, but will be “slightly better and have a slightly lower cost.” He added: “We were a good producer for Best Buy in the stores that sold home theater projectors. If anybody the size of Best Buy demonstrates the product, somebody would sell a heck of a lot more projectors. But it’s a price point and a box, and the only people buying it are people who have researched it.” Holt said that “if you look at where Epson” sells its projectors, “that’s where we should be.”

Sanyo is awaiting the completion of its merger with Panasonic. The deal has been delayed as governments in six countries finish their antitrust reviews. The U.S. Justice Department is expected to complete its work next month. Panasonic and Sanyo together produce 60 percent of the rechargeable batteries for hybrid vehicles, and that’s a major emphasis of the reviews.

If the merger goes through, Sanyo and Panasonic would maintain separate sales and marketing teams for their front projectors but could combine their research and development to improves its results, Holt said. Sanyo wants next year to introduce 3-chip DLP front projectors where Panasonic has experience in that business, he said. And Panasonic might take advantage of Sanyo’s QuaDrive technology to increase brightness and enhance color, Holt said.

Panasonic’s and Sanyo’s distribution of front projectors overlap, but Holt said he doesn’t see that as a problem. Panasonic and JVC successfully competed for years though Matsushita was JVC’s majority owner, he said. “What’s being discussed is Sanyo will be operated as a separate entity, just as JVC was,” Holt said. “My hope is we share development. I'd trade the QuaDrive engines for 3 DLP, and we could keep our separate brands and distribution strategies.” Looking back at mergers in the projector business, Holt said, “One plus one doesn’t always equal two if you put everything together, so we're hoping to keep it separate.”

Sanyo is extending use of its QuaDrive technology. It features three Epson-sourced 1.3-inch LCD devices with a “color control device” that serves as a shutter to boost yellow output and increase brightness. The technology uses the LCD panels to modulate that color, taking a little yellow from the red to deliver 7,000 lumens in the PLC-XP200L ($9,995). A new model ($20,000) that keeps the XP200L’s 1,024x768 resolution, but increases brightness to 12,000 lumens, will ship by fall, Holt said. A third projector will be added by January that uses 1.2W panels with 1,280x800 resolution, Holt said. Christie Digital sells a QuaDrive- equipped LX-700 projector.

“I wish we had” had widescreen XGA resolution “first, because if we had launched QuaDrive we would have sold more to the rental staging, churches and universities” that are interested in the technology, Holt said. XGA “will be a better model for us than the first one and sales of the first one have been good,” he said.

Sanyo also is offering a module bearing Amimon’s WHDI chipset as a $5,000 option for its PDG-DHT100L projector that shipped in April and the PDG-DET100 that arrives next week, Holt said. Amimon’s technology allows delivery of up to 1080i video throughout the home in the 5 GHz band. Amimon also has licensing agreements with Sony and Panasonic. The DHT-100L has a single 0.95-inch DLP chip with 1,920x1,080 resolution, 6,500 lumens, 7,500:1 contrast ratio and a 330- watt UHP lamp. The WHDI technology is also compatible with the Sanyo PDC-XF47 front projector, which uses three 1.8-inch LCDs with 1,024x768 resolution, 2,000:1 contrast ratio and 15,000 lumens delivered from four, 330-watt UHP lamps. The WHDI module shipped in May and is packaged with a transmitter. It fits into an input slot on the side of the DHT100L.

In Japan, where the WHDI module shipped last year, sales have been “growing at a steady pace,” said Keiichi Yodoshi, general manager of the Projection Division at Sanyo Digital System. “It’s in its early stages and we didn’t expect it to take off immediately,” Yodoshi said.

Infocomm 09 Show Notebook…

Toshiba will sell off the last of its front projectors by September as it gets out of the business, sources told us. Three employees, charged with disposing of about 3,000 unsold units, remain with the projector group, they said. Toshiba considered closing the business last year, but postponed the move in hopes that a new pico projector would help revive it, the sources said. But the economic crisis doomed those plans, they said. Jane Poon, the projector product marketing manager, is expected to move to another job at Toshiba, they said. Toshiba is relying heavily on reseller rebates and other incentives to sell off the remaining inventory, they said. Toshiba hasn’t responded to our queries.

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Sharp cut three jobs when its imaging and information division combined its retail and commercial sales staffs, company executives confirmed. Steve Lyon, who previously headed sales of front projectors, LCD monitors, copiers and other office products, will direct the combined group, said Anthony Titone, senior product marketing manager. Larry Schiltz will shift to directing sales of display products for the combined group, Titone said. “It’s all about cutting costs and in the long term it makes sense” to merge the sales organizations,” Titone said. Meanwhile, Sharp is weighing introducing a three-chip DLP front projector in early 2010 at the high-end of its home theater line, Product Marketing Manager Sean McBride said. The XV-Z15000 ($2,500), which uses a single 0.65-inch DLP, tops the line up with 1080p resolution, 30,000:1 contrast ratio and 1,600 lumens. Sharp shipped the XV-Z15000 in March as a lower priced alternative to its XV-Z20000 ($7,000). Sharp also demonstrated a version of its PG-D4010X ($2,500) featuring 3-D firmware built into a 0.7-inch DLP with 1,024x768 resolution, 4,200 lumens and 2,500:1 contrast ratio. Sharp showed the 3-D-capable PG- D4010X as a prototype “to gauge customer interest” and isn’t likely to add the necessary firmware until early 2010, Titone said. By adding the 3-D firmware to chip, the need for a 3-D transmitter is eliminated, Sharp officials said. The projector also has a 120 Hz frame rate, transmitting 60 Hz to each eye via 3-D glasses.

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LG will ship a network-attached storage device with rewritable Blu-ray for the consumer market in late August, pricing not set, executives said. The model will have two empty bays, allowing users to install their own hard drives, they said. The unit is a consumer version of the N4B1 ($799) that will ship with four bays for commercial applications, said Kim Way, senior marketing manager for commercial products. The N4B1 will be sold in the education channel as part of LG’s 17-inch and 19-inch Smart Vine monitors that use desktop software to tie together PCs, May said. LG also will ship a $5,000 65-inch LCD monitor for digital signage featuring 1,920x1080p resolution and 3,000:1 contrast ratio. There are immediate plans to add a 65-inch LCD TV, a company spokesman said. LG is seeking to expand digital signage sales within its business solutions division, having hired former 3M executive Jeffrey Dowell as vice president. Dowell, who started at LG this week, will set up a digital signage sales organization, the company said.