Digital Projection has officially launched its Satellite Modular Laser System (Satellite MLS) for the North American market. The key feature of this new system is the separation of the pure laser light engine – with the associated power and thermal management – to a remote location, via fiber optics. This enables a compact and virtually silent projection “head” that primarily contains optics, video processing, and cooling related to the image modulators, providing more flexible integration options.
Given the modular components that comprise the Satellite MLS system, integrators can now design a custom “one-to-many,” or “many-to-one” configuration between the MLS light sources and the Satellite projection heads.
In a one-to-many configuration, a single 10,000 lumen MLS light module illuminates multiple projection heads, equally splitting and providing matched brightness to each head through the life of the illumination system. Intelligent control mechanisms provide lumen matching of up to four Satellite projection heads, while reducing system downtime for scheduled maintenance.
In a many-to-one configuration, multiple 10,000-lumen MLS light modules can be combined to illuminate a single, ultra-compact Satellite projection head. This creates very compact and quiet projection heads that produce up to 40,000 lumens of light output, and present lumens-per-weight and volume ratios that the manufacturer says are far superior to any other projection system currently on the market.
As integrated projectors have become brighter, they have inevitably become larger, heavier, louder, more expensive, and more-power hungry – factors that create difficult challenges for many installations and applications. Satellite MLS, however, uses fiber optics to efficiently and safely transport pure RGB laser illumination from the light source to the Satellite head.
In the past, RGB laser illumination was reserved for only extremely large-scale and high-budget applications, but Digital Projection’s Satellite MLS system now makes this technology accessible, more deployable, and more affordable to the wider AV market.
In addition to the on-screen benefits that RGB laser illumination offers, including REC2020 color space, the Satellite MLS’ design allows the light source and projection head to be separated by as much as 100 meters.
Each Satellite projection head is designed with a closed loop cooling system, sealing all of the critical optical components from ingress of contaminants. A further benefit of the reduced thermal dissipation and small size of the projection heads is that, when required, supplementary environmental enclosures become easier to design and manufacture, further reducing total system costs.
The Satellite MLS product line has been developed to provide WUXGA, Native 4K, and 8K resolutions and will also include Digital Projection’s recent INSIGHT 4K HFR 360 solution for immersive and collaborative 4K-3D environments. Systems can be configured to produce from 2,500 lumens up to 40,000-plus lumens per projection head.
