Sanyo North America Corporation, one of the largest manufacturers of LCD and DLP projectors, has just announced that it has introduced four new high performance Wide XGA format projectors, in the US market. The target of these is actually a wide range of applications, from environments like large conference rooms and lecture halls to digital signage applications. The PLC-WM5500 and PLC-WM5500L both deliver a standard brightness of 5,500 ANSI lumens, while the other two, PLC-WM 4500 and PLC-WM4500L, put out only 4,500.

"These wide format projectors set a new performance standard for brightness and resolution in their price class,” states Sam Malik, Vice President and General Manager of the Presentation Technologies Group in SANYO North America’s Consumer Solutions Division.

All of the four projectors sport native resolutions of 1,280 x 800, this covering the 720p standard easily, thus displaying a lot more information than it would have been possible with 4:3 XGA panels and 1,024 x 768 resolution. The impressive brightness of the first two projectors was achieved by designing a new optical engine, as well as a fresh cooling technology, reaching an optical efficiency of 40% higher than common projectors. Sanyo's new Optical Engine takes advantage of inorganic liquid crystal panels that are mixed with the latest cooling and heat dissipation technologies, to minimize effects of heat on the components.

“With their wide aspect ratio and new functions like our Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture modes, they provide users with not only a larger display palette, but the ability to simultaneously display in a more than one format. Further, their high brightness levels mean they can be used a wide variety of ambient lighting conditions and environments, including very large spaces,” adds Sam Malik.

Sanyo scheduled availability for these projectors in the following months of summer, as in PLC-WM5500 and PLC-WM4500L will ship in July, with a price of $5,645 and $4,095, respectively, the PLC-WM5500L in June for $4,995 and the PLC-WM4500 in August for $4,545.


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