PTI hopes to break into the movies with its Illumina laser projection system.
Power Technology Inc. of Alexander is marketing a new laser-illuminated projection system for cinemas called Illumina, which the firm says could help change the movie projection business.
PTI, a leading laser manufacturer with Department of Defense contracts and clients all over the world, has developed a way to incorporate laser light sources into projection images.
Walter Burgess, vice president of sales and engineering for the company that his father Thomas Burgess founded in 1969, said there are about 130,000 movie screens in the world, and current projectors are using a technology that is about 200 years old and at its limit.
“IMAX can’t produce larger movie screens until they find another light source,” Burgess said. “They have identified lasers as the light source of the future for cinema projection.”
That source could be Illumina, developed at PTI over the past year. Burgess believes its use of multiple lasers to produce full-time color – red, green, blue and even white when combined – represents an advantage over other products. Its architecture supports red, green and blue lasers into one beam.
“The combination of the varying wavelengths produces natural color and exceptionally bright images with no color breaking or rainbow effects,” he said. “Illumina’s wide range of capabilities overcomes many of the issues associated with conventional lamp-based projection, while at the same time providing energy-saving features and a lower total cost of ownership.”
Burgess estimates Illumina can provide an annual cost savings of $3,000 per screen while allowing more than 10,000 hours of usage compared to about 3,000 hours with some lamps.
“Illumina increases the projector color gamut, enabling an expanded color gamut and better color reproduction,” he said. “And, when used in 3D applications, the laser light doesn’t require a polarizing filter like many film or digital projectors, which causes a loss of light. Laser source have the potential of making today’s dark 3D films just as bright as conventional 2D films.”
Today’s 3D films suffer from a 50 percent reduction in brightness. Plus, Illumina provides electrical, heating and safety benefits over traditional projectors, Burgess said.
“There’s an opportunity here,” Burgess said. “China is opening five new screens a day.”
Competition in the laser-illuminated projection market exists from companies like Epson and Casio, but the Illumina architecture is useful in several other applications including theme parks and the manufacture of printed circuit boards, Burgess said.
“We offer a breadth of choices not available with other products on the market,” he said.
PTI currently seeking to partner with projector manufacturers like IMAX and Dolby to fully penetrate the projection market. By keeping its “ears to the ground” through organizations like the Laser Illuminated Projector Association, PTI learned of the potential movie market.
“We just had to figure out how to effectively combine a lot of lasers into one big light source,” Burgess said.
PTI’s laser products were on display Friday as part of U.S. Manufacturing Day, for which the company hosted an open house and tours of its manufacturing facility that included Shane Broadway, director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education; tech founder James Hendren of Accelerate Arkansas; Kelley Bass, director of Little Rock’s Museum of Discovery; and representatives of Mid-America Science Museum in Hot Springs, scheduled to re-open in March following an extensive renovation.
PTI is a client firm of Innovate Arkansas and the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority that employs about 50. The full suite of PTI laser products includes military applications (range finding, sighting, defensive countermeasures), homeland security, law enforcement, bio-analytics, biosciences, DNA profiling and even cancer detection.
Burgess said holograms represent another large potential market for PTI’s laser technology.
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