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  • Sony to Stop Manufacturing Digital Cinema Projectors

    Sony to Stop Manufacturing Digital Cinema Projectors

    Sun, 04/26/2020 - 09:48 -- Nick Dager

    After 2020, Sony Digital Cinema will no longer manufacture projectors for professional movie theatres, a decision that was confirmed for Digital Cinema Report by a top Sony executive. The company will continue to honor all of the maintenance agreements it has with existing customers and will continue to sell professional digital cinema projectors through the end of the year.




    Furthermore, said Theresa Alesso, President, Imaging Products & Solutions, Professional Division at Sony Electronics, the company will continue to make and sell digital signage screens for movie theatre lobbies, concession stands and elsewhere. “The level of commitment we have to the theatrical market remains strong,” she said.

    For many, if not most, of Sony Digital Cinema employees, Friday was their last day as a Sony employee, several sources confirmed for Digital Cinema Report.

    Alesso would not directly comment about what the move means for Sony’s efforts to bring an LED cinema screen to the exhibition marketplace. She suggested that many such decisions have been hampered by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. But she did say, “Large display is an important part of Sony’s business. LED is something we’re going to keep our eyes on.”

    The technology director for a national theatre chain, and one of Sony Digital Cinema’s oldest and largest customers, said he learned about the decision some time ago. “They will be providing parts and support for several more years but all production has ended,” he said. He asked that his name not be used because he’s on furlough during the COVID-19 crisis and is not authorized to speak for his company. “I'll need to work out the details with Sony when I get back to work.”

    He continued, “I've had some suspicions about Sony's future for quite a while, which is why I've been working so much with Cinionic over the last year to better meet [our] standards. We have Cinionic/Barco projectors in three of our theatres already and have ordered their new SP4K model for our [most recent] expansion.”

    “I was hoping Sony's 815 laser projector would save them and encourage more product options,” he concluded. “Unfortunately, that wasn't enough.”

    Just last April, during CinemaCon 2019, Galaxy Theatres opened the world’s first branded Sony Digital Cinema premium large format auditorium at its Las Vegas Boulevard Mall location, pictured here.

    One long time industry analyst said, “I’ve been expecting this for a long time. They have a liability issue with their projectors due to the technology of the imaging device. The ultraviolet light from the projector’s lamp slowly destroys the imaging device, and the projected image loses color. The solution is to replace the imaging devices once a year or so. But this is expensive.”

    The analyst also asked that his name not be used since that could jeopardize any future work.

    “So how could Sony Electronics afford to support the replacement of all of these imaging devices under the extended warranty?” he asked. The answer was to have Sony Pictures fund the projector business under the virtual print fee agreements.

    “Now that the VPF deals are expiring,” the analyst continued, “one would think that Sony Pictures will gladly get out of shoring up Sony Electronics. So here we are. Sony Electronics cannot afford to sell a digital cinema projector whose warranty eats Sony Electronics profit.”

    He said this situation could have been prevented. “Texas Instruments offered three DLP Cinema licenses,” he explained. “Christie took one, Barco another, and Digital Projection the third. Then Digital Projection decided not to enter the cinema market, and IMAX bought the third license with plans to build their own projector. But those plans changed, and Sony was offered the license. The reason NEC has a DLP license is that Sony refused, deciding to use a different but flawed technology that was being developed in-house. Had Sony taken the DLP license, there would still be a Sony Digital Cinema projector business today.”
    https://www.digitalcinemareport.com/...ema-projectors

  • #2
    Somehow we could see this coming... It's still a bit sad to see one option less in this already niche market.

    I somehow hope this COVID-19 thing will bring forward somewhat of a revolution as such on the "DCI market", with now one player down, maybe the strict requirements which primarily serve as a security layer can be folded into a more cross-industry thing. This would allow us to combine the already niche cinema market into the somewhat larger "big projector" market. At least it would allow the likes of Panasonic to compete on this same market, without the need to invest a lot of money (and politics) into making their products DCI compliant.

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    • #3
      Sony.jpg sigh...9,10

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      • #4
        All be damn. Not like they had a big imprint in the cinema world these days anyway.

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        • #5
          Interesting that this news took as long as it did to enter the public domain. I first heard it at the beginning of April from a co-worker, who I strongly suspect heard it from the "technology director for a national theater chain" quoted in the article; but was told not to discuss it outside the company, including posting anything on F-T, because Sony had not made any public statement at that point.

          I guess this essentially means that now that the initial 35mm > digital conversion is complete and that the volume of projector sales will be a lot smaller going forward, the market for fully DCI-compliant projectors isn't large enough to support four manufacturers, and that the weakest (lowest volume of sales, and the light engine flaw noted in the article) therefore bowed out.

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          • #6
            It circulated for a couple of months already. Some major employees left Sony around the beginning to the year. However, without an official statement...

            No statement so far what's going to happen with Sonys Direct View DCI solution, CLEDIS. They announced DCI compliance more than a year ago - but, no product so far.

            I'm afraid that CLEDIS won't make it either. Otherwise, it would be a stronger statement if Sony said 'We consider Direct View the future of digital cinema and thus draw back from projection'.

            - Carsten
            Last edited by Carsten Kurz; 05-04-2020, 08:25 PM.

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            • #7
              Sony likely wanted to sell off the rest of their unsold new projectors in the warehouse, so they were keeping this as quiet as possible knowing once the news broke they would never be able to sell any more of them.

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              • #8
                Samsung and LG both have DCI-approved LED videowalls, so that is now a crowded market, too. Sony would be late to the party and having to claw away existing market share, unless they were able to bring the price down by an order of magnitude compared to their competitors. And for all but the most prestige screens, they are just too expensive compared to the new generation of 3P laser projectors.

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                • #9
                  I only know Sony from their super-high-end LED walls, they are by far more expensive than any competition out there. But yeah, those 8K LED walls they show off, never seen a picture quite like it...
                  Still, has any of the DCI-LED-wall manufacturers solved the speaker-placement problems yet?

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                  • #10
                    Now it would be nice if Sony makes all technical documents available, as there will be no more "Sony authorised [partners] for Digital Cinema Products"

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                    • #11
                      I guess their current partners remain "authorized partners" for as long as the products remain under support? I also guess that those documents will slowly start to leak to the "semi public domain" over the course of the following years, when products start to rotate out of the support-window.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Marcel Birgelen View Post
                        I guess their current partners remain "authorized partners" for as long as the products remain under support?
                        My legal english is quite poor, I was making reference to this paragraph:
                        Screenshot_105.png

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                        • #13
                          It was a case of TL;DR... sorry... But yeah... Who can we refer to for spare parts then? Sony directly?

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                          • #14
                            We could never get them to share their protocol for commanding their projectors in automation. But I wouldn't say that we went out of our way trying. I think the closest we got was a guy that we spent a couple of hours with in a bar at the airport after Show East once.

                            Anyway, their projectors are out there. If anyone has the protocol or can grab it, that might be worth doing. We may still need to integrate these for some time. They might still sell off the projector business to someone.

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                            • #15
                              I guess this essentially means that now that the initial 35mm > digital conversion is complete and that the volume of projector sales will be a lot smaller going forward,
                              Most do not know that Sony had to give away the projectors during VPF's and in turn they got was the VPF fee paid to those sites. Nor could they cover the larger screens with theor projectors, so chains installing them had to fall back on DLP to light up the big sheets.

                              All I can say is...

                              Good Riddance! "Run! Its's a Sony!"


                              Last edited by Mark Gulbrandsen; 05-05-2020, 07:43 AM.

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