4K DLP By Scott Wilkinson June 25, 2009 — Following on the heels of recent agreements between Sony and two theater chains—AMC and Regal—to deploy Sony's 4K SXRD projectors, Texas Instruments has announced it will provide 4K DLP imaging engines to its three projection customers—Christie, Barco, and NEC—for their next-generation digital-cinema projectors. No indication of a rollout timetable was given in the announcement.

Was this development in response to the Sony announcements? Hardly—TI has been working on 4K for two years. On the other hand, the company has maintained for some time that 2K is plenty good enough, and most consumers can't tell the difference between 2K (2048x1080) and 4K (4096x2160). As a result, TI will continue to develop and sell 2K systems, expecting 4K projectors to be installed in only about 20 percent of its customers' theaters with screens measuring at least 70 feet wide.

In a related story, Barco and Cinemark, the world's second largest commercial-cinema chain, have announced an exclusive partnership to install over 3000 Barco projectors in all 300 Cinemark theater sites in the US, some of which will be 4K.

It seems that commercial cinemas are embracing 4K in order to attract moviegoers with something they can't get at home, though that high resolution will eventually make its way into consumer displays, even if it offers no real benefit on home-sized screens—after all, a bigger number is always better, isn't it?