Leica, the manufacturer of high-end cameras and lenses, has decided to step its toes into the large-scale TV and home cinema market with the first Leica-branded 4K laser projector. The company released a few projectors in the past, but they weren’t Leica-branded.
The Verge The Verge reported that the Leica Cine 1 is an ultra-short throw (UST) laser projector capable of projecting a 4K image with Dolby Atmos sound at a maximum size of 100 inches, using Leica’s Summicron lenses.
Leica is producing two laser projectors actually. One can generate roughly 2500 lumens to project a 100-inch 4K 60Hz image from a distance of 30 cm from the display wall, while the other can generate 2100 lumens to project an 80-inch image from a distance of 15 cm.
The amount of light emitted by a single birthday candle 30cm away is equivalent to one lumen.
The projector has a durable, silver premium aluminum body with a slim automatic dust cover for lens protection. For the laser tech, Leica and Hisense collaborated on the triple RGB laser light engine. Additionally, it utilises a Texas Instruments digital light processing (DLP) chip and has a latency of about 30ms.
The Leica Cine 1 contains a built-in TV tuner, a Common Interface slot, a total of three HDMI ports (including one HDMI 2.1 connector with eARC), one USB 2.0 port, and one USB 3.0 port. Leica says Android TV will “probably” run on the US version and they are hoping to include 4.2 Atmos-certified audio out of the box.
Leica is planning to release the projector in Q2 2023 for Europe, Q3 for China, and Q4 for the US for the price of USD6,900 (RM30,974) for the 80-inch version and USD7,900 (RM35,463) for the 100-inch version.
The Verge added that the specifications, release dates, and prices are subject to change.
