Panasonic has launched a major upgrade to its flagship large-venue projector range with the release of the quad-lamp, 3-chip, 20,000 lumens PT-DZ21K2. The projector joins the DS20K2, DW17K2 and DZ16K2 in the DZ21K2 Evo Series, which debuted at the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.
Hartmut Kulessa, European projector marketing manager at Panasonic, commented: “With Panasonic’s powerful new Real Motion Processor to enable 120Hz driving speed, Panasonic has refined the Evo series’ optical engine to enhance focus performance, resulting in improved image clarity, all from an extremely compact body.”
Other upgrades include a Digital Link single LAN cable connection, two 3G-SDI inputs (PT- DZ21K2 and PT-DS20K2 only), and a newly developed Detail Clarity Processor picture enhancement system.
Panasonic has redesigned the lamp modulation system, which lowered the power consumption and extended the recommended lamp replacement from 2,000 hours to 3,000 hours. The new series is significantly more efficient, due to the use of reusable, long-life eco filters and lower-wattage lamps. A hermetic liquid cooling system has reduced noise levels from 49dB to 46dB, which is claimed to represent a 50% drop in perceived noise.
The DZ21K series has been used extensively across the rental and staging industry. Three projectors were used at the 2015 London Marathon Press Centre. Richard Crowe, MD of Creative Staging, added: “We chose Panasonic because they could offer a range of projectors and lenses that suited our needs best. We’ve had good experience with Panasonic projectors in the past and they offer the performance and excellent reliability we need at a good price point.’’
The PT-DZ21K was also used to create a visual concept for the launch of Coldplay’s album Ghost Stories with 62 projectors used to help create a Sky Full of Stars. Ben Miles of MixedEMotionsLondon, explained: “The size of the DZ21K was a massive factor. It seemed to be a similar size in terms of footprint as some other projectors but, when you look at it, the body size inside the frame was a lot smaller.’’
