Hands on with 4K2K super-projector, Meridian claims £100K D-ILA model is simply 'the best'

UK high-end specialist Meridian Audio has confirmed that it will launch its cutting-edge Digital Cinema Standard projection system early 2009, following the January CES in Las Vegas. The 810 Reference Video System is expected to retail for a reassuringly expensive £100,000 (if not a tad more).

Over the course of several hours, Home Cinema Choice was given exclusive access to the groundbreaking system, where we had ample opportunity to see the kit in action. And, after scrutinising upscaled (to 4K2K) HD footage from Cars and Apocalypto plus SD material including Gladiator and Sin City, we're tempted to agree with Meridian's claim that it offers 'the most realistic home theatre performance in the world'. Its pictures offer astounding black levels, immaculate grey scale and colour fidelity, with supreme detail.

The Meridian system consists of two primary elements, the 10 megapixel D-ILA-based 810 Reference Video Projector and the 810 Reference Video Scaler. Four lens variants will be made available at launch: three throw lengths (short, medium and long) plus a motorised anamorphic sled for 2.35:1 material. 

The scaler itself is based around Marvell's award-winning Qdeo video processing suite, which employs the firm's 88DE2710 digital video format converter, while the PJ features a trio of 4,096 x 2,400 pixel D-ILA chips, for individual red, green and blue picture processing. They’re illuminated by a Xenon lamp, capable of  4,000 lumens, which is able to throw an image up to 24ft wide. Every system is hand calibrated, we were told. 'The calibration of each projector takes four days to complete.' 

The system came about through a long-standing association Meridian has with JVC; the Japanese D-ILA specialist approached Meridian about producing a scaler for a 4K2K projector it was designing for the simulation and 3D CadCam market. Seeing the potential in the technology, Meridian made a counter offer, suggesting instead that it could produce a scaler,  optimise the projector and sell the entire package into the 'very high-end' of the home theater market.

The company re-calibrated the JVC-made projector for gamma and flat field uniformity at machine level. But it was to be the development of the scaler, which can convert any source to full 10 megapixel resolution, which proved to be the key in elevating the package above rival systems from other brands.

Roland Morcom, Meridian's Director of business development, told HCC: 'If you just run a signal directly into the projector, then it replicates pixels, so one pixel on the 1080p input becomes a 4x4 quadrant of pixel illumination in the same colour shown. Effectively this is throwing away extra resolution, because it's just making the pixels larger. Our scaler offers intelligent interpolative-type scaling that strips noise on a pixel-by-pixel basis from the image, applies motion-adaptive deinterlacing to remove jaggies and smoothes away compression artifacts.'

The scaler also has direct control of the projector, enabling it to automatically detect whether the source is standard-definition or HD and choose the appropriate calibration settings.
The results are certainly spectacular, although the price-tag means it isn't for everyone. 'We don't want to suggest that everybody throws away their 1080p projector and looks to replace it with a 10 megapixel device,' says Morcom.

'But what we do want to achieve is a status that, when people ask "What's the best?" we're able to stand head and shoulders above the crowd and say, "It's us..."