Comment Re:Anedcotial experience with laser beamers. (Score 2, Informative) 189
I do work at a cinema. Your "friend" is talking fantasy. The standard for years past and years to come is and will continue to be Film. Who would have access to a full color movie-capable scanning laser projection system? I can find no evidence to support the claim that any audience in cinematic history has had their faces BURNED from laser projection, not even to say that this has ever existed in a cinema.
For those curious about what the !@#$ top poster is going on about and how the Microvision scanning laser projection technology relates to cinema...
Maintaining a cinema projector lamp house light source is MUCH LESS expensive for equal hours in operation than the light source for a consumer LCD or DLP projector. It's also much more incredibly bright than anything on the consumer market. Theaters will not be interested in the Microvision technology for showing their movies, because it will not be bright enough and you would inherit all the annoying problems of having a digital print anyways.
Film is preferred over Digital because you can pick up a film in a multiplex and move it between booths and platter systems quite readily. Being able to readily move a print around is how you maximize profits... are there really any kids awake at a 9pm showing to go see the latest Disney movie about talking cats and superhero hamsters? Adding lasers into the picture doesn't offer anything lucrative even at a Theater set up for digital projection.
Theaters using film projectors often use a consumer projector for on-screen advertising, and so the Microvision technology looks pretty good for this if it is bright enough to fill the screen (from a pretty long throw distance). It doesn't have to be high definition or anything, just watchable and cost less than the existing gear to maintain. Digital equipped theaters would still use their cinema projectors to display advertising because it is cheaper to do so.
The Microvision technology will primarily appeal to the home theater market segment, where enthusiasts are paying much higher costs than real cinemas to maintain their projection system light source. After the SHOW WX gains momentum as a first generation product, expect to see this technology compete with consumer projection systems, and to become invasive just as the camera has on cell phones and media devices.