Acer Ships Nvidia 3D-Ready Projectors

By Tony Hoffman

On Tuesday, Acer introduced two new 3D-ready DLP projectors compatible with Nvidia's GeForce 3D Vision technology: the Acer H5360 and X1261.

Both take advantage of the recent push toward 3D displays, which Panasonic and others debuted two years ago, but have been recently pushed into the limelight by a coming-out party at January's CES show.

The Acer H5360 is a 720p (1,280-by-720) home-theater projector with a brightness of up to 2,500 ANSI lumens and 3200:1 contrast ratio. It displays images in native 16:9 aspect ratio, typical of HD content. The projector has a 50-120Hz vertical refresh rate. The H5360 projector has an HDMI port, three RCA jacks, component video, S-video mini DIN, 2.5mm audio mini-jack, and 15-pin D-Sub for a PC analog signal.

The Acer X1261 projector is designed for home, business and classroom environments. It provides up to 2,500 ANSI lumens of brightness, a 3,700:1 contrast ratio and a vertical refresh rate of 50 to 120Hz. It has a native XGA resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio, which can be adjusted to 16:9 for video content such as from Blu-ray or DVD. The Acer X1261 projector can connect to a variety of video input sources; it has composite video, component video, S-video mini DIN, and a stereo mini jack.

Each of the new projectors comes with a 2-watt internal speaker. According to Acer, the projectors display clearly even on colored surfaces, so they do not need to be used with a screen, and they correct vertical distortions of up to 40°, so the audience sees a rectangular image rather than one with a wider top/bottom, even if the projector is placed above or below the screen. Both models can be ceiling mounted and used with the included remote control. Customers can change the lamp module even when the projector is ceiling-mounted. This shouldn't be often, as Acer gives a lamp life figure of up to 4,000 hours.

The new Acer projectors employ Acer EcoProjection, which reduces standby power consumption by up to 50 percent after five minutes of being idle. Additionally, it delivers 20 percent additional power savings and automatically performs a safety shutdown if it does not receive input after a time interval that can be set by the customer. Also included in the Acer EcoProjection suite is Acer ePower Management, a tool that lets customers create customized power-saving configurations.

Both projectors are available now; the Acer H5360 ships for a list price of $699 and the Acer X1261 for a list price of $579. They are backed with a one-year warranty on the DLP chip and 90-day warranty on the lamp.

NVIDIA 3D Vision is a combination of an NVIDIA 3D Vision compatible computer and graphics card, and a 3D Vision Kit that includes wireless active-shutter glasses and software that can turn hundreds of PC games into a 3D experience. The glasses, which can be worn over regular eyeglasses, can provide up to 40 hours of 3D entertainment on a single charge.