DT40Pro, EMS 8000 or wait for Scannermax 506s

[Pangolin]

I suspect that the 506 will perform as well as the EMS 8000. It may be a little better or a little worse, but the EMS 8000 that I evaluated was virtually flawless at 30K at 35 degrees by 25 degrees.

The '506 nominally would not be able to project an ILDA Test Pattern that wide in the typical and lowest cost configuration. I expect around 14 degrees with the ILDA test pattern at 30K, and that's what we showed the Kvant amp doing in our video.

Note that the EMS-8000 uses an H-Bridge while our little Compact scanner nominally would not. HOWEVER, our new little amp can be configured in an H-bridge configuration, but you'd give up the dual-axis capability. In such a case it would project much wider -- perhaps even accomplishing what you wrote above. (So it means one amp dual-axis, or two amps single-axis each.) But this is in a bit of a vacuum now since I haven't seen the EMS-8000 with my own eyes. I generally like to evaluate the performance others are getting before stating what ours will and will not do... By the way, the "two amps single-axis each" configuration will also allow faster-than-30K performance for the same reason EMS delivers faster-than-30K. And yes, this would be substantially less than $1400. Perhaps less than $600 for this "two amps single-axis each" configuration. We'll have to see how our costs play out.

By the way, if you didn't mean the ILDA test pattern at 35 degrees but everything else at 35 degrees, then you are no doubt correct. What we showed in our video was pretty hard-to-reproduce content running at 30K and over 50 degrees!

I will go out on a limb here and predict that you will be able to buy the 506 within a couple of months and the first Saturns within 6 months. I have no inside information. This is just a guess based on their progress and the condition of the early models.

Your guess is probably a bit in reverse. We've been delivering Saturn 5 to people who already have their own amps since last January. Yep, that's a year already! The main thing holding back the sale of the others was our own amp. In fact we're committed to delivering several Saturn 1 systems with our DSP amp later this month! We should be in a pretty good production mode by next month.

For '506, that will be an encore performance of Saturn. We should be able to replenish our stock and start delivering JUST SCANNERS in a few weeks. But the little amp may have to wait until April or so. The design and layout are done, but production is a matter of priority insomuch as how we allocate production capacity among the different products we make (QM2000, FB3, Mach DSP, even FB4).

Regarding price, you'd be in the ballpark at $1500 for budgetary pricing on anything in the Saturn series. We're still dialing that in. For Compact, we're trying to hit the same price that people are paying for DT-40, but due to the digital nature of the amp, performance should be much better.

Bill

[planters]

Your guess is probably a bit in reverse. We've been delivering Saturn 5 to people who already have their own amps since last January. Yep, that's a year already! The main thing holding back the sale of the others was our own amp. In fact we're committed to delivering several Saturn 1 systems with our DSP amp later this month! We should be in a pretty good production mode by next month.

This is good to hear. The scanners and their specific amps is the time frame I am referring to regarding availability, but the sooner the better. The dual amp configuration for the 506 is much more interesting (to me) than the lower speed single amp configuration. For the other applications we discussed @ Photonics W. I can see the attractiveness of the super compact single driver, but the reasonable cost and existing acceptance in the projector community for dual boards makes this likely the way many buyers will go.

By the way, if you didn't mean the ILDA test pattern at 35 degrees but everything else at 35 degrees, then you are no doubt correct.

Yes, everything else. I have yet to project or see a show that displays the ILDA test pattern or operates @ 8 degrees. I'd be much more interested in performance that is compared at say 1/2 radian as a standard.

[swamidog]

600$ sounds kind of high.

DT sells for 600$, i think it is the most expensive chinese scanner. I was able to compare it to a PT40 lately and the look pretty similar. PT40 is around 250$.

[White-Light]

DT sells for 600$, i think it is the most expensive chinese scanner. I was able to compare it to a PT40 lately and the look pretty similar. PT40 is around 250$.

Yeah but does a PT40 deliver Cambridge performance at 30K? I doubt it!

Also, as Swami says, DT's are available a lot cheaper and although I have no inside information on pricing, I would expect the 506's to be within the more normal range of DT pricing.

[norty303]

To put it in simple terms - once the 506 set inc amp is available, I can't see any reason for people to buy DT40 unless Dragon Tiger revise their price significantly.

[sbk]

To put it in simple terms - once the 506 set inc amp is available, I can't see any reason for people to buy DT40 unless Dragon Tiger revise their price significantly.

... or any other scanner brand with similar performance (Eyemagic, JMLaser, ...). Damn, it was a good time when there was competition running between multiple scanner manufacturers, before Pango ate them all...

[norty303]

Damn, it was a good time when there was competition running between multiple scanner manufacturers, before Pango ate them all...

Competition is good. I've been very happy with DT's to date, but if Dragon Tiger were applying an excessive markup (some say PT's are as good as the DT's but for half the price)then how do Phenix Tech do it? MAybe DT's will become more reasonably priced for the people who still won't/can't pay for 506's

So even if nobody wants to compete directly with Pangolin in the price bracket, manufacturers will still slot into the space around them. It'll shake things up a bit.

[planters]

Damn, it was a good time when there was competition running between multiple scanner manufacturers, before Pango ate them all...

I don't get it. Were there scanners better than PT or DT that cost less? The PT 40s ARE pretty good for $250. How did Pango eat them?

I think the times are better now. If the 506s push down the price of the CN clones that's good. If EMS is pressured to improve their website and constantly improve their scanners at competitive prices then that's good.

[edison]

If EMS is pressured to improve their website and constantly improve their scanners at competitive prices then that's good.

I have to disagree. EMS is a small company and doesn,t have the cashflow to do things dirt cheap like pangolin does simple because of quantity/cashflow. Tom will try to improve his scanners but if a slightly lower quality scanner comes on the market that is cheap as chips because Pangolin has the abbility to mass produces things for dirt cheap you can,t win that. So EMS will disapear from the market. In other words , Goliath will take over just because he has the tools to do so.

So less choice and then when they have taken over the market, when you have issues with software and you don,t have their scanners they will say you need to buy ours and visaversa. Bill said : he wants to be like Apple...... Microsoft is the biggest software company and using another brand is very hard since they are the market leader. We have to dance to their updates etc and even Pangolin is anoyed by it. There are tons of issues with windows and everyone complains about it.........


Its only good for your wallet so you can have things cheaper in the long run with the same quality. You bought from tom and as soon there comes some other brand allong that can do things cheaper and with similar quality you go with them? What about loyalty? If he doesn,t have the abbillity to improve things that fast do you jump to pangolin? I would stay loyal for a while at least........

[planters]

Competition is good. Unfair competition is not and not only for the competitors. But, I do not see how Pangolin is being unfair. Pangolin is also a relatively small company. I don't think they had a huge number of engineers working on the development of these scanners. My guess is two or three for the most part. And if that is true then Tom should be able to access that level of engineering manpower for upgrades and improvement. Even though Pangolin is promoting their DAC-less digital input, there has been no suggestion to date that they intend to cut off analog scanners from their popular software.

The phrase "dirt cheap" is a little prejudicial. I know what you mean, but it sounds like an implication that quality might be compromised. I just wouldn't use it even though your point is made.

I don't like Apple because it allows users to operate without the need to have much understanding of the systems. This is certainly convenient, but the "food of the gods" approach to technology is a little distressing to my sense of the trends in society (a minor point, however).

I am loyal and I am excited about what the future holds. I'll wait and see.