Epson management discuss impact of projector launches Features 19/01/2019 Epson has announced that it will be bringing two new projectors to the APAC market. Both represent firsts for the manufacturer. The EB-L12000Q is Epson’s first native 4K 3LCD laser and it is joined by the EB-L20000U, Epson’s first model in the 20,000 lumen WUXGA installation projection sector.Amy Kwa, regional manager for visual products at Epson Singapore, explained the rationale behind the launches in an exclusive interview with InAVate APAC: “The key to the launch of the L12000Q and the L20000U is primarily to address markets that we are lacking right now. Based on the current line-up we have, the maximum brightness for our laser projection ranges for 2,000 to 25,000 lumens. But there is a certain gap we have not addressed and there is a market requirement for it. The key is to make this gap smaller. On top of that we are increasing our line-up to make our products more easily chosen by our partners. They have a range of requirements for brightness and we have the products they require.” Siew Jin Kiat, senior regional director of sales & marketing for Southeast Asia region at Epson Singapore, added: “The function of the new models is primarily for filling in the line-up. There are already a lot of high brightness projectors in the market and there is a replacement cycle happening and we want to use this opportunity to introduce products that can help the users and fill our line-up gap. Market potential is definitely there, and it is growing and there are all these replacements that are currently happening which makes it the perfect time for us to step in.” A key consideration for Epson was to start entering new market verticals and segments. The higher brightness projection model is particularly suited to help Epson achieve this goal. Kwa detailed: “One of the key markets that these new projector models allow us to enter is rental and staging. The requirements and the demands seem to be increasing in the sector. The other one is large venue or auditoriums, which is a large market for us because that is education and a place where they need higher brightness. For example, right now the education auditoriums might be using 10,000 lumens projection and they want to replace and say they want 20,000 lumens. If we don’t have a product with this brightness our partners might specify a 25,000 lumens projector but that might be too bright, and we might lose that project because we don’t have the right brightness projector model.” May Lin, general manager for Epson Singapore, said: “For the Singapore market, the opportunities exist in really pushing the projector outside of the classroom. As a brand we want to push the frontier to the high brightness space and this is necessary if we want to compete in verticals like public spaces, rental and staging, which are prime for the taking.” The introduce native 4K projection is another move that is responding to market trends. Kwa says: “Adoption of 4K in the past has been low, when market was not ready and the content was not there, though there was always hype. Now people are talking about 8K and we are just launching 4K. But is 8K content ready? We are at this juncture where we are seeing a huge growth in the amount of content for 4K and that is where the L120000Q comes in. It addresses this market and people are looking at 4K seriously.” An interesting point to note, is Epson’s choice of signal transmission when it comes to 4K video which is 12G-SDI. Kwa detailed: “SDI is still a very popular interface and it is still used in broadcast. As long as broadcast is using SDI, this interface will remain very relevant to projection products. IP transmission is beginning to grow, but there is legacy equipment that cannot be brought on the network. So that would be extremely relevant to us when launching the products.”