Over this week, we’ll be previewing all the rAVe Top-10 Tour Winners. Each product highlighted, will be on rAVe’s 2nd Annual Top-10 Tour at InfoComm. The rAVe Top-10 Tour is NOT a “pay for play” tour or product preview (like MOST AV publications do). These 10 products were selected from over 70 submissions from InfoComm 2013 exhibitors. Of those 70, these are the 10 we thought you NEED to see at the show – and if you’re not able to go to InfoComm, the products featured here will give you a good overview of what you missed:

Sony’s next-generation projection technology is based on a laser light source and its first model to use it is the 3LCD VPL-FHZ55 — a lamp-less projector specified at 4,000 lumens at WUXGA resolution (1920×1200).

The projector’s light engine uses blue laser as its light source, which excites a phosphorous material that in turn creates white light. The white light is delivered to the 3LCD optical system, which generates RGB color through a color splitting process. The projector offers virtually maintenance-free operation for an expected 20,000 hours of light source, display device and filter life. The HG (mercury) free projector is packed with energy-saving features, including: Auto Light Dimming, which dims the light output down to 5 percent when left powered on without use; and Auto Brightness adjustment, which eliminates unnecessary illumination when a dark picture is projected. The use of a laser light source also gives the projector instant “on/off” capability and “tilt- free” capability for seamless installation in nearly any setting or position.

Key VPL-FHZ55 projector features include:

• A blue laser light source excites a phosphorous material that in turn creates white light.

• It offers 20,000 hours of light source life.

• This first generation is specified at 4,000 ANSI lumens.