Long respected as a premium name in photography, German brand Leica are branching out from their well-earned place as legends of the camera world, and they chose CES 2023 to debut their first laser TV.
The Leica Cine 1 is a 4K, triple-laser ultra-short throw (UST) projector made in partnership with Chinese multinational Hisense. The exciting new unit will be available in two versions – 100″ and 120″ – and is set to hit market, in the US at least, in the third quarter of this year.
The basic internals of the Cine 1 will be Hisense’s gig, but Leica will be adding their own unique top-end spin on things to ensure it lives up to their reputation.
This includes things like a Leica-engineered Summicron lens matched to the projector’s image size, alongside Leica’s own image processing – Leica Image Optimisation, or LIO – to optimise picture quality with special algorithms.
Word has it to expect a very bright and colourful image, with Leica claiming a 2500-lumen brightness from both models, as well as exceeding 100 per cent of the BT.2020 colour space.
No word yet on what HDR formats will be supported, but if it’s any indication, Hisense’s current top models work with both HDR10 and Dolby Vision.
Aesthetically, the Cine 1 is covered in a snazzy aluminium chassis, with small perforations for enhanced ventilation, which also help users experience the included two-speaker 50W Dolby Atmos sound system.
There’s also a sliding dust cover to protect the precious Leica lens when the projector isn’t in use.
Away from the tech aspects, Leica are saying that not only is the Cine 1 more energy efficient than an OLED TV of around the same size, but, “The projected image of the Leica Cine 1 is considerably less fatiguing for the eyes than conventional TV displays, allowing for longer home cinema nights.”
It’s all powered by Google’s smart TV platform and has an inbuilt ATSC 1.0 tuner for over-the-air broadcasts, along with two HDMI 2.0 ports, one with HDMI ARC/eARC, as well as an HDMI 2.0 port for connecting your Blu-ray players or set-top boxes and streaming devices.
If that’s not enough inputs to satisfy you there’s also two USB ports – a USB 2.0 and a USB 3.0.
All up this is shaping up to be a projector worthy of bearing the Leica name.
