25th July, 2008
New CA Regs Raise A Ruckus With Speaker Makers
Brent Butterworth
A ruling on formaldehyde emissions by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has speaker manufacturers up in arms. The ruling limits formaldehyde emissions from composite wood products, including plywood, particle board, and the medium-density fiberboard (MDF) from which most speaker cabinets (and most electronics/TV furniture) is constructed. Manufacturers are questioning the cost/benefit ratio of the new regulations, the scientific assumptions behind them, and the viability of new types of MDF that do not use formaldehyde-based resins.
The Airborne Toxic Control Measure to Reduce Formaldehyde Emissions from Composite Wood Products stipulates two maximum formaldehyde emissions levels from each of the various types of composite panels. The higher Phase 1 maximum emission level takes effect on January 1, 2009, and a lower Phase 2 maximum level takes effect on January 1, 2011.
Manufacturers of composite wood panels will have to employ third-party testing companies to certify the emissions levels of their panels. Manufacturers of finished goods, such as speakers, will not have to have their products tested, but they will need to be able to show that they are using California-compliant panels in their California-bound or California-produced products. According to CARB spokesperson Dimitri Stanich, “Starting in 2009, they’ll have to talk to their wood supplier and insist on California-compliant wood. The wood has to be labeled as such. We recommend the final manufacturer insist that the invoice from the supplier include the statement that the wood is California-compliant.”
The final, Phase 2 emission levels are slightly lower than those currently required in Europe and slightly higher than those required in Japan. However, according to the Composite Panel Association (CPA), a trade group of particleboard and fiberboard makers, “the emission limits in the California regulation are maximum limits that 100% of the products must fall below, whereas other worldwide standards do not apply to all products and allow a certain percentage of the covered products to exceed the limits.”
The benefit of these new regulations, according to CARB, is lower cancer rates. CARB figures that the reduction in formaldehyde emissions will result in 35 to 97 fewer cancers per million people for adults, calculated on a 70-year lifetime exposure, and 9 to 26 fewer cancers per million for children under 9, calculated for 9 years of exposure. On the surface, that’s not an impressive figure—it’s less than 0.01% fewer cancers among adults. Furthermore, the CPA claims that CARB used an outdated, 1992 risk assessment to get these numbers. According to the CPA, “New risk assessment information used by the U.S. EPA, Health Canada, and other international bodies shows that there is virtually no risk of cancer from formaldehyde at the levels most people are exposed to over their lifetime.”
The costs that these new regulations may impose on manufacturers could greatly affect the prices you pay for speakers. The figures for plywood aren’t so bad: CARB projects a 1% to 5% higher cost per panel. But for MDF, things get downright ugly: CARB predicts an increase of 10% over current costs to reach Phase 1 levels, and a 40% total increase to reach Phase 2 levels. Such an increase would significantly boost speaker manufacturing costs, according to Kathy Gornik, president of speaker company Thiel Audio. “MDF is the biggest cost of all the materials we buy,” she said. “Even a small cost increase would be huge for us.”
On top of that cost increase will be higher administrative costs, as Gornik described: “We don’t want to go to this [California-compliant board] product for the rest of the world, so we’ll have to keep a separate inventory and separate records for the California market. One option for us is just not to sell our wood-based speakers in California. We do have some non-wood speakers like the PowerPoint that we could sell there.”
The total cost to industry to reach the Phase 2 standards, according to CARB, will be $127 million per year.
“How do you calculate the sum of all this?” Gornik asked rhetorically. “Even if it does save a few lives, how many lives will be lost if the cost increases force layoffs and the laid-off employees lose their health care?”
Gornik also worries that MDF panels made with formaldehyde-free resins may not perform as well as the panels her company has been using. “MDF is difficult to make,” she said. “We lost $100,000 two years ago due to a bad batch of MDF. That formaldehyde is in there for a very, very good reason.”
However, a composite wood industry expert we spoke with insisted that performance of MDF made with formaldehyde-free resins should be of no concern. “If the board suppliers don’t do anything stupid, there’s no reason they can’t get the same performance characteristics with lower emissions. But it will come at an added cost,” said Wade Gregory, an industry consultant and former president of Sierra Pine. He added, “I know that no-formaldehyde-added MDF panels have been used in speakers because I’ve sold them.”
The Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been petitioned by various organizations to adopt the California standards nationwide, but has rejected this proposal, at least initially. Also, as usual, several other states are considering adopting California’s new regulations as their own.
What’s all this mean for the integrator? If you’re based in California, you’ll be paying higher costs for wood-based speakers. If you’re not in California, but your speaker supplier decides to simplify inventory and record-keeping by using only California-compliant panels, then you, too, will pay higher prices. And for Cali-based integrators, there’s also the prospect, however slight, of a visit from CARB inspectors. “If we suspect that a speaker manufacturer is using non-compliant wood,” CARB spokesman Stanich said, “we can go into a local retailer and take a sample, bring it back, take it apart, and test the wood in our labs.”
The editorial staff of The Integrator can claim no expertise in cancer research, materials science, manufacturing, or accounting. However, after talking to several experts and perusing hundreds of pages of info, we have to say that on the balance, these regulations seem ill-advised. The cost is high and the benefits are suspect. And how much money did we Cali residents spend to make this mess?
Posted at 9:20 am | Comment (1)
11th July, 2008
Is There Something Better Than A 2.35:1 Screen?
Brent Butterworth
Most integrators consider constant-height 2.35:1 projection systems the ultimate in video, but after a chat with the folks at Performance Media Industries, Ltd. (PMI), we’re not so sure. From our conversations with PMI, a well-known home theater design firm, we can’t tell if the company’s recent efforts will result in the greatest video experience ever, or if they’re an exercise in video geekery that only an Imaging Science Foundation course instructor could appreciate. But the subject is definitely interesting enough to warrant a full explanation.
First, let’s recap the constant-height concept that has already swept the custom home theater industry. Constant-height combines a superwide 2.35:1 (or CinemaScope) screen, an anamorphic lens that stretches a projector’s image to fill the screen, and a processor that corrects the picture geometry so everything looks right. As the name implies, the height of the image is always the same. Motorized black masking fills the sides when you’re watching narrower material, like 1.78:1 (or 16:9) HDTV or old-school 1.33:1 (or 4:3) video.
These superwide screens are popular because they produce a cinematic effect, and because they deliver big pictures in rooms with 8-foot ceilings. But constant-height technology has drawbacks. In a room with a 10- or 12-foot ceiling, your 1.78:1 HDTV picture probably isn’t going to be as big with a 2.35:1 screen as it would be with a 1.78:1 screen. Constant-height systems also put video images through a lot of extra electronic and optical manipulation.
What’s The Big Idea?
PMI says it has a better solution. It’s called (with no small amount of self-promotional flourish) PMI 2.0. We at The Integrator have been such enthusiastic proponents of constant-height that we had to find out what PMI is up to.
“The question we’ve always run into is, ‘How do you create a screen that will take you into the future?’” said Terry Hill, PMI’s general manager. He went on to explain that PMI 2.0 involves not a new and improved version of his company, but a screen with an aspect ratio of 2.0:1. “It’s a canvas that provides the best starting point for both 1.78:1 and 2.35:1,” he explained. “It means that you don’t have to compromise sports in 16:9 high-def for movies in 2.35:1, or vice versa.”
The most profound advantage PMI claims is that its new scheme delivers a better picture because it requires no additional video processing and no anamorphic lens. The purer signal path eliminates the potential for artifacts that extra video processing introduces, and also eliminates the distortion, chromatic aberration, and loss of detail that an additional lens might cause.
Constant-height systems have the advantage of using the entire surface of the DLP chip in the projector no matter what widescreen aspect ratio is shown; using the entire chip can deliver extra brightness and can make individual pixels less visible on-screen. In comparison, PMI 2.0 uses the full DLP chip only at the chip’s native 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Hill said he feels that PMI 2.0’s benefits outweigh this disadvantage.
The PMI 2.0 spec calls for a screen that’s larger than what we usually see now. The first PMI 2.0 theater will have a maximum screen size of 150 by 75 inches—this in a room with the not-humongous interior dimensions of 20 by 26.5 feet. “With 4K projectors already out, and even higher resolutions having been demonstrated, soon we’ll be at the point where no matter what screen size you have you won’t be able to see pixels from anywhere in the room. We’ll be able to go beyond where we are now with viewing angles,” Hill elaborated.
Hill said that for now, PMI won’t be using the full area of the screen. Eventually, when the client moves to a higher-resolution projector, more of the screen could be used.
“Once the resolution is high enough that you can’t see the pixels, the discussion then moves to things like presence and what field of vision you want the screen to take up,” he continued. “There are limits to the field of vision you can take in. If you make the screen too large it tends to make you sick to your stomach from all the motion.”
What’s the Future?
PMI 2.0 requires nothing new in terms of screen technology, but it does demand a projector with a motorized zoom lens and a servo that can return dependably to a particular zoom setting. “There are already about 20 different projector models that will do this,” Hill reported, “and we’re working with vendors now to create something that meets our specific needs.”
For the near future, PMI 2.0 will be an option only for the world’s elite theaters. According to Hill, it demands a ceiling height of at least 12 feet; a projector that currently costs about $200,000; and a screen that costs $30,000 and up. He predicts the projector cost will come down substantially, but the screen cost won’t.
So will PMI 2.0 sweep the custom home theater industry? That’s impossible to say at present, and not just because the first PMI 2.0 theater won’t be completed for a few more weeks. PMI 2.0 sounds fascinating to the tech-obsessed staff of The Integrator, but its ultimate success will depend on whether the company can develop a concise sales pitch and a compelling demo—and whether other design firms will embrace something invented by a competitor.
Posted at 8:36 am | Comment (1)
