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Author Topic: New HP Z2100 and Z3100 printers  (Read 52494 times)

pobrien3

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« Reply #20 on: September 28, 2006, 11:53:33 am »

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I wouldn't be too worried about that. Have you seen the size of just their reception offices? If you haven't it certainly puts a lot of retail stores to shame.

HP has a lot of resources at their disposal and they clearly know how to use it. But I do think they have been very shrewd this time round with the investment. We may think $3.5 billion is a big number (and it is a big number) but in comparison to their overall company sales and turnover (some $90 billion USD last year), its a very small sum.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=78108\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I would most certainly be worried about that (and I confess I'm not clear about the role of the reception offices!). ANY product or product line has to justify its investment - you can't simply 'lose' it in the big numbers.  No company, certainly not a global corporation like HP, would stay in business long with such a wooly approach to R&D.

Of the $90bn turnover HP made last year, about $25bn of that was by the Imaging and Printing group, but I can see where your confusion around the R&D spend arises.  The TOTAL the company spent on R&D across ALL product lines (bear in mind that imaging and printing is only about 28% of total turnover) was $3.4bn - that wasn't all spent on developing the Z printers.  Spend for this year so far, according to their SEC filings, is tracking at a similar level, slightly down on the previous year.
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Middleman

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« Reply #21 on: September 28, 2006, 02:04:51 pm »

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« Last Edit: November 23, 2006, 12:57:44 pm by Middleman »
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Middleman

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« Reply #22 on: September 28, 2006, 02:09:04 pm »

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« Last Edit: November 23, 2006, 12:58:26 pm by Middleman »
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Middleman

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« Reply #23 on: September 28, 2006, 04:08:39 pm »

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« Last Edit: November 23, 2006, 12:59:13 pm by Middleman »
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Brian Gilkes

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« Reply #24 on: September 28, 2006, 06:21:26 pm »

Jason,
Welcome to this forum. Don't go away. Your contribution ,I'm sure will be valued by many . To date forums for those seriously into fine art digital printing has been very limited.
Back onto topic;  the HP Z printers look very interesting indeed. I was thinking of getting another Epson 9800, but am holding now until the flak settles.  Epson will need to pull out a few rabbits very fast if the HPs are as good as they look like. Can you report any downers? What about "depth" that Neil mentioned?
Cheers and thanks,
Brian
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pobrien3

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« Reply #25 on: September 28, 2006, 07:51:04 pm »

Jason, thank you for the comprehensive reply! Peter
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Kenneth Sky

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« Reply #26 on: September 28, 2006, 09:13:57 pm »

Jason
If you've had all 3 printers do the same file, why not submit an article to Michael for peer review and publishing on this site? It would make a great contribution to a debate that is sure to be sparked when these printers start getting shipped in quantity.
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andythom68

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« Reply #27 on: September 29, 2006, 04:18:19 am »

Hi,

There is a "first impressions" review of the "Z" printers on: http://imagingbuffet.com/

This site also lists the prices MSRP as:-

     Z2100-24: $3,395
     Z2100-44: $5,595

     Z3100-24: $4,095
     Z3100-44: $6,295


The prices for the 24inch versions match those given by Ronno earlier.


Andy  :-)
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Middleman

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« Reply #28 on: September 29, 2006, 05:51:51 am »

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Middleman

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« Reply #29 on: September 29, 2006, 07:27:21 am »

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« Last Edit: November 23, 2006, 01:00:55 pm by Middleman »
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #30 on: September 29, 2006, 10:46:37 am »

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I'm still reading and digesting the rest of your post, but this seems like a major investment for which I can't easily see the economics.  Assuming HP's margin is 50%, and allowing for just 25% for the retailer, then they'll need to sell almost two and a half million units just to recover R&D.

Given the expected lifecycle of such products of approximately 2-3 years, especially as they could expect Canon and Epson to respond quickly, is the market big enough to warrant such an investment?

I read somewhere that the total expected volume of DSLR sales by 2008 will be 8 million.  Are we saying that over a quarter of DSLR buyers will be in this market??
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Peter,

It's not a good idea to second-guess a whole corporate investment department of a company of this size and sophistication with simplistic calculations like this. Firstly, you don't know what they really spent on R&D for developing this technology, secondly you don't have access to their intelligence on the potential size of the market world-wide for both the hardware and the resulting sales of consumables, thirdly you don't know what it will cost them to manufacture and market the machines and fourth you can't assume that this R&D expenditure is to be amortized over one set of printers. HP is clearly in this for the long haul and in these situations the front-end commitment of R&D will have a very long carry-forward (along with smaller incremental expenditures model by model) over many models to come. They're not stupid, eventhough they may have gotten their knickers in a twist about some corporate espionage - but that's another talk show - and they'll most likely make enough money from all this hardware and related consumables to pay their lawyers for extracting them from that stuff as well.

Jason,

Thanks ever so much for providing all this information. As production models appear and you begin to integrate them into your studio's workflow it will be extremely interesting to have your observations on their comparative print quality.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2006, 10:49:28 am by MarkDS »
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ronno

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« Reply #31 on: September 29, 2006, 11:17:31 am »

I guess I don't really care about how much R&D $$ went into these, as long as they work well.

In any case, sample prints can be ordered here:
http://h30267.www3.hp.com/country/us/en/fe...?pageseq=388277
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #32 on: September 29, 2006, 11:39:36 am »

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I guess I don't really care about how much R&D $$ went into these, as long as they work well.

In any case, sample prints can be ordered here:
http://h30267.www3.hp.com/country/us/en/fe...?pageseq=388277
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=78270\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Ronno, I guess being a professional economist I find the economics of this technological revolution we are experiencing just as interesting as the outcomes, but we will clearly be more expert on the latter than the former, because we can see the prints but we'll never get into the corporate boardroom.
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neil snape

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« Reply #33 on: September 30, 2006, 01:34:32 pm »

The other  Vivera inks are dye, the Z and 9180 are pigments.

On printer gamut and depth. It's fairly easy to compare the Canon to the Z and the Epson K3 printers. I have no access to the next gen Epson so that is where I stand.

The K3 as expected doesn't reach out as far as the Canon or HP as it is a CMYK printer.

What is surprising is the K3 has quite good colour depth compared to HP or Canon.  

The gamut on HP and Canon live in the upper areas very bright and very saturated considering they're pigments.

The HP is bigger in some areas, the Canon in another. Attention: the effects of having this larger gamut in the chosen areas will cost you a lot more than the colour gain in lightfast years. Also as Mark McCormick said on Dpreview catalytic degradation on these extra inks is not taken into account in the current WIR testing yet is something to be cautioned.

So the more we know about gamut, stability and permanence the better. HP made very deliberate decision to favour permanence over loss of fade resistance. You could say all the pigments are lighhtfast enough for museum. But give me a large gamut printer with extraordinary lightfastness and I can easily understand the intention of these printers.

The other thing that has to be seen is the Gloss Enhancer. When laying a 7800 print beside the Z3100 with GE it makes the gloss differential look cheap. The Z 's GE just simply works. It is either eco mode or whole page. Eco mode covers the solid and composites that cause gloss differential. The culprit in HP's inkset is lGrey, but could be different on Canon ( quite bad gloss dif. on satin and glossy IMO) although the Epson is tamed quite a bit compared to the Z or Canon when NOT using GE.

Ask away, whatever you like. If I can answer I will. I don't think there should be reviews yet as there are only protos here and there and a review of a proto....hmmm  isn't correct to do.


Oh BTW I have run many papers through the Z . In that way it's a lot of fun> you add a custom media, calibrate it , then profile. HAve a break and it's ready to print calibrated and profiled, all menus populated with your favourite media. Nothin' like it.
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eronald

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« Reply #34 on: October 01, 2006, 06:02:42 am »

I saw samples from these printers at Photokina, and listened to the gentleman  from HP at the Xrite conference.

The printers look like the solid stuff which is employed by reprography shops all over the world. They're workhorses.

Print quality looked very good. But it won't bowl you over the way prints from the cheap dye-based Canon office all-in-ones bowl you over. Maybe it's not an apple to apple comparison, but Lambda (silver-based) and Dye-based inkjet will still outgun pigment for some  time.

On the other hand the spectro inside the printer is a definite win; it means transparent color management. It also means that the printer is always properly linearised which makes a great difference to print quality on thrid-pary papers.

It looks like HP has scored a definite win on points in this round, but it's not a knockout. Canon may be unhappier than Epson here though.

Edmund
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Brian Gilkes

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« Reply #35 on: October 01, 2006, 05:50:19 pm »

Edmund, I have not (yet) got ColorThink pro here , but my understanding is that the epson K3 inkset has a gamut beyond that of chemical dye processeseg Lambda, Pegasus, Chromira on Crystal Archive or Endura.
If someone  could post the 3D gamut charts to set us straight that would be great.
  Similar charts for the 2 Vivera pigment arrangements  and for the new Canons would bring things up to date.
If someone undertook this exercise, I'm sure comparative DMax readings , including for black and white settings and both gloss photo paper and art matte, like Hahnemuhle Photo Rag, would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Brian
www.pharoseditions.com.au
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ronno

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« Reply #36 on: October 01, 2006, 06:10:36 pm »

Does the inclusion of the Spectro and what not mean that this thing will not need a $1500 RIP like the Epsons do?
« Last Edit: October 01, 2006, 06:10:56 pm by ronno »
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eronald

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« Reply #37 on: October 01, 2006, 06:29:10 pm »

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Edmund, I have not (yet) got ColorThink pro here , but my understanding is that the epson K3 inkset has a gamut beyond that of chemical dye processeseg Lambda, Pegasus, Chromira on Crystal Archive or Endura.
If someone  could post the 3D gamut charts to set us straight that would be great.
  Similar charts for the 2 Vivera pigment arrangements  and for the new Canons would bring things up to date.
If someone undertook this exercise, I'm sure comparative DMax readings , including for black and white settings and both gloss photo paper and art matte, like Hahnemuhle Photo Rag, would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Brian
www.pharoseditions.com.au
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If Neil and others can post profiles for the new HP or Canon printers, then I am sure we can grab some typical Epson profiles off the net - every Mac has a 3D utility (Colorsync utility) to display profiles built in.

Of course Steve Upton would say that Colorthink is far better; guess what ? I agree, but it ain't free.

Edmund
« Last Edit: October 01, 2006, 06:29:32 pm by eronald »
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Jon Shiu

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« Reply #38 on: October 01, 2006, 10:46:40 pm »

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If Neil and others can post profiles for the new HP or Canon printers, then I am sure we can grab some typical Epson profiles off the net - every Mac has a 3D utility (Colorsync utility) to display profiles built in.

Of course Steve Upton would say that Colorthink is far better; guess what ? I agree, but it ain't free.

Edmund
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Hi, gamut plots for the Epson 3800 are available on their website (large pdf):

[a href=\"http://www.epson.com/cmc_upload/0/000/079/724/SP3800SRG_1aE.pdf]http://www.epson.com/cmc_upload/0/000/079/...3800SRG_1aE.pdf[/url]

Jon
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neil snape

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« Reply #39 on: October 02, 2006, 04:52:28 am »

The 3800 is a K3 printer. Ink formulation being equal, unless something is quit different in the driver the near same colour characteristics should be achieved.
I am not at the liberty to send profiles for a prototype printer. When it is nearing completion with the permission of HP then I could but not before.
That said at this point it's closer to Canon 12 color printers than to Epson 8 colour printers.
And yes I use Colorthink and spend a lot of time trying to see what is useful , what is not, and application of color maps in terms of photography, illustration, proofing, design, and fine art.

I suggest that custom profiles though are compared as I see exaggerated numbers on all the canned profile measurements. There again unfortunately the profiling applications even in absolute show differences. So much for ICC specifications and guidelines.
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