Hisense sub-brand Vidda has launched a new home entertainment powerhouse in China called the C3 Ultra. The 4K home cinema projector is the first to feature the MCL39 laser light source for high brightness and excellent color performance.
Hisense launched the C2 series of Tri-Chroma projectors in October last year, but had already tested these models in its home turf before the global release. As such, the arrival of the Vidda C3 Ultra in China likely signals an upcoming international launch for the series champion – though Hisense has yet to confirm this.
The Ultra is said to be the first in the world to be equipped with the cinema-grade MCL39 tri-color laser light source, which features two red lasers, one blue and one green to "significantly improve light efficiency and performance." It's also the first to be granted verified brightness certification from online retailer JD.com, a scheme where customers will be generously compensated if they fall victim to "falsely advertised brightness" capabilities for projectors.
The new Hisense range topper is reported to put out 3,200 CVIA lumens, the recent Chinese standard for real-world perceived brightness. While there are no official conversion factors from CVIA to ISO or ANSI lumens, comparisons in the wild tend to suggest that one CVIA lumen comes in at between 0.8 to 0.9 ISO lumens and 0.75 to 0.85 ANSI lumens. That would mean somewhere between 2,560 and 2,880 ISO lumens or 2,400 to 2,720 ANSI lumens for the Ultra – though it's not an exact science.
This model is built around a DLP projection engine with a 0.47-inch DMD chip. It's said to come with the industry's widest optical zoom at 1.67x, which is designed to maintain lossless 4K UHD resolution at all throw sizes. On that, the Ultra sports a 0.9 - 1.5:1 throw ratio, which results in 100-inch visuals when the unit is positioned 6.5 ft (2 m) away from the display surface, or 150-diagonal inches from less than 10 ft away.
Autofocus, auto keystone correction, fit-to-screen alignment and image resize to avoid obstacles all help make setup and placement a breeze, and the colors can even be adapted for optimum wall projection. The projector covers 110% of the BT.2020 color gamut and promises Delta E color accuracy of less than 0.9, "surpassing traditional LED projectors and even high-end LCD/OLED TVs."
There's support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and IMAX content, dynamic content can be enhanced to 14,000:1, and the company also promises "zero color shift, zero banding, zero noise, zero brightness inconsistency, zero harmful blue light and zero exaggerated specs."
Inside, the home entertainment hub boasts powerful processing from MediaTek's flagship MT9681 chip, supported by 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. Hisense Vidda has also included DeepSeek's AI agent to offer a bunch of tools, "enhancing daily use across gaming, learning and entertainment."
A streaming platform is cooked in too, which will likely be Vidaa Smart TV for the international release but could also be Google TV – with wireless connectivity shaping up as Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. Those wanting to cable up media sources or gaming rigs can do so over HDMI 2.1 ports including eARC. There's gigabit Ethernet too, along with USB Type-A ports and analog/digital audio outputs.
And finally, the unit's integrated sound system is made up of two 10-W JBL speakers plus a gimbal-mounted 200-W subwoofer for immersive Dolby/DTX/Hi-Res audio.
The Vidda C3 Ultra tops the new C3 series, which will likely succeed last year's C2 series from Hisense when the international floodgates are opened. Chinese buyers can grab the Ultra now for ¥11,999 (which converts to about US$1,670 – though Alibaba is currently listing this model for $1,489).
Source: Hisense
