Electro Optics is Europe's leading magazine for engineers involved in the photonics business, technology and applications. In one of their feature stories for the November issue, the magazine covers how lasers are improving the viewing experience for cinemagoers. For this article, Goran Stojmenovik, Product Manager for laser projection at Barco, shared his view on the technology and how Barco has integrated laser-illumination in their cinema projectors.

A brighter light source

Because laser projectors can offer brightness levels of more than double that of lamps - laser systems offering 60,000 lumens or more are available - the picture quality is significantly better. 'The most important benefit of a laser projector is proving brighter pictures which contribute to the level of immersion and to the experience of cinema audiences,' said Goran Stojmenovik, product manager for laser projection at Barco. 'In many cinemas today, 3D presentations are very dark; it is not appreciated by a number of people.'

Because the projector uses a 'six primary system', whereby each primary colour is made by not one but two sets of wavelengths, the need for a second projector and an intermediate polarisation system is eliminated. 'A classical approach would be to have a laser projector with only three laser wavelengths for one eye and another projector with three wavelengths for the other eye. In our case we have put all of the wavelengths into one projector,' explained Stojmenovik. 'We are the only ones that integrate everything into the single projector. We use two bands of wavelengths for each primary colour, in order to facilitate 3D stereoscopic presentation by colour separation… So you can produce 3D without the need for an intermediate element; you only need 3D glasses for separation.'

Further on in the article Goran discusses laser safety regulations and the future of the technology for other markets.

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