Barco : Road to InfoComm - Episode 2

Barco has pioneered technologies that achieve these heights with a wide portfolio of large venue projectors that enable bright outcomes for our customers and theirs. It is because of our keen understanding ¬of the unique parameters affecting image quality - such as illumination, contrast and color gamut - that we have been able to develop solutions that delight audiences, and are also reliable and future proof.

The complimentary roles of color and brightness
A high-quality projected image depends on five parameters: content resolution; colors; brightness/contrast; internal image processing; and lenses and screens. All five need to be in top notch mode to display the highest image quality. Here, we'll hone in on the link between color and brightness.

Brightness and color are essential parameters to evaluate the quality of a projected image. Brightness is required to overcome the ambient light and achieve a high-contrast image. Perceived color saturation is the most important driver for color performance.

A projector needs to provide a red, green and blue image to our eyes, and with these three 'primary' colors, the viewer can see all the colors possible to be represented by these RGB Primaries. The spectrum (spectral power density) of each color, and the absolute intensities of the different colored images will determine the color the eyes will see.

This chromaticity diagram shows all colors a human can see. On the outer edge, the dominant (spectral) wavelengths are displayed, called the hue. The more you go toward the center, the less pure a color is; it's becoming less saturated. All colors within the resulting triangle are what's known as the color gamut of the projector. We also need separate parameters like brightness and color-to-white ratio to indicate how bright an image is. However, the most important aspect of color quality is perceived color saturation, or what the eye thinks it can see.
Making the right choices for high brightness applications
In the projector industry, there is a long term trend toward brighter products. This has been possible due to the incremental improvement steps in the lamp manufacturing industry but only to a point. With the rapid shift to laser illumination systems, it is now possible to take a big step up in brightness because the high spatial brightness of laser light sources enables much more light to pass through the optics and chips of a given size.

In theory, several illumination technologies can reproduce great colors, but not all technologies are equally efficient in doing so. Different illumination technologies will by design result in different color performance, as the color spectrum and efficiency of the light source varies. While Xenon has been the standard for large venue projection, now with Laser Phosphor (LP) it is possible to meet the same color standards, while reaping the benefits of solid state.

In addition, the emergence of laser light sources and the availability of multiple imager technologies (3-chip DLP™, 1-chip DLP™, LCD, LCoS) for high-brightness projection have significantly increased the number of options customers can choose from. Barco has adopted DLP™ as the preferred technology for stable high-quality performance in high brightness applications.

Excellent image quality and cool reliability come together!
Barco has mastered the art of balancing colors and brightness in our projectors to optimally display the native image: crisp, colorful and bright. With our latest edition to the large venue family of even projectors - the UDX-4K laser phosphor projector - we have achieved the color performance of Xenon by making the right design choices:

• Longer lifetime and constant brightness over time
• Higher optical efficiency, as a lower share of the output spectrum is wasted as heat
• Flexible setup orientation
• No image flicker or sudden lamp failures (inherent redundancy)

For more info, get our whitepaper now!

There are many aspects to consider far beyond the scope of this blog post. That's why we've developed a detailed white paper 'From Light to Color: How Design Choices Make a Difference' to provide answers to the most pressing questions about image quality in large venue projection.