Technical advances in projectors are both rapid and numerous. Keeping up to speed with all the new features and what they mean can be a full time job.
So, to help you make sense of the features, here is our take on what two recent advances actually mean for projector users.
We’re using as our example here the new Christie E-Series projector as it illustrates many of the technical features prevalent at the moment.
Sealed DLP optics (see this article for a discussion on LCD vs DLP projectors)
Dust is the enemy of projectors. If it gets into the optics of your expensive projector, image quality degrades rapidly. So projectors have filters to keep the dust out. But dust clogs up the filters and fans need to be more powerful (noisy) to pull cooling air through the filters.
So if you were to seal the optics in a projector, you could protect them from dust. This would mean that there is no need for filters. If you don’t have filters, you don’t need to replace them, and the fan can be smaller and therefore quieter.
So, by sealing the optics in a projector you get:
- Lower maintenance costs – no need to clean / replace filters
- Reduced noise
- Brighter images with no degradation over time
Six segment Colour Wheel
One of the disadvantages of 1 chip DLP is the way that it can produce “artefacts” or a “rainbow effect” (more details in our article here).
All single chip projectors have their own unique colour wheel designs. Therefore EVERY one will look slightly different. The starting point is a four colour wheel (Red, Green, Blue, White).The high brightness six‐segment colour wheel (RGBCYW) has superior performance compared to a four‐segment colour wheel. With RGB primaries and cyan and magenta secondaries, the colour reproduction is life‐like. By having more colour segments per frame as there are fewer image artefacts or rainbow effects when compared to a four‐segment single chip projector.
And now the Christie E-Series is offering a choice of two colour wheels both with six segments. The optional best colour wheel is for further improved colour performance. While sacrificing some brightness, this colour wheel has exceptional colour performance for 1chip DLP products. This should be for to those who plan to use the system with video mainly and wish to have best colour reproduction. (Christie E-Series is the only projector to offer this option).