A high-dynamic-range and high-resolution projector with dual modulation

Abstract

We are currently researching a next-generation broadcasting system named "Super Hi-Vision", which provides images with much higher resolution and quality than a high definition television, and are developing displays for this system. We have developed a projector which can display the high-resolution images of Super Hi-Vision (7680x4320 pixels) and has a high dynamic range of 1.1 million to 1. This projector features a serial combination of two modulation blocks: the first block for chrominance modulation and the second block for luminance modulation. While a conventional projector has one modulation block that contains three devices to modulate red, green, and blue light, our projector has another modulation block that contains a device for luminance to further modulate the combined RGB modulated light. This configuration enables the projector to output high-resolution color images by combining three low-resolution devices for chrominance modulation and one high-resolution device for luminance modulation. As a high-resolution device, we have newly developed a 1.75-inch liquid crystal on silicon device with 8192x4320 pixels. In addition, the dynamic range is dramatically improved because this dual modulation scheme minimizes the black levels in projected images. We demonstrated that our projector displays Super Hi-Vision color images and that it has an extremely high dynamic range of 1.1 million to 1 and a fine 10-bit tone reproduction.