Friday, March 29, 2024

Know your projector’s color brightness: Epson

By Daniel O. Escasa

Hark, white light from yonder shadow breaks? (With apologies to William Shakespeare)

The higher a projector’s lumen count, the brighter, right? Not necessarily, says Epson.

?This specification measured only white light output,? says Amy Kwa, Epson Singapore assistant manager for visual instruments.

?White light output is simply not enough to convey the brightness story,? Kwa continues. ?Color Light Output, or simply Color Brightness, can give customers the complete picture in getting the best projector performance.?

In other words, ?When a manufacturer quotes a projector’s brightness, that’s just for the white light.? says Kwa. ?Look into the color brightness, and you’ll be dismayed to find that that figure could be as low as ? of its white light output, in some cases even lower.

?That’s because most projectors use a single chip, in combination with a color wheel, to produce colors. This color wheel may have a clear segment that boosts white brightness at the expense of color. Furthermore, although the color wheel spins at a rapid speed, it displays only one color at a time, resulting in color break-up, or the ?rainbow effect?.?

Do we then have to put up with low color output?

No, because Epson employs 3LCD technology, which as the name implies, uses 3 LCD chips ? one each for red, green, and blue output.

?This results in the same level of brightness in white and color,? says Kwa. ?Thus, our 2600 lumen-projector’s white and color brightness are both at 2600 lumens.

?Other projectors may produce 2700 lumens, but that’s for white light, and only 750 lumens for color.?

Bold claims, and Epson dared to show the difference by displaying color images from a laptop to one of their projectors and another manufacturer’s projector simultaneously.

The Epson revealed detail that was missing in the image produced by the other projector.

Maybe the single chip-equipped projector will perform better with the lights down?

It did, but marginally. The Epson projector’s image quality was about the same, to the naked eye, as with the lights up.

Kwa provided tips for customers on how to find a projector’s color brightness:

  1. Look for separate color and white brightness specification.
  2. Be vigilant. Many manufacturers may not want you to know their projectors are only ? as bright when measuring color.
  3. Compare for yourself ? if the Color Brightness measurement is not provided, or if you are curious to know the color brightness rating of a projector you already own, go to www.colorlightoutput.com. Hundreds of projector models have been independently tested.

 

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