Latest DLP multimedia projector technology in Sri Lanka

Dr. Chathura De Silva - Senior Lecturer,Dept of Computer Science and Engineering Director, Centre for Instructional Technology University of Moratuwa

The market demand for multimedia projectors has expanded rapidly in Sri Lanka as there has been a shift from what it was earlier; a business tool found in company board rooms, to the present home appliance product used generally for entertainment purposes. Present consumers have found the projector useful to enjoy a movie, for gaming purposes, video walls, and for educational presentations.

If you are new to the world of digital projectors, you won't have to shop around the market very long before discovering that "LCD" and "DLP" somehow refers to two different technologies behind multimedia projectors.

The LCD Technology - The traditional way

An LCD (liquid crystal display) projector is the "traditional" technology used in manufacturing multimedia projector. This usually contains three separate LCD glass panels and extremely bright halogen lamp acting as the light source.

Each of these LCD panels modulates the light originating from the projector lamp according to the three primary colour (i.e. red, green, and blue) component of the image signal being fed into the projector.

LCD projectors due to the technology used in creating the projected image has three main weaknesses, all of which are more relevant to video and animations than they are to data applications.

The first is visible pixelation, which tend to create a checker-board like effect when the image is projected into a larger screen. The second weakness is the lack of sufficient contrast, which is vitally important for high quality video and graphics.

The third is the "slow response" of the LCD panels which create a 'smearing' effect when projecting motion and action in movies.

LCD technology has traditionally had a hard time being taken seriously among some home theater enthusiasts because of these flaws in the image.

These effects have created an opportunity for a much more innovative entrant in the projector market. The DLP Technology - the innovative entrantSri Lanka has been introduced to the latest technology when it comes to multimedia projectors in the market.

DLP (Digital Light Processing) is a proprietary technology developed by Texas Instruments. It works quite differently to LCD. Instead of having glass panels through which light is passed, the DLP chip is a reflective surface made up of thousands of tiny mirrors.

Each mirror represents a single picture element (i.e. a pixel). This way of creating the projected image has many benefits as described below.

Highest contrast ratios

DLP home projectors typically have two to five times more contrast than their LCD counterparts. This makes projected colours to be more vibrant and allows highlighting finer details such as shadows more accurately in the projected image.

Picture and text readability:

When it comes to presentations, or educational slides with lots of text, you need to use a projector that provides a clear, sharp picture that is easy to read.

The contrast between black and white is a critical component of readability. With higher resolution and the more finer-grained pixel structures, DLP(R) technology will let your audience to easily read the text you are projecting, even from the back of the room.

Lower power consumption and less heat dissipation: Since the DLP(tm) technology use reflection of light, rather than transmission through a glass panel it requires lower intensity projector lamps compared to LCD counterparts.

Consequently the projector lamp dissipates less heat to the environment and also consumes less power when operating.

Total cost of ownership

Even though the DLP(tm), being a newer technology can be slightly expensive than the LCD in terms of the initial investment, they require significantly less maintenance over longer periods. DLP(tm) projectors in general have much longer operational life that the LCD based projectors.

This combined with the savings on the projector lamp life and the power consumption, the total cost of ownership in DLP projectors can be substantially lower compared to their LCD counterparts.

Furthermore, unlike the LCD, which has apparent image quality degradation with pro-longed use, LCDs does not loose image contrast and colour vibrancy with aging.

There are several unique benefits that are derived from DLP technology. One of the most obvious is the size, a feature most relevant in the mobile presentation market. Another DLP(tm) advantage is that it can produce higher contrast video with deeper black levels than you normally get on an LCD projector.

DLP(tm) has ardent followers in the home theater world primarily due to this key advantage" DLP projector technology is now available in Sri Lanka under several brand names such as Optoma, InFocus, Toshiba etc.

Summary : When it comes to home theater, presentations and tutorials DLP has continued to make competitive advances in colour, contrast, and image stability that have served to make it a technology preferred by many.

DLP projectors are emerging as the smarter choice for educators, in auditoriums, classrooms, gymnasium, and library plus for the government and the corporate for use in conferences, boardrooms, trade shows and road shows.