Understanding 4K Resolution in Projection Systems, a white paper

[donaldk]

Chris Chinnock, a very well known image technology industry analist and founder of Display Daily, just released his latest white paper. This time Chris reviews the issue of "Understanding 4K Resolution in Projection Systems".

Chris discusses the changes that are occurring with regards to defining resolution in projection systems.  This is being driven by the wider adoption of so-called "image shifting" techniques which can increase the displayed pixels on the screen - which are higher than the native resolution of the projection engine.  This white paper explores the technologies used in image shifting as well as the performance of them.  It also defines categories for better evaluation of these products.

For this paper, Chris defined resolution categories with definitions that focus on what can be resolved ON-SCREEN, which he thinks is the correct way to evaluate and measure projector resolution. 

The categories are:
4K DCI (4096x2160): accepts 1080p or 2160p content and displays 8.8M pixels on-screen with or without an image shifting optic.
4K UHD (3840x2160): accepts 1080p or 2160p content and displays 8.3M pixels on-screen with or without an image shifting optic
4K Supported: accepts 1080p or 2160p content and displays around 4M pixels on-screen using an image shifting optic

There are noticeable differences between projections in different classes and even within the same class - most determined by the algorithms used.  To dig deeper into this topic.

The table of contents is shown below.


One can download the white paper by providing one's details, following registration a downloadlink will be emailed to you.

[donaldk]

I have skimmed through the pdf and its focus is on Epson, JVC and TI's 0.66" XPR. Did not see any reference to the oldest pixel shifting technology Panasonic's Quad Pixel Drive that shifts across two acces creating not 2, but four partially overlapping images. Nor of Barco's implementation that uses the same 0.9"DMD as Panasonic, but uses TI XPR optical actuator with its own image processing engine. We see this in the F90 and all deriviatives, and the HDX 3DMD series, aswell as the UDX series that will be available from November onwards, Barco's new driver for the large venue rental & staging market.