LCD is the acronym for Liquid Crystal Display. It
is the established technology used by most of the leading manufacturers.
Most of today's LCD projectors contain three separate LCD glass panels,
one each for red, green, and blue components of the image signal being
fed into the projector. As light passes through the LCD panels, individual
pixels ("picture elements") can be opened to allow light to
pass, or closed to block the light. This activity modulates the light
and produces the image that is projected onto the screen.
A less common type of LCD projector is the "Standard
LCD." These projectors have only one panel of LCD glass that controls
the three primary colors. Models that use the single-panel LCD tend to
be on the cheaper side and have lower color quality. The more popular
three-panel, or "Polysilicon LCD", is considered to be of higher
quality than the standard, single-panel LCD. The projection through three
panels allows polysilicon LCD projectors to have higher color saturation
than the standard LCD projector.
DLP is the acronym for Digital Light Processing.
It is a proprietary technology developed by Texas Instruments. DLP uses
a single Digital Mirror Device (DMD) chip that has thousands of tiny mirrors,
each representing a single pixel. These mirrors tilt back and forth directing
light either into the lens path to turn the pixel on, or away from the
lens path to turn it off and create the image.
DLP is a newer technology than LCD and is used on some of the smallest,
lightest projectors currently available. DLP projectors handle video images
extremely well.
Three-chip DLP projectors are also available. These systems
are much like the single-chip DLP, but with very high lumen (brightness)
output levels for superb image quality. The three-chip DLPs are among
the most expensive projectors, costing anywhere from $20,000-$30,000 or
more.
LCDs are known to produce greater color definition, offering more shades
or variations of color than single-chip DLP projectors. DLP projectors can
sometimes burn definition out of the highlights and shadows with their vibrant
colors. This criticism of DLP stems from the fact that the mirrors reflect
all light, making it a challenge to keep the color black dark enough to
provide high contrast images. Images from DLP projectors may appear softer
than images produced by a sharp three-panel LCD projector.
LCD projectors are also generally brighter than single-chip
DLP projectors. Currently the brightest single-chip DLP on the market
is just 2000 lumens, compared to 5,000+ lumens of LCD and three-chip DLP
projectors.
Overall, LCD projectors invariably give sharper, clearer
data images than DLP units. However, DLP projectors normally produce smoother
video images with less pixelization, compared to LCD projectors. Despite
the often slightly smaller size of DLP projectors, the better data quality
of LCD projectors means that LCD technology accounts for around 80% of
projector sales. Even so, remember that if you will be using video extensively
in your presentation, a projector with DLP technology will be more suited
to your needs.
While LCD and DLP projectors are currently the most
popular choices, there is a new emerging technology worth
mentioning. LCOS, which stands for Liquid Crystal on Silicon, is a kind
of combination of LCD and DLP technologies. LCOS is liquid crystal on
a silicone wafer with a very high pixel density. The number of pixels
are less restricted than LCD or DLP because the electronics can be placed
under the pixel rather than next to it. The high pixel density means higher
resolution. In fact, today's LCOS projectors start at SVGA resolution.
The high pixel density also means no pixelization.
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