Digital Light Processing (DLP®), unlike LCD technology, is 'reflective'. Rather than passing light source through a liquid crystal material, light is reflected off panels called Digital Micro-Mirror Devices or DMD's. The DMD's are made up of tiny mirrors, each reflecting a single pixel in the resolution of the projected image.
For example, if you were to project material from a typical laptop computer, it would be in SXGA+ resolution and made up of 1050 vertical lines each containing 1400 pixels. By the same measure a DLP projector with SXGA+ resolution would use a DMD panel or panels (like LCD, higher quality systems use 3 panel, one for the Red, Green and Blue colour signals) that was made up of 1050 rows of mirrors, with each row containing 1400 tiny mirrors.
The DLP advantage
The advantage of this system is offering better control of colour in any image since each individual pixel is controlled and a smoother, cleaner image since the space between the mirrors on a DMD is less than the space between the LCD panel’s crystal cells.
DLP projectors also tend to be brighter, unlike transmissive LCD technology where some light is lost passing through the liquid crystal panels, as all the light from the source is reflected out of the projector. This means that DLP projectors have the potential to offer higher brightness from smaller units and consequently use less power to achieve the same levels of brightness.
These quality benefits of DLP projection technology do come at an increased cost however and such have remained at the top-end of the projection market.
Christie offers DLP projectors for