Consumer Electronic Information: The Basics of the DLP ProjectorWritten by Simon Canfield
Projectors have come a long way in past few decades. The desktop fossils that were once used to show home movies or classroom filmstrips are a thing of past. With today’s technology, you can now experience a projected movie that emulates a full-blown theater flick, without time, effort and hassle of standing in line at local cinema.DLP projectors – also known as Digital Light Processing projectors – have brought proverbial silver screen to home front. The fact that some theaters actually use this type of technology for feature movie projection makes this truer than you might imagine. After being digitally converted and placed on an optical disk – much in same way as DVD technology is produced – images are fed into projector and sent to movie screen. The main difference is that DLP projectors offer a high definition experience, as opposed to that of a DVD. The result is a picture that very nearly rivals quality of a 70mm projection, but without imperfections. The color accuracy of DLP system is outstanding, with an end result that beats LCD technology. Some of advantages that make a DLP projector of choice are its low power consumption, compactness, micro-mirror construction (which is responsible for high level screen resolution), high contrast and brightness. All in all, this is closest that anyone can come to having a bona fide cinema within confines of their home. With every set of pros, you’ll always find some cons lurking in shadows. Such is case with DLP projector. For those who are particularly sensitive to certain visual effects, DLP design produces a type of “rainbow effect,” which could serve as a distraction when looking from one side of screen to other during viewing. This will play out as a brief splash of colors, which is simply a result of type of technology that’s used in production of DLP. Most people don’t even notice this color display, but those who are in tune to that sort of thing may see it as an annoyance.
| | EDTV: What You Should Know Before You Make That PurchaseWritten by Simon Canfield
Enhanced Definition Television – also known as EDTV – is one of many modern viewing technologies of our time. Often confused with HDTV capability, this is actually a compromise between standard TV and HDTV. In fact, visual benefits are at least twice that of standard television, since EDTV technology offers a minimum resolution of 480p when used on a monitor. As a result, you’ll find that this type of system is more expensive than standard television, yet cheaper than HDTV technology.While there’s been a hew and a cry to purchase more expensive – and higher quality – HDTV, there are actually some advantages to “second best” EDTV version. First, there can be as much as a $1200 price difference between two, and – in some scenarios – viewing quality of EDTV is superior to that of its pricier counterpart. For instance, there’s only a 10% difference in quality when you’re viewing two plasma TVs that have been produced by same manufacturer, but EDTV soars above HDTV when incoming picture has a lower resolution than monitor’s regular resolution. This is because EDTV technology allows it to align better with incoming signal. If you have an extensive DVD collection, or simply prefer watching movies via DVD, then EDTV will offer a better video experience. Why? Simply because DVD, which offers a 480p picture matches perfectly with that of EDTV – which is also 480p. That, in addition to fact that most content isn’t high definition, but happens to have a pixel count that matches beautifully with “lower quality” EDTV system, makes this a better buy. Higher contrast ratios are also better in EDTV arena, which makes viewing of darker scenes more superior. In fact, even high definition quality transmissions only suffer a 10% difference in quality between EDTV and HDTV – yet, price of former is significantly less.
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