By: Sander Buys, Product Marketing Manager Barco Home
The typical go-to technology for home theaters is projection—and many people don’t even consider the alternatives. Indeed, as a leader in digital cinema projection, Barco knows the benefits of the technology like no other. The availability and price erosion of high-resolution LED video walls, however, now makes this technology a valid option in certain environments. So, how do you know which technology to choose?
First, let’s state that Barco has top-notch products in both projection and LED. This makes us perfectly poised to propose the technology that best suits the needs of the customer—without being biased or limited to our portfolio.
Projection and LED both offer distinct advantages for home cinema applications, catering to different preferences and setups. Projection, the classic choice when it comes to digital cinema applications, brings the well-known cinematic experience and sense of immersion we know from commercial theaters to home environments. LED video walls, on the other hand, bring unparalleled brightness, color vibrancy, and contrast. Unlike projectors, which may struggle with ambient light, LED video walls maintain their image quality regardless of room lighting conditions.
Projectors: The Home Theater’s Best Friend
For many people, cinema equals projection—period. And rightfully so: the technology offers great image quality, can be spread over a large canvas, and offers full immersion. Intelligent use of short-throw lenses even allows the solution to limit its footprint and ensures the equipment can be hidden neatly in the room.
Projectors also come in many different sizes and budget ranges. From compact models to full cinema types, customers will definitely find what they are looking for in our projector portfolio. All were designed to optimize the viewing experience, depending on the room size and required brightness.
Safety First in High-Brightness Environments
Projectors are fantastic for use in home theaters and darkened environments. However, they are often not the best choice for use in environments with ambient lighting conditions. A limitation of the technology? Yes – and no. Sure, most projectors don’t have the power to perform adequately in bright locations, but with RGB Laser technology we can come pretty close to great image quality, even outdoors. However, there is also the matter of laser safety. When accidentally looking directly into a highly bright laser projector, eye damage is almost unavoidable. That is why we have limited the light output of our home theater products. A safety-first approach which not all projector manufacturers embrace, but is necessary according to our philosophy.
LED Video walls: The New Kid in Town
LED is not a new technology. It has been around for over 50 years (in monochromatic applications like clocks) and, since the late 1990s, also in video wall applications. This article gives a good overview of the evolution of LED.
Because the pixel pitches for the early LED displays were quite large, these video walls were only valuable if the viewers were standing far enough away from the displays. This made them popular in the event industry. But with the availability of finer pixel pitches, this constraint no longer applies, and the technology has now entered the home entertainment market as well.
The biggest benefit of LED is that the light is produced by the screen itself. Unlike projection, no brightness is lost, making the technology suitable for literally every environment.
Presenting the Northern Lights Series
The TruePix Northern Lights series is the result of Barco’s two decades of experience in LED technology. Perfecting the viewing experience, the TruePix Northern Lights series brings the movie director’s passion and commitment to home theaters. Available in pixel pitches between 0.9 mm and 1.9 mm, Barco offers a wide range of products tailored to the differing needs of our customers.
The image quality and contrast of the TruePix Northern Lights series are truly phenomenal. Under all circumstances, the video walls bring spectacular colors, great contrast, and pixel-perfect detail to any movie (or other content). Northern Lights will prove its added value when working with HDR content. Bifrost, for example, the flagship 0.9 mm pixel pitch model, has seen a steep rise in popularity since its launch, bringing high resolution to every screen.
From Dark to Light and in Between
Leaving some particularly low-value exceptions aside, most LED video walls bring a great viewing experience when operated at high-brightness levels. That’s great for use in daylight conditions. But when it gets darker, it’s impossible to keep that level of brightness as it will quickly hurt the eyes. Therefore, the LED video wall needs to be dimmed. For many manufacturers, this is a problem. When dimming, it is important that all color information is preserved, but with a lot more nuance. This requires more bit-depth, which many image processors can’t handle. Barco’s proprietary Infinipix Gen2 image processor, the ‘brains’ of our solution was specifically designed to offer an optimal viewing experience, even when heavily dimmed—thanks to its 23-bit processing. Other features of Infinipix Gen2 include 4-way failover (to ensure continued operations), Smart Calibration (perfecting image quality), and SteadyView (countering eye fatigue).
Conclusion: Projection or LED?
When needing to choose between projection and LED, it’s first wise to consider the budget. Yes, the cost of LED video walls has eroded in the past years—but the technology is still more expensive than just about any projector. So if there are restrictions on the financial part, then projection is always the best option. Also, if the home cinema is located in a darkened room, then projection is recommended as well. It doesn’t really make sense to invest in an LED video wall if it always plays at only 20% of its brightness capabilities. If, however, the desire is to have total freedom of lighting conditions, enjoying a movie even when the sun is out, then LED is the logical choice. With the TruePix Northern Lights series, customers get the perfect image quality they expect whenever they want.
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