For custom integrators who want to offer their clients something genuinely different
Home cinema has changed. The screens are bigger, the content demands more from the projector than ever before, and clients who are willing to invest in a dedicated theater expect every detail to be right. Finding a projector that ticks all the boxes – performance, installation flexibility, and long-term reliability – has always been a balancing act. The Barco Heimdall series tips that balance in a very convincing way.
Barco is a well-established name in projection. The Belgian company has been at the forefront of cinema technology for many years, supplying projectors to commercial theaters and IMAX installations worldwide. Their residential division brings that same depth of engineering into the home – and with Heimdall, they have built a projector that speaks directly to what custom integrators need on the job.
Brightness that actually makes sense for the screens your clients want
Home theaters are getting larger. Multiple-row seating has become increasingly common, and with it, screen sizes have crept up to the 180–225 inch range. Screens that big often need to be acoustically transparent, so that speakers can sit behind them. And acoustically transparent screens typically have a gain of around 0.8–0.9, meaning they reflect less light back to the viewer than a standard white screen.
For HDR content to look the way it was meant to look, you need sufficient brightness on screen. The industry benchmark for a well-calibrated HDR projection setup is in the range of 32–40 foot-lamberts. That's a number that most projectors in the 3,000–3,500 lumen range simply cannot deliver on a large, acoustically transparent screen – once you account for calibration loss and optical inefficiency, you're realistically looking at around 24 foot-lamberts. Perfectly usable for SDR content. Not enough for HDR to truly shine.
The Heimdall, at 4,500 lumens, delivers a raw brightness of 42.12 fL on a 180-inch 16:9 screen with 0.9 gain. After the standard 20% cushion for calibration and lens losses, you're still sitting at around 34 fL. That's solidly in the sweet spot – and it means the projector is working hard from day one, running at full brightness.
Step up to the Heimdall+, with 6,000 lumens, and the picture changes again. Raw brightness on the same screen lands at 56.17 fL, which translates to roughly 45 fL after calibration losses. That margin gives you something valuable: the ability to dial the laser down slightly at installation, then nudge it back up over the years as the light source ages. It's a smart way to protect your client's investment and keep the image looking great for a long time without any hardware changes.
Quiet enough to skip the hush box
There's a reason integrators love silent projectors: not everyone can dedicate a separate room to projection equipment. The Heimdall operates at just 29 dB – quieter than most home air conditioning systems. That means you can mount it in the theater itself, in a ceiling recess or even integrated in a custom coffee table, without worrying about it competing with the audio experience. For clients who want a seamless, beautifully designed space rather than a box tucked away in a utility room, that's a genuine game-changer.
Color and contrast that hold up to scrutiny
The Heimdall's RGB laser light engine covers 98% of the Rec. 2020 color gamut. For context, Rec. 2020 is the standard used for mastering modern film and HDR content – so getting close to full coverage means colors land where the director intended them to. Skin tones stay natural, deep blues stay deep, and the overall image has a richness that clients notice immediately.
Contrast is handled by Barco's DynaBlack technology, which delivers dynamic contrast ratios of up to 20,000:1. The system reads the content in real time and adjusts black levels frame by frame. The result is deep blacks that don't wash out in bright scenes – exactly the kind of image depth that separates a great home theater from a good one.
The native 4K image is delivered by a Texas Instruments 0.98-inch DMD chip – true 4K, without pixel shifting or any interpolation. Every pixel is real. On a large screen, that difference is visible, and it's the kind of detail that shows up in the conversation with clients who are doing their homework.
Seven lenses, two aspect ratios, one projector
Every theater is different. The throw distance, the ceiling height, the position of the seating – none of it is the same from one install to the next. Barco offers seven lens options for the Heimdall, ranging from ultra-short throw (starting at 0.53:1) all the way to extreme long throw (up to 4.05:1). That covers virtually any room geometry without asking the client to compromise on screen size or seating layout.
What sets Heimdall apart from most of the competition here is the availability of dedicated models for both 16:9 and Cinemascope installations – a feature that is exclusive to Barco Residential. If your client wants native Cinemascope with 6,144 x 2,592 resolution and no letterboxing, there is a Heimdall for that. No adapters, no workarounds.
A projector built to last
The RGB laser light source has a rated lifetime of 25,000 hours at full power. There are no moving parts in the light engine – it's a fully solid-state design. That means no lamp replacements, minimal maintenance, and a long period of stable, consistent performance. For a high-end residential install where the client expects the system to just work, year after year, that kind of reliability is worth a lot.
Combined with Barco's global service network and the company's track record in professional cinema, the Heimdall comes with the kind of long-term support that protects both the client's investment and your reputation as a dealer.
Heimdall is a projector that was clearly designed with the custom integrator in mind – not as an afterthought, but as the starting point. The brightness math works for large screens. The noise level works for open rooms. The lens range works for any throw distance. And the Barco name does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to client confidence. For dealers who want to offer something that genuinely delivers on the promise of luxury home cinema, the Heimdall series is well worth a closer look.
Contact Barco by clicking the icons to the right (or below if you're on a mobile device).
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