Wolf Cinema DLD-380FD User Manual

Page 3

The Advantage of Solid State Illumination

Home cinema projectors have historically been illuminated by lamps, providing the required

brightness to light up large home theater screens. However, such lamps must be replaced over

time, and come with moderate-to-high replacement costs [including subsequent system re-

calibration costs]. Projector lamps will diminish in output levels over time, and as they decay they

cannot be further modulated to deliver constant peak white and contrast level performances.

New and exciting solid state illumination technologies are here today, and provide many

benefits for home theater enthusiasts. Projectors with solid state light sources are designed

around four different architectures:

All laser – uses red, green and blue lasers [generally used in Cineplex installations]

Laser Phosphor – uses blue lasers and a phosphor wheel to create white or yellow light

LED [Light Emitting Diodes] – uses red, green and blue LEDs

Hybrid – uses a combination of LED and lasers

Each of these approaches has its strengths and weaknesses – and each comes with certain

design variations that further differentiate the products and how they may best fit a specific

application. For example, Wolf Cinema has released three LED-based projection systems over the

last 5 years, two of which remain available in the company’s current assortment. These LED

solutions are terrific imagers in their own right, with extended color gamut and excellent contrast

performance. The only limitation with LED systems is in peak white performance, typically around

1000 ANSI [post calibration].

In this paper, we will focus on Wolf Cinema’s implementation of the new BLU-Escent™

laser illumination technologies, as originally developed by our OEM partner JVC Kenwood. The

DLD-380FD projection system boasts a sixth-generation, three-chip D-ILA™ light engine core,

ProScaler MK III video processor, and features numerous other imaging enhancements to deliver

bright, colorful and high contrast images over very long system life.