HDR Tone Mapping Comes to Barco Residential Projectors

It's resulted in a conundrum for projector manufacturers, the simplest solution being to scale and clip the image above the maximum output level of the display. This, however, leads to blown-out details and hue shifts. To address this, manufacturers introduced Tone Mapping.

Tone Mapping applies a curve to the image to compress highlights based on the projector's peak light output. A harder clip point results in a brighter overall image, while a softer clip offers better highlights at the cost of image brightness, with curves typically falling somewhere in between.

In addition to a software update, the latest firmware updates the FPGA, which is essentially the software controlling the hardware. This, the company states, would simply not be possible had it not been for the processing horsepower their projectors possess.

Rather than applying the update to the RGB channels, Barco has chosen to use the ICtCp Colour Space, which provides greater perceptual uniformity. They've also added a Contrast Enhancement feature that increases black levels within the darker parts of a scene. Combine these enhancements with content meta-data, screen luminance content threshold data and SEIDR technology, and the result is an amazing HDR image, they claim.

Where other projector or video processor manufacturers add latency via image processing and tone mapping, Barco's SDEIR technology- combined with their processing power- is fast enough and smart enough to predict the next frame and optimise the image in real time. The result, Barco says, is the lowest latency found in any DLP projector.

Claver Harper, CEO of National AV Solutions, which distributes Barco Residential in Australia, told StereoNET:

This latest update from Barco Residential is a game changer for several reasons. First, it's the best HDR tone mapping available on any projector, full stop. Secondly, Barco's powerful processing now offers the best DTM, the best Dynamic contrast and the lowest latency of any DLP projector; and lastly, whether you bought a Barco 5 years ago or yesterday; you still get to enjoy all the benefits of new ownership. We don't leave our customers behind.

For more information visit Barco