Choosing a High Lumen Count Projector
To ensure optimal movie projection in well-lit rooms, consider choosing a projector with high lumen counts. These levels of brightness can overcome ambient light, such as sunlight streaming through windows, and deliver images with clarity and detail.
This JVC DLP does a good job of handling HDR content. Its auto tone mapping works well to preserve highlight detail without making colors too bright.
HDMI / USB / AV
Whether you’re hosting movie night under the stars or in a brightly lit room, you’ll want a projector with an ample amount of luminosity. Lumens are directly correlated with a projected image’s brightness, but other factors like contrast ratio and color accuracy should also be considered alongside lumen count when choosing a new projector for your home theater setup.
The ANSI lumen spec is a measure of white light brightness, while the CLO (color light output) spec measures the brightness of a projector’s color images. Advocates of the movie projector for outside CLO spec argue that because three-chip DLP and single-chip LCD projectors create white and color values differently, the ANSI lumen spec is an inaccurate way to compare brightness between them.
The screenshot below shows a scene from a nature documentary that demonstrates the difference between an LCD and DLP projector in terms of luminosity, as well as how a lack of calibration can negatively impact picture quality. The LCD has a blue-green bias that reduces saturation and overdrives highlight details, while the DLP is able to display the scene much more successfully due to its superior contrast performance and deep black levels. By reducing the Brilliant Color control on the DLP to zero, its ANSI white brightness lumens can be brought down to equal those of the LCD, but at the cost of some image brilliance.
Brightness / Contrast / Saturation / Color Accuracy
In the projector world, when you maximize light output to get high contrast ratios, something has to give. Highlight details disappear, colors are less saturated and image balance suffers. Unfortunately, both the ANSI lumen spec and the new CLO spec don’t take image quality into account.
The new CLO spec attempts to address this problem by measuring color brightness rather than white brightness. This supposedly gives buyers an apples-to-apples comparison of projectors. However, the CLO spec is still not perfect because it only measures peak whites and the color brightness of the image, not the entire picture.
ANSI lumens don’t take color brightness or image tint into account either, so comparing 3000 ANSI lumen projectors will tell you nothing about their ability to display full-color images. In fact, it will probably tell you that one is brighter than the other, but that’s about it.
The DLP projector does a much better job here. The gray background looks much more neutral and the colored pencils look more accurate, although they lack saturation compared to the uncalibrated LCD. The LCD also has a blue-green bias that interferes with the interpretation of colors. This can be substantially reduced by calibrating the projector, but it will reduce the contrast and overall brightness of the image. This is why most professional buyers for corporations, schools and governments insist on Requests For Quote that stipulate a minimum number of ANSI lumens, but don’t specify requirements for ideal color calibrations.
Image Quality / Image Size / Screen Size
The brightness of a projector is one of the most important factors to consider when buying a new one. Different situations and environments demand varying levels of brightness. The size of the screen or wall and the level of ambient light will determine the amount of lumens needed to achieve a vibrant image. Other factors include the throw distance and personal preference.
A higher lumen count is generally recommended Smart Projector for larger screens, especially in well-lit rooms. This allows you to enjoy large screen viewing without straining your eyes. A lower lumen count is recommended for smaller screens and dark rooms.
Image quality is also a factor to consider when choosing a projector. Many people think that DLP projectors offer superior image quality to LCD because they are able to produce brighter images, but this is not always true. For example, if a projector is set to its maximum light output in its best color mode, it can often look bad because highlights are overdriven and the colors are not as saturated.
To ensure that you are getting the highest image quality possible, consider a projector that is calibrated and color corrected by a professional. This will help reduce the overdrive of the highlights and ensure that the color is accurate. In addition, a projector with a high level of brightness can support a bigger screen and work well in rooms with a lot of ambient light.
Price
For large room environments requiring a high amount of ambient light, projectors with higher lumen ratings are recommended. Higher brightness levels allow the projection of larger image sizes while reducing or eliminating ambient light distortion.
Keep in mind that lumens are directly correlated with the brightness of the projected image, but other factors like contrast ratio and color accuracy should also be taken into consideration. To get the best results from a projector, it’s best to match its brightness level with the size and quality of the screen being used.
For example, a 4000 lumen projector will display a much brighter image on an 80″ screen than a 3000 lumen projector in the same environment. This is due to the fact that higher lumen projectors are able to overcome ambient light more successfully than lower-rated projectors.