With the rise of the new generation of consumers, projectors are becoming more and more popular, and the demand for immersive large-screen experience and outdoor camping has also spawned the rapid development of the projector industry. According to data from RUNTO, in the first half of 2023, the global projector market shipments reached 8.98 million units, a year-on-year increase of 7.1%, and projectors have become one of the hottest digital products.
And with the update and iteration of projection technology, the picture quality and viewing experience of projectors are also constantly improving, so for many friends who want to build home theaters, these two requirements are particularly important.
Anyone who knows about projectors should know that there are 5 key factors affecting picture quality: brightness, resolution, color gamut, uniformity, and contrast. Among them, the first four must be more understood, here will not be introduced, today let's take a look at the contrast, which is also the most mentioned point by major projector bloggers recently.
First, what is the contrast ratio of the projector?
Projector contrast refers to the measurement of different brightness levels between the brightest white and the darkest black in the light and dark areas of the image, the larger the contrast ratio, the more gradient levels of projection quality from black to white, the richer the grayscale level and color level that can be expressed; Conversely, the smaller the contrast ratio, the smaller the range of picture differences and the less clear the hierarchy.
From a visual point of view, under a reasonable brightness value, the greater the contrast, the clearer and more eye-catching the image, the shadows and highlight details in the picture can be more clearly highlighted, the edge between the dark object and the bright object can be more accurately reflected, and the details are more vivid; Conversely, the smaller the contrast, the more gray the picture will be and the color loss will be relatively serious.
Second, what is the difference between ANSI contrast and FOFO contrast?
At present, the two commonly used contrast measurement methods in the industry are ANSI contrast and FOFO contrast measurement. The contrast ratios presented by different measurement methods are also different, so their values cannot be directly compared and considered the same, but in general, ANSI contrast is closer to the actual use case, and the measurement method is more rigorous and accurate than FOFO contrast.
How ANSI contrast is measured:
To test ANSI contrast, the projector screen needs to be divided into 16 equal parts, and 8 black and white areas are distributed according to the checkerboard in 16 equal parts, and the average brightness of 8 white areas and 8 black areas are taken as a result, which is ANSI contrast.
The advantage of this method measurement is to fully consider the brightness of different areas in the center and edge of the picture, usually the brightness of the center prefetch is high, the brightness of the edge area is low, and the actual playback of the film is also considered, and the light and dark pictures are presented at the same time. Therefore, the ANSI test method will be more accurate in comparison.
Some projectors marked with 1600:1 contrast ratio on the market, in a laboratory environment that is not completely black, only achieve a contrast ratio of about 500:1, and for better use, both merchants and professional bloggers will recommend using specific curtains to suppress speckles and color edges, which not only can not bring higher brightness picture effects, but also do not help in terms of contrast.
Third, does contrast have a big impact on image quality?
Theoretically, the higher the contrast value, the better the picture display, the clearer the details, the purer the color, but usually combined with specific measurement methods, and when the dynamic contrast reaches a certain degree (tens of thousands to one), the human eye can basically no longer distinguish their difference. At present, the contrast parameter itself does not have an absolutely reasonable value, nor does it have a set of completely standard test methods, so as long as the contrast value is within a certain reasonable range, users do not have to blindly pursue ultra-high contrast.
The final picture quality display effect of the projector still needs to be considered comprehensively and comprehensively, and the contrast ratio cannot be generalized. Like some traditional lamp projectors, the picture contrast ratio is often 30,000:1, but the actual picture effect is not as good as the Dangbei X5 Ultra using super panchromatic laser technology, which is similar to the iPhone's 12 million pixel effect to kill many 100 million pixel mobile phones.
Therefore, users in the purchase of projectors need to combine the picture light source, brightness, resolution, color accuracy, color gamut and related to eye comfort with the presence of speckle dispersion and other issues, contrast is only one of the indicators, ultimately but also look at the overall picture and color performance, if the user is too worried, you can directly choose brightness, color configuration are excellent or contrast can directly reach hundreds of thousands of to one product, more representative include Dangbei projection, Sony projection, the picture transparent color performance is good.
Finally, no matter how much data is stacked, it may not be as good as seeing is believing, how the projector picture effect is, users can take the real machine to experience.