Barco

March 22, 2021 - With the latest Pulse software update, we're making Barco's dynamic contrast feature available on all our UDM and UDX projectors (with plans to extend the feature to our other projection platforms in the future). What would you say if we tell you it increases the contrast ratio of your projector from 2.200:1 up to an incredible 20.000:1?! May the force of DynaBlack be with you!

What is contrast ratio?

Contrast ratio is a technical specification which indicates the theoretical contrast you can get with your display, or projector in this story. It's the difference between light and dark, defined as the ratio between the brightest light to that of the darkest solid black pixel your system can produce. Thus, how much brighter is the light of an all-white image compared to a solid black image? It means that a projector with a 2000:1 contrast ratio will produce its white image 2000 times brighter than the black image.

That's on paper. But what does it mean if you look at the projected image? Well with higher contrast ratios, the projector reproduces the content with deeper black levels and shadow details. Whereas, with low contrast, blacks or dark areas appear more like grey. The higher the contrast ratio, the sharper the details and the more subtle shades you'll be able to see. It really boasts the depth of an image and makes it easier to see/recognize objects in darker scenes. All this is especially important when working with high-resolution images and video content.

Enhancing images with dynamic contrast

Contrast ratio is what the projector optical system itself is capable of. But some projectors now also include extra processing tools or contrast enhancing technologies to adjust contrast and brightness based on the image that's being displayed. And then we're talking about dynamic contrast ratios.

Dynamic contrast functions detect the visual input signal and refine the picture to deliver optimal contrast. When the content is showing a white image, the light source is beaming at full force. When the content is showing a darker image, the projector displays darker pixels, but it'll also dim the light source to enable deeper blacks while maintaining the highlights in the image.

Barco's DynaBlack

Thanks to an internally developed smart algorithm, DynaBlack enhances the UDM/UDX projector contrast ratio up to 20.000:1! It doesn't only sound impressive, its results are also impressive. DynaBlack makes darker scenes darker without any processing latency. With superlative black levels the quality of your content enhances incredibly and the contrast in dark images really stands out.

But don't just take our word for it. You need to see it, to believe it.

The great news is you can immediately start playing with it today without any additional costs! And without any hardware changes, so you can just keep using the same TLD+ lenses as before. The only thing you need to do is update your UDX/UDM projector(s) with the Pulse 2.1 release.

By the way, did you know that this feature also reduces the ecological footprint of your projector? When watching a movie, it can save you up to 70% of energy consumption on average. Go DynaBlack to go green!