Wolf Cinema DLD-380FD - Manual (Page 3)

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:
1) All laser – uses red, green and blue lasers [generally used in Cineplex installations]
2) Laser Phosphor – uses blue lasers and a phosphor wheel to create white or yellow light
3) LED [Light Emitting Diodes] – uses red, green and blue LEDs
4) 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,
powered by the BLU-Escent laser phosphor illumination technology, mated with our outboard
ProScaler MK III video processor, and features numerous other imaging enhancements to deliver
bright, colorful and high contrast images over very long system life.