Colors represent a large part of our life and it is easy to notice something that does not fully correspond to reality: a display or a projector that reproduces a wrong skin tone or an altered shade of red on the shirt of your favorite football team are just some of the examples.
Today there are many researches that revolve around the theme of color and, working in the world of visual, I think it is worth sharing some guidelines on the elements that can make a difference when it comes to choosing the right technology.
Just think of your favorite color: is it blue? I should have guessed at least once in ten since this color is, until now, the color chosen by about 40% of the world population, followed by purple (14%) and with black in the last place. In this sense, it is now known how color plays a fundamental role in conditioning a person's mood and this is the basis for the work of advertisers and brand designers, who use color to influence their audience: red is usually used. by retailers to guide the sense of urgency and spontaneous purchase (fast food is an example); companies that operate in the financial, technological and social media sectors prefer, instead, the blue, able to give a sense of calm and trust; green is chosen to represent nature and growth; orange to convey confidence and fun.
It is therefore no wonder that human beings are able to create colors and work to constantly perfect them, so as to make them bright and vivid to the human eye, whose ability to distinguish colors is based on the different sensitivity of the retina to light. of different wavelengths. Man is trichromatic, therefore he perceives the three fundamental colors (blue, red and green) thanks to the retinal cells responsible for this function (cones); for this very reason, humans can distinguish about 10 million different colors.
The holy grail for camera, projector and display manufacturers is to try to replicate Michael R. Pointer's Color Gamut who, in 1980, released the highest color gamut of real surfaces, based on 4089 samples, which is quickly established with a valid benchmark for color reproduction. Visually, in fact, the Pointer Gamut represents the colors we see in the real world.
Cinema camera technology has made great strides in this area thanks to the Rec. 2020 standard which provides image quality in 4K or 99% of Pointer's Color Gamut. In contrast, projectors and displays have lagged a bit behind, offering a lesser standard Rec. 709, which offers HD color quality or 74% of Pointer's Color Gamut. This difference is mainly due to the desire to provide as consistent color as possible using a laser technology projector. Among the three colors (blue, red and green), green is particularly unstable with currently available direct laser technology. Maintaining consistency in color reproduction is a difficult challenge to maintain, given the high initial costs, reliability, management and maintenance costs of the devices. As manufacturers we are always looking for the best technological innovations able to guarantee a color reproduction as reliable as possible and an optimal product.
In this context, a good example is the addition of the red laser technology implemented in the latest projector Panasonic (well-known company for TV and PC accessories) of 50.000 lumens (PT-RQ50K), aimed at improving the color gamut by creating an image very close to Rec. 2020. Combined with native resolution in 4K, the separate blue and red phosphor laser technology, creates a powerful color reproduction without losing stability and durability for a long time proven.
Even in the 1DLP projector space we continue to find new ways to improve our platforms. We recently released a new series of projectors featuring Panasonic's unique Rich Color Harmoniser, a technology that expands the use of red light to enhance color reproduction. Images are also greatly improved thanks to the use of Panasonic's Smooth Pixel Drive, a new image processing system that refines fonts, smooths diagonal lines and curves to achieve an output resolution of 4.608.000 pixels (2715 x 1697).
As a result of these color technology innovations, companies can now offer new levels of color projection, more intense and clearer, at a price and reliability never seen before.
But why would we need projectors with ever better colors? Because consumer expectations are getting higher; we are more and more used to using technology in our daily life, which is why when we attend an event or see an attraction, we expect something more advanced, we want to be amazed by what we see, feel and what we interact with. As a result, theme parks, museums, live events and many other attractions have had to abandon their traditional models and have had to adapt by completely reinventing themselves.
Images with the brightest and most lifelike colors, coupled with the quality of sound, provided by the latest AV technology, can take interactive and immersive experiences to the next level, without the need for complex or cumbersome virtual reality technology . Thanks to these advances in color in projectors, it is now possible to convey certain sensations to people, such as being on stage with your idol or at the center of a scene in a museum, changing what they see and what they hear.
So next time you see your favorite color or marvel at the beauty of the world, take a moment to think about the great efforts of technology to reproduce the natural world as truthfully as possible.
