LCD Turbocharger
The Sanyo PLC-XP200L's new four-panel LCD projection technology (the extra, fourth panel being yellow) promises more intense color and deeper blacks -- and it just may have delivered.
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By Brent Butterworth
October 2008
Yellow Peppers: Thanks to an added yellow filter, the peppers on the right boast more vibrant color and deeper blacks. Same goes for the other photo examples at the bottom of the page.
Sanyo says the extra yellow oomph expands a projector's color gamut by 20%. It also claims image brightness increases 20% without affecting contrast. In a business environment, that means a more vivid picture in a brightly lit boardroom. In a residential environment, it means you can lower the brightness to get deeper blacks.
Yeah, I know — you should never trust a demo, because it's always possible for a manufacturer to rig the game. (Trust me here. I used to work as a marketing director, and I took pride in being a game-rigger par excellence.) But Sanyo's demo did look convincing. I imagined that the extra yellow might produce a visible shift toward yellow, but I couldn't see it and neither could the other product reviewer there with me. I also imagined the extra yellow might throw off the color balance of the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, but the QuaDrive blacks actually looked purer. The picture looked dramatically more vivid, and the blacker blacks gave it a deeper, more detailed look.
We're looking forward to seeing how QuaDrive performs in the more demanding home environment — and how it fares when faced with a color analyzer.
