4K DLP With XPR Technology

Most consumer 4K DLP projectors utilize a single Texas Instruments (TI) Digital Light Processing (DLP) chipset with an arrangement of highly reflective aluminum micromirrors known as the DMD to deliver 4K UHD (3840x2160 pixels) displayed resolution.

The XPR Technology allows a DLP to display a 4K image. Texas Instruments states that “XPR Technology achieves true 4K by producing 8.3 million distinct pixels regardless of the DMD chip’s number of native pixels. XPR quadruples the 0.47-inch DMD chip’s native 1920x1080 pixels to generate 4K (8.3 million pixels) onscreen resolution due to its lightning-fast pixel shifting speed. This is why Projector Reviews list the native resolution of many 4K DLP projectors as 1920x1080x4.

So while a DLP imager may contain less than 8.3 megapixels, every pixel’s image is rapidly shifted, allowing each one to do the job of multiple pixels. When it comes to pixel shifting, faster is better. The pixel wobbling is done so fast that it fools your eyes into seeing up to four times the projector’s native resolution.

The Consumer Technology Association (CTA)® states that 4K UHD must produce 8.3 million distinct pixels on the screen, which is four times the resolution of Full HD 1080p. Furthermore, the CTA states, “With more than 70 committees, subcommittees and working groups and roughly 1,100 participants, the CTA Technology and Standards program maintains an unmatched reputation as a credible and flexible standards-making body accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).”

There is a lot of debate about 4K capable DLP versus native 4K LCOS-based projectors; at Projector Reviews, we are more than comfortable with the CTA’s explanation on 4K UHD and setting industry standards with the well-written statement they provided.

Based on years of testing both 4K capable DLP projectors and native 4K projectors, we can testify that is nearly impossible to see a difference in resolution between these two 4K solutions, especially from a normal viewing distance.