OREANDA-NEWS. Development of visibility enhancement for projector display in bright rooms 60 frames/sec real-time processing for high resolution video compensation

Hitachi, Ltd. announced the development of video processing technology enhancing the visibility of high resolution at a rate of 60 frames per second. Enhanced visibility video display was achieved by analyzing the visual characteristics of the video signals to be displayed, extracting key components contributing to visibility, and enhancing those components.

As a result, good visibility of projector displayed video can be achieved without increasing the brightness of the projector light source. To enable this technology to be embedded into various products, the processing algorithm for the hardware structure was optimized, achieving real-time processing of high-resolution video in compact hardware. The technology was first developed for the projector but as it can also enhance visibility in surveillance monitors and vehicular displays, it is expected to find a wide range of application.

With projectors, video images are converted to light and then projected onto a screen. If the screen is too bright due to strong ambient light, the clarity of the projected image deteriorates and so conventionally, a room is dimmed. In recent years however projectors are increasingly being used in brighter environments due to improvements in projector light source and in combination with mobile terminals such as smart phones and tablets.

In order to support such needs, Hitachi has developed video processing technology to enable increased visibility of video images under various ambient levels of brightness. Hitachi Maxell, Ltd., responsible for developing, producing and marketing Hitachi's projectors, has incorporated this technology in the development of an ultimate short throw projector with enhanced visibility, and will be releasing the product in the US and Europe first, followed by other regions.

Conventional processing to enhance visibility includes contrast compensation and color management. These methods however process the entire image displayed as a whole, resulting in an undesirable "side-effect" of reducing visibility in local portions of the image which did not require compensation in the first place, making it difficult to achieve a significant overall improvement through compensation. The technology developed analyzes local characteristics such as brightness and resolution in an image, and compensates by adjusting the characteristics in each locality to reduce the "side-effects" and provide significantly enhanced visibility.