Sony SXRD 4K manual

Optical Actuators. Most microdisplay projectors offer a one-to-one relationship between the pixels on the microdisplay and the pixels on the screen. But in a move oddly reminiscent of interlace scanning, recent projection systems divide each display frame into two "subframes." A pivoting mirror outside the display panel called an optical actuator toggles the screen image back and forth. The system shows the pixels of the first subframe, then toggles to show the pixels of the second.

Original data for 20 pixels

Data split into Subframe A (shown in green) and Subframe B (shown in red), 10 pixels each.

Addressed pixels	Addressed pixels with
with optical actuator	optical actuator in
in position 1.	position 2, half pixel
Data = Subframe A	offset from position 1.
	Data = Subframe B

20 pixels shown using a chip with half the resolution and half the frame duration given to each subframe.

An "optical actuator" works to double the native resolution of the panel itself.

The optical actuator system also uses a different orientation for the pixels. Instead of an "orthogonal" array, arranged in vertical columns and horizontal rows, the optical actual system adopts a diamond or diagonal pixel array.

In the optical actuator system, a diagonal array pixel (left) shares its area with four adjacent pixels. An orthogonal array pixel (right) never shares its area.

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