Natural Black

Makes a Dramatic

Difference

When you watch a movie, shadows should stand out from the background, black levels should be solid even in dark scenes, and blacks should maintain their depth when the scene becomes brighter. Which is exactly what happens with

Natural Black and other Yamaha innovations take home theater image quality to an entirely new level.

Superior 900:1
Contrast Ratio

The DPX-1 has an exceptionally high contrast ratio of 900:1. This is the key to achieving the fine gradations from white to black that make Natural Black so effective.

Digital Cinema Projector

DPX-1

Yamaha Natural Black. Because even though it’s usually the bright colors that you notice, how a video system reproduces gradations of black is extremely important. This is what determines contrast, and is very often the difference between an image that is merely good, and one that is sharp and rich at every level of brightness. Yamaha put a great deal of effort into improving black reproduction, and with Natural Black, we’ve achieved levels of black that are about 18% “blacker” than those of conventional projectors.

Black reproduction by DPX-1 and conventional projectors.

A DPX-1: Deep blacks are clearly defined, all dark

gradations are sharply and cleanly rendered.

 

A

 

B

 

 

Black Level

White Level

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conventional projectors: due

 

 

 

 

 

 

B

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to “floating black” effect,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rendering of deep blacks is very

 

 

 

 

 

Simulated image for descriptive purposes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

difficult.

 

Yamaha Natural Black makes subtle

 

With other projectors, black contrast may be

 

 

degrees of black in textures, shadows and

 

soft and fuzzy rather than sharp and clear.

Black Level

White Level

so on stand out more clearly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

DLP™ Optical System Provides Numerous Quality Benefits

Digital Light Processing™ technology, developed by Texas Instruments, has a number of advantages that caused Yamaha to choose it as the basis for this projector. Its single panel architecture allows the use of a small, lightweight optical system, and the fact that it is a reflective rather than transmissive technology provides greater efficiency. In addition, the all-digital nature of the DLP™ system, as opposed to the analog nature of other systems, means that color and motion are more accurately controlled, resulting in superior image quality.

DMD™

Projection Lens

Shaping Lens

Tri-Color Wheel

Condensing Lens

Light Source

The DPX-1 Optical System

Extra-Large DMD™
Semiconductor

The key component of the DLP™ system is the Digital Micromirror Device™ optical semiconductor chip. This DMD™ switching unit has an array of 786,432 hinged, microscopic mirrors which operate as optical switches to create a high resolution, full color image. To maximize DMD™ quality, Yamaha uses a large 0.9-inch semiconductor that generates greater light output than the smaller 0.7-inch chip used in other DLP™ projectors, so less magnification is required and greater detail is obtained.

The 0.9-inch DMD™ chip has 786,432 mirrors (picture elements) that are set at a 17 micron pitch. Each element is mechanically switched +/- 10° in 15 micro-seconds by the attractive force of static electricity. The device has a service life of more than 100,000 hours.

Unique Tri-Color Wheel Optimizes Movie Images

The DPX-1 is the first home theater projector to employ a true tri-color wheel. Conventional color wheels contain a W, or white (transparent), section to brighten them for presentations via computer. The W section is not used in movie mode, but its presence reduces movie contrast because of the extra light transmission.

By eliminating the W section, the tri-color wheel provides greater area for each of the three primary colors (red-green-blue, or RGB) that create the images. This results in much higher movie image contrast, which is 40% better than that of conventional DLP™ projectors (and note that other projectors’ contrast ratios often refer to computer mode, not movie mode). In terms of color reproduction, the tri-color wheel improves the depth and solidity of images in colorful scenes which were previously difficult to capture, and Texas Instruments’ latest RGB movie sequencing further boosts color performance.

“Fine-tuning” the video signal to achieve the highest possible quality.

The DPX-1 ensures that movies are seen at maximum quality by automatically choosing between a 3:2 Pull-

Down Cinema Progressive Circuit for film and an

ordinary progressive circuit for video.

A highly precise 13-Bit Digital Gamma Correction

Circuit is used to realize the full potential of the excellent gradation-producing properties of the DMD™ element. The system chooses from among five gamma correction curves depending on the input format to ensure maximum image quality.

In order to decrease video noise levels without affecting sharpness, a Field-Adaptive Noise Reduction Circuit detects the changes in brightness of the images, analyzes the images to distinguish between outlines/edges and surface areas, and provides the optimum filtering for each area.

Three-Dimensional Noise

Reduction decreases the noise component related to the frame memory time axis, thus helping to effectively minimize noise that causes the reproduction of coarse images.

Conventional Color

DPX-1 Tri-Color

Digital Video Signal Processing

Wheel (RGBW)

Wheel (RGB)

Circuits