Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) have emerged as a solid-state replacement for traditional high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps. LEDs provide a number of distinct operational and performance advantages that solve many of the challenges in projection arrays. This unique solid state lighting technology is ideal for display and illumination applications that require high brightness and the efficient harnessing of light from a small point source.
The application of LED illumination to visual displays, in particular, arrayed displays such as control room video walls or simulation and training environments, brings a host of unique and challenging requirements. Most of these requirements are simply not addressed by consumer or light commercial-use projection displays. They require purpose-built solutions.
LED offers several benefits, including:
- Solid state illumination technology
LEDs are solid state with no moving parts. There is no lamp arc to ignite, degrade and maintain over time
- Instant on
Unlike arc lamps which may take over a minute to turn on and reach full brightness, LEDs turn on instantly
- Extremely long life
The rated lifetime of the LEDs is 60,000 hours (almost 7 years)
- No color wheel required
The high speed on/off capability of LEDs means that for 1-chip DLP systems there is no need for a motorized color wheel. Red, green and blue LEDs can be sequenced at rates many times higher than color wheels, thus reducing the likelihood of visible sequencing artifacts
- Wider color gamut for more vivid color
The color spectral characteristics and range surpass that provided by traditional color wheel based systems. EBU (European Broadcasting Standards) standards are far exceeded with LEDs and the system allows color performance to be easily manipulated to best match the application
- Better brightness control
LEDs offer a wide range of brightness control, unlike mercury lamps which offer only about 10-25% brightness adjustment. In addition, there is no need for mechanical apertures to adjust brightness
- Environmentally responsible
LEDs are an environmentally responsible “green” light source, free of hazardous substances found in conventional lamp technologies
Christie's LED Illuminated solutions
Christie has a proven track record designing and manufacturing purpose-built products tuned to the needs of specific markets and a history of innovations that provide solutions for the unique challenges of projection arrays. The Christie Matrix StIM™ projection system with InfraScene™ LED technology for NVG stimulation and the Christie Entero™, both featuring Christie ArrayLOC™ for intelligent self-adjustment of the array in real-time is simply the latest. The innovations it embodies successfully exploit the advantages inherent in LED technology to provide a scalable-environment, seamless display system that is highly reliable and virtually maintenance-free. It revolutionizes the training experience.
Christie MicroTiles™ take display technology into a new frontier. Built on proven DLP® technology and specifically designed for maximum image quality in high-ambient light environments, Christie MicroTiles are ideal for a wide range of demanding applications, including architectural elements, out-of-home advertising, command and control video walls, and event production.
Leveraging the strengths of both rear projection and Light Emitting Diode (LED) technology, Christie MicroTiles offer substantially brighter images and a much wider color palette than conventional LCD and plasma displays. With no practical limit to the number of tiles in a display, Christie MicroTiles produce a virtually seamless canvas with an unlimited number of super-fine pixels.
Long life, reliability, virtually maintenance-free visual displays
LED illumination revolutionizes visual displays by offering a platform which contains no consumable components that would otherwise require scheduled replacement and maintenance. With 7-10 years of operating life (depending on the application) and built-in management features that continuously monitor and manage brightness, color control and black levels across the entire display Christie’s LED-illumination technology platform ensures virtually zero maintenance operation.