Epson's E-TORL lamp projects a crisper image

Projectors using 3LCD
technology are well known for their bright, natural images, but the competition
in this sector is fierce. This is particularly so among home and business
projectors, where companies with competing technologies are looking to unseat
market leader Epson.

To maintain its lead,
Epson has developed a pioneering light source that together with a com­plementary
optical system provides even more light than before, making a bright picture
even brighter. Maximizing the efficiency of the light source is a key task in
projector manufacturing. If a source loses too much light through
inefficiencies, the picture it produces will appear dim.

Creating a bri­ghter
light source is not simply a matter of boosting the wattage to increase lumen
output. It is also about ensuring that the light produced is fully utilized and
is not turned into heat or wasted through absorption into its surroundings.
Epson's new lamp fulfills all these aims.

The Epson Twin Optimized
Reflection Lamp (E-TORL) incorporates an innovative new design that is smaller
than a standard lamp, yet it runs cooler, more efficiently, and brighter. The
reduced size means Epson has been able to shrink the projector's optical
engine, resulting in an overall reduction in the projector's dimensions.

In order to fully
exploit the improvement in light collection provided by ETORL, Epson has
designed a new set of optics for projectors that will use the new lamp. With the
addition of an aspherical lens at the collection point, the new optical engine
is able to gather all the available light and beam it at a low angle onto the
3LCD panels. The lower the angle of light focused onto the LCD panel (i.e. the
closer it is to perpendicular), the higher the contrast of the projected image,
so E-TORL-equi­p­ped projectors produce an exceptionally crisp picture. In
short, the new optical system has been optimized to get the most out of the new
light source, so as to produce the brightest, highest-contrast image possible.
And in doing so, Epson has also managed to shave 55 mm off the length of the
optical engine when compared to the optical system used with a standard lamp.

Achieving a brighter picture in a smaller package obviously
has appeal to home users, but Epson also expects the increased portability and
clarity of the new projectors to attract business users, such as salespeople,
who will find them easier to carry and use in a variety of lighting conditions.

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