A whiter shade of gray

September 9, 2013 3:01 AM

Are there any digital projectors which are exclusively black & white?

When using an RGB projector do display black & white material, the rainbow effect is noticeable and spoils the effect — are there dedicated b/w projectors?

I've seen some homebrew solutions for removing the colour wheel of a regular projector to get to black & white, but I'm looking for something more professional, intended for movie or art use.

Suggestions, past experiences or workarounds?

posted by monocultured to Technology (6 answers total)

Some early light valve projectors were monochrome, but very dim.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. You just want something without a color wheel. Check out laser projectors like casios. Laser projectors do "speckle" very slightly at times(look it up and find examples. This is barely an issue on new models), but they don't distort color at all.

There are also prism based projectors out there with no color wheel and three internal displays. They're large, but work ok. I uses to own one. Precise image alignment was an issue if they were, or ever had been dropped.

Overall I'd get a cheap laser+led Casio and declare the problem solved. There hasn't been a truly monochromatic digital projector in years, and if there was it was a super high end or very low end model, or something from an early generation like the talaria that would weigh 1500lbs and be dim.
posted by emptythought at 3:42 AM on September 9, 2013

Best answer: Check out projectors with a DICOM mode, as that is for viewing b/w x-rays. For example the MH2850U
posted by Sophont at 4:14 AM on September 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

The Casio projectors still have a Rainbow effect, as does the Microvision laser projector.
posted by fake at 6:28 AM on September 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Yeah, you want a 3LCD projector. Sophont's example would work.
posted by scose at 7:46 AM on September 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Excellent advise, thanks for the input all! In addition to eliminating the rainbow effect with 3LCD, it would be interesting to see how good the DICOM projectors are at shadow detail rendering. Fun!
posted by monocultured at 11:15 AM on September 9, 2013

I wonder if you could just pull the color filters out of a DLP projector. Pick up a used one, go screwdriver-happy!

Might need to leave the wheel there, with the filters removed, so that the unit still senses wheel rotation and doesn't throw a motor fault...
posted by Myself at 9:40 AM on September 10, 2013