Christie Digital is not a known name often associated with residential cinema projectors, but in commercial cinemas, Christie is one of the world's largest and most respected companies. While other manufacturers spent time going down the path of laser phosphor, Christie spent years developing technologies in RGB pure laser. This early development has meant that Christie is now way ahead of the curve.

David Moseley, owner and lead designer of Wavetrain Cinemas, told StereoNET:

The Christie M 4K25 RGB is a real game-changer in the high-end projection market. No other projector on the market today can match this projector for the performance and value it offers for anyone wanting the ultimate cinema experience.

According to Moseley, the only way to produce anything close to REC2020 on a projector is to utilise pure lasers for Red, Green & Blue primary colours (RGB). Since the colour space is a triangle (see chart), if you perfectly reproduce the primary colours, then you can hit any colour within that triangle. 

While most projectors, including laser/phosphor projectors, struggle to hit P3 (DCI colour space), which is more than the old Rec.709 standard used in broadcast & DVD, this falls way short of the Rec.2020 standards. The impressive Christie M 4K25 is capable of 97% of Rec.2020!

Unfortunately, marketing is often dictated by the biggest numbers, which don't always reflect real-world performance. It's why some manufacturers come up with crazy numbers for contrast that has little basis in reality or how we watch images. Most use full on/off (native) to rate contrast as this will produce a very large number, but this has little to do with watching an image - rarely would you ever see a completely black screen. 

Historically, most DLP projectors are between 1000:1 to 2000:1 on/off contrast, which is very low and affects the projectors' ability to produce detail in inky black scenes. On the flip side, excellent DLP projectors have ANSI contrast of anywhere from 400-1000:1. ANSI contrast is the measured contrast when a checkerboard pattern of black/white is put on the screen. In this case, DLP easily wins.

The Christie native on/off contrast is 7000:1 and 2000:1 ANSI contrast. These figures, according to Moseley, result in stunning images that need to be seen to be believed. Pair this with the Christie M 4K25 brightness of 25,000 Lumens, and you have a game-changing projector.

What about HDR? HDR is mastered at a minimum of 1000 Nits and a maximum of 10,000 Nits. The old standard for movie cinemas is 16ft.L, which equates to roughly 55 Nits. Most projection systems for residential use struggle to achieve 100 Nits, as the light output for most projectors falls within 1500-2200 Lumens. With 25,000 Lumens of light output, Christie's M 4K25 can produce images much closer to the HDR standard and do this without crushing colour saturation. This means that you can genuinely achieve pictures closer to the best direct view TV's on the market and be unrestricted on your screen size.

Wavetrain will be showcasing the Christie M 4K25 RGB Laser Projector, along with the benchmark in video processors - the new 5000 Series Lumagen video processor, at an exclusive StereoNET reader event in its Sydney Showroom, November 20th 2021. The event will also serve as the official public launch of the Elementi Audio cinema speaker range.

Stay tuned for more details on the event.

For more information visit Wavetrain Cinemas

See Wavetrain Cinemas at the 2022 StereoNET Melbourne Hi-Fi Show, June 3rd-5th, 2022.