If you are exploring the projectors, and if 4K is in your mind, you would come across various 4K names which may confuse you at times. Epson mentions that their projector has 4K Enhancement Technology and BenQ call their projectors are True 4K. In this post, we’ll discuss what is 4K Enhancement and what is True 4K is on that specs sheet which might help you to choose the right one for your home.
If a projector is marked as 4K it means that it can display approximately 4 thousand pixels in a row. 4K projectors display quality is crisp, even when the picture gets projected on a 100″ screen. It gives you that cinematic feel right at your living room.
Okay, You already know the glories of 4K, let’s get back to the point, what is the difference between 4K Enhancement and True 4K.
Epson uses 4K Enhancement technology which can take 4K content as input and produce it in a 4K resolution. Here, 4K Enhancement is not to be mistaken that it will enhance the 4K content. Usually, a 4K Enhancement projector’s chip native resolution is 1920×1080, a Full HD. That is 1920 pixels in a row and 1080 pixels in a column, in other words, 1920 vertical lines and 1080 horizontal lines. But, to become a 4K projector, it has to display 4000 pixels in a row.
In order to display 4000 pixels, 4K Enhancement technology uses a pixel-shifting technique to shift each pixel diagonally by 0.5 pixels which double the number of pixels that get projected. So the resolution gets doubled from Full HD to 4K.
Since the resolution gets doubled from Full HD, to know how many pixels will get displayed, you can multiple the resolution with 2. A 4K Enhancement Technology can display 4.1 million pixels if the native resolution of the chip is 1920×1080.
Actually, the 4K Enhancement doesn’t display 4000 pixels, instead it comes really close and prints 3840 pixels on a row and 2160 pixels in a column.
As per the Consumers Technology Association, a True 4K projector not only display 4000 pixels horizontally but also the total number of pixels is to be 8.3 million pixels.
To meet this CTA standard, BenQ projectors shift the pixels in four directions which quadruples the resolution (1920×1080) to a 4K resolution and renders 8.3 million pixels.
If the chip supports 2716 x 1528 resolution, the shifting happens only diagonally back and forth, that doubles the resolution to a 4K resolution and renders 8.3 million pixels.
| 4K Enhancement | True 4K |
|---|---|
| Capable of displaying 4.1 million pixels | Capable of displaying 8.3 million pixels |
| Pixel shifting based technology | Pixel shifting based technology |
| Shifts each pixel diagonally by 0.5 pixel | Shifts the pixel in four directions or diagonally back and forth |
| Not a native 4K projector | Not a native 4K projector |
| Blurs the picture on bigger projections | Sharper picture are produced even on bigger screens |