Patent ID: 7575330

Claim:
An apparatus for improving the operation of a digital image projector, the apparatus comprising: a video input board of the projector; a light engine of the projector, said light engine receiving video signals and generating a light output for at least one primary color there from; optics configured to transform the light output from said light engine to a focused image for projection to a display screen; a variable luminance control mechanism, configured to modify the light output to provide a correction thereto; and an adaptive luminance control module configured to receive signals from said video input board, said adaptive luminance control module producing a control signal, wherein said variable luminance control mechanism includes a dynamic iris configured to be altered in size in response to the control signal to change the luminance of the light output and provides a corrected video signal for the projector, and wherein the adaptive luminance control module comprises: a video receiver for receiving video signals and buffering the signals; a luminance level processor for deriving a characteristic of the buffered video signals and producing a luminance content signal; and an adaptive gamma processor, configured to receive the luminance content signal from the luminance level processor and configured to generate and output a modified video signal based on the buffered video signal and the luminance content signal and wherein the size of the dynamic iris is used to control, at least in part, gamma correction of the luminance content signal performed by the adaptive luminance control module.