Patent ID: 8184136

Claim:
An image display device, comprising a plurality of light sources emitting light beams of different colors, respectively, and a display element performing a color display by a color sequential display method, based on the light beams from the plurality of light sources, wherein the display element comprises a plurality of micro mirrors that control the reflection of light and temporally perform gradation expression, and the image display device has a controller controlling a light emission intensity, a light emission timing of each of the light sources and a period in which the display element displays each color, characterized in that the controller is configured to switch between a first display method and a second display method which are different from each other in light emission intensities and/or light emission timings of the light sources and the periods in which the display element displays each color, the second display method displays more colors of single-color images than the first display method, and more than two of the light sources emit light in at least one of the display periods for displaying the respective single-color images in the second display method, in the first display method, setting the respective display periods of each color so that a white color point becomes a predetermined value when the light emission intensities for each color are at a maximum, and; in the second display method, the display period for one of the single color images is set to a time limit while the display periods of at least one of the other single color images is different than the time limit and the emission intensity of the particular color is set smaller than said maximum light emission so that the white point becomes said predetermined value.