Mike Perkins (BASC, '90, electrical engineering) walked the red carpet to receive the Academy Award in Scientific and Engineering.
He was honoured with an Oscar for his development of a digital projector that takes movie-watching to a whole new level.
Perkins, a principal product developer at local audio-visual solutions company Christie, built the Christie E3LH projection system in collaboration with Dolby Laboratories. The projector presents audiences with imagery enhanced by high dynamic range (HDR) and a wide colour gamut (WCG).
Perkins and his team began designing the E3LH system in 2012. The key parameter for the projector to achieve was contrast, specifically black levels which can be murky and mask details.
“A typical cinema projector has a contrast ratio of 2,000:1 and we were developing one that needed to exceed 1,000,000:1, an improvement of 500 times,” said Perkins. “That essentially meant building a projector inside a projector.”
With “winning an Academy Award” ticked on his bucket list, Perkins is working on bringing an enhanced cinema experience to the mainstream by decreasing the cost of the E3LH and its high-end home theatre sister projector Eclipse.
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