The Color of Light on the Screen—New Measurements at Studios and Laboratories

Glenn Berggren

The color seen in a motion picture theater is the film color as rendered by the projection light source. This light source is usually a xenon lamp modified by many other elements, such as heat filters, lens coatings, port windows, and screen reflectance. The practice of specifying screen illumination by its color temperature will fail if the resulting light source does not match a black-body radiator. Recent measurements of the CIE chromaticity coordinates at several studios and labs confirms that real projection sources are variable and do not have the color of a black-body radiator. The use of chromaticity coordinates is proposed as an improved specification of projection screen illumination.

Print ISSN
Published
1997-03
Content type
Original Research
DOI
10.5594/J15788