High dynamic range displays using filterless LCD(s) for increasing contrast and resolution

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9864243-B2
Application number	US-78074910-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 14, 2010
Priority date	May 14, 2010
Publication date	Jan 9, 2018
Grant date	Jan 9, 2018

Abstract

A display provides increased contrast and resolution via first LCD panel energized to generate an image and a second LCD panel configured to increase contrast of the image. The second panel is an LCD panel without color filters and is configured to increase contrast by decreasing black levels of dark portions of images (making them blacker or darker) using polarization rotation and filtration. Preferably, the second LCD panel is of higher resolution than the first LCD panel. The panels may be directly illuminated or edge lit, and may be globally or locally dimmed monochrome or multi primary lights that may also include individual control of color intensities for each image or frame displayed. The panels may be placed in any order, but preferably are arranged such that active layers in each panel are as close together as possible. Brightness is maintained by the combination of reusing polarization between the panels and by not going through more than one set of color filters. Improved contrast is a result of using multiple light modulators in series.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A display comprising,
a backlight, an image-generating panel, a contrast-improving panel, and a polarizer positioned between the image generating panel and the contrast improving panel, wherein the polarizer is operative as both an analyzing polarizer for the contrast-improving panel and an orientation polarizing layer for the image-generating panel and further wherein the image-generating panel comprises a color LCD panel that receives light from the backlight and transmits light to the contrast-improving panel that comprises a monochrome LCD panel wherein the resolution of the contrast-improving panel is greater than a resolution of the image-generating panel;
a mid-stream diffuser positioned between the contrast-improving panel and the image generating panel and having a diffusion resolution greater than the image-generating panel; and
a controller comprising an image-generating panel energization module and a contrast-improving panel energization module, the controller connected to energize both the image-generating panel and the contrast-improving panel with control data produced by the corresponding energization module,
wherein energization of the contrast-improving panel comprising: extracting luminance values from an input image data received by the controller to produce a first intermediate data; intentionally blurring the image apart from the point spread function of the backlight; subpixel interpolating the first intermediate data to handle the difference between the resolution of the contrast-improvement panel and the image-generating panel to produce a second intermediate data; and filtering the second intermediate data to produce a smoothed energizing data for the contrast-improving panel, the smoothed energizing data improving viewing angle performance and maintaining high frequency detail in the input image data;
wherein further energization of the image-generating panel is based in part on feedback from the contrast-improving panel energization module to the image-generation panel energization module.

2. The display according to claim 1 , wherein a resolution of the contrast-improving panel is higher than the image-generating panel.

3. The display according to claim 1 , wherein the image-generating panel comprises a color-filter based LCD panel having a same polarization rotating design as the contrast-improving panel.

4. The display according to claim 1 , wherein the contrast-improving panel is inverted relative to the image-generating panel such that active layers of the panels are closer together.

5. The display of claim 1 further wherein the intentional blurring of the image produces an illumination profile by using the higher resolution capabilities of the contrast-improving panel.

6. A display comprising,
a backlight, an image-generating panel, a contrast-improving panel, and a polarizer positioned between the image generating panel and the contrast improving panel, wherein the polarizer is operative as both an analyzing polarizer for the contrast-improving panel and an orientation polarizing layer for the image-generating panel and further wherein the image-generating panel comprises a color LCD panel that receives light from the backlight and transmits light to the contrast-improving panel that comprises a monochrome LCD panel;
a mid-stream diffuser positioned between the contrast-improving panel and the image generating panel and having a diffusion resolution greater than the image-generating panel; and
a controller comprising an image-generating panel energization module and a contrast-improving panel energization module, the controller connected to energize both the image-generating panel and the contrast-improving panel with control data produced by the corresponding energization module,
wherein the controller is configured to input data from a media source of a standardized high resolution, the image-generating panel is selected to be capable of producing an image of the standardized high resolution and the contrast-improving panel is configured to increase contrast using a resolution different than a resolution of the image generating panel;
wherein the resolution of the contrast-improving panel is greater than a resolution of the image-generating panel; and
wherein energization of the contrast-improving panel comprising: extracting luminance values from the input data received by the controller to produce a first intermediate data; producing an illumination profile that is intentionally blurred apart from the point spread function of the backlight; subpixel interpolating the first intermediate data to handle the difference between the resolution of the contrast-improvement panel and the image-generating panel to produce a second intermediate data; and filtering the second intermediate data to produce a smoothed energizing data for the contrast-improving panel, the smoothed energizing data improving viewing angle performance and maintaining high frequency detail in the input data.

7. The display according to claim 6 , wherein the contrast improving panel is backlight by at least one edge lit array of light sources.

8. A display comprising,
a backlight, an image-generating panel, a contrast-improving panel, and a polarizer positioned between the image generating panel and the contrast improving panel and further wherein the image-generating panel comprises a color LCD panel that receives light from the backlight and transmits light to the contrast-improving panel that comprises a monochrome LCD panel wherein the resolution of the contrast-improving panel is greater than a resolution of the image-generating panel;
wherein the image generating layer is backlight by at least one edge lit array of light sources, and
the display further comprising a contrast layer diffuser having a resolution that differs from the contrast improving panel and a controller configured to receive input image data and send control signals to energize the contrast-improving panel and the image-generating panel; and
wherein further energization of the contrast-improving panel comprising: extracting luminance values from the input image data to produce a first intermediate data; producing an illumination profile that is intentionally blurred apart from the point spread function of the backlight; subpixel interpolating the first intermediate data to handle the difference between the resolution of the contrast-improvement panel and the image-generating panel to produce a second intermediate data; and filtering the second intermediate data to produce a smoothed energizing data for the contrast-improving panel, the smoothed energizing data improving viewing angle performance and maintaining high frequency detail in the input image data.

9. A display comprising,
a backlight, an image-generating panel, a contrast-improving panel, and a polarizer positioned between the image generating panel and the contrast improving panel, wherein light from the backlight illuminates the image-generating panel that modulates the intensity and color of the light which illuminates the contrast-improving panel, the contrast-improving panel comprising a controllable polarizer and further wherein the image-generating panel comprises a color LCD panel and the contrast-improving panel that comprises a monochrome LCD panel wherein the resolution of the contrast-improving panel is greater than a resolution of the image-generating panel;
an upstream diffuser and a downstream diffuser, wherein the upstream diffuser has a relatively coarse diffusion resolution and is configured to diffuse a backlight configured to illuminate the upstream panel and the downstream diffuser has a relatively fine diffusion resolution configured to mask at least one o

Assignees

• Erinjippurath Gopal
• Gilbert John
• Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corp

Inventors

• Erinjippurath Gopal
• Gilbert John

Classifications

• G02F1/133606

  including a specially adapted diffusing, scattering or light controlling members · CPC title

• H04N13/0447

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G02F1/13471 Primary

  in which all the liquid crystal cells or layers remain transparent, e.g. FLC, ECB, DAP, HAN, TN, STN, SBE-LC cells (G02F1/13475 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G09G3/3426

  the different display panel areas being distributed in two dimensions, e.g. matrix · CPC title

• H04N13/0434

  Electricity · mapped topic