A DLP projector uses a single DMD (digital micromirror device) to create the image. This is called reflective technology, because the light is reflected off the DMD, sent through a color filter wheel, which adds color to the image, and then projected through a lens onto the screen. DLP projectors can be extremely bright.

The big upside of DLP is that it has the best contrast ratio, or the greatest difference between light and dark, of the three digital technologies. With new DMDs, which use the Mustang or HD2 chip, the blacks are much darker than either LCD or LCoS. This makes a huge difference with higher-quality signals (especially HDTV) and creates a lot of depth in the image. The downside is that single-chip DLP projectors (the only kind available in RPTV form) still must use a color wheel. While color wheels have improved immensely over the years, they sometimes create a slight rainbow effect—colored fringes on moving objects—that can prove distracting for some viewers.

An LCD projector, on the other hand, is considered transmissive because light shines through each LCD panel (or is blocked in darker parts of the image) as opposed to reflecting off of it. The upside of modern LCD displays is that they don’t require a color wheel; each color (red, green and blue) gets its own panel. LCD, however, does not produce blacks as dark as those achieved by DLP. Viewers may find this distracting, especially with higher- resolution signals.