I love video projectors, and have used one instead of a traditional TV for almost 6 years now. The only serious drawback, in my experience, is the expense of the bulbs, and I expect that it will not be very long before full-color laser diode projector technology overcomes it. Red, green, and blue laser diodes are already accessible; the trick seems to be in scanning the beams in an economical and reliable way.
German hacker Helmar Dittrich, who built a monochrome version of this rig in 2001 and recently modified it for full color, solves the beam-scanning problem mechanically, with a pair of spinning mirrors. Many of the parts of Herr Dittrich’s machine were salvage, and he’s entered it in a scrap-hacking contest sponsored by German computer magazine c’t. [via adafruit]
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22 thoughts on “Homemade Full Color DVD Laser Projector”
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very useful tips
thanks for sharing.
http://www.laserlightshow.org/Lasers.php
Someone didn’t bother to follow this to the original web page. It uses a DVD player as a source, thus NOT HDTV.
http://www.laser-tv.eu/index.html
Headline corrected! Looks like we were both wrong. Thanks for pointing out the error.
Also its only RG so its not full color either…
Not that the project isn’t unbelievable impressive.
The first prototype had fewer colors, but the most recent one is full-color. Check the video at 32 seconds.
It is RGB = full color:
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=de&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://www.laser-tv.eu/laserlichtquelle.html&usg=ALkJrhg_P_xAeFe_RgL8NGKqgvPmhmhG-Q
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=de&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://www.laser-tv.eu/aktueller-stand.html&usg=ALkJrhhWdEMKEq5vXwssaetl2GZnuw_hkQ
and it is SD-TV (as it gets the video signal from a standard DVD):
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=de&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://www.laser-tv.eu/video-signalquelle.html&usg=ALkJrhh_UoJ3FULtM_iS5CX5Dwa35WWP_Q
:)
The ghost of John Logie Baird wags a finger and says, “See? I told you so!” (This is what I start thinking after spending too much time playing with the mechanical TV I built.)
actually the wavelength of the colors needed for a full color picture from the lasers do not focus at the same point…so the picture looks less sharp…the problem is to get that problem resolved…
beam a coloured cross, view with a camera, voice coils used to aim the beam controlled with the camera as feedback. a frame or two that stays still, the signal and the result could be used to adjust focus during operation. a colour card on the wall above the screen, just within view of the camera could be used to tune the colour as well, if the colours on screen match the card, even if the camera has a very bad colour problem, it’d still end up pretty good.
Thats a pretty good job at a mechanical HD tv well HD as far as what i have ever done …Yes as its been reported its a vintage system using rotating mirrors john logie baird would be pleased…he didn’t invent the mirror drum or mirror rotating type tv systems but did end up using them for a time ….if you would like to see my work and others see the NBTV forum and my you tube channel.