Is having a high lumen rating bad for black levels?

Question

If a projector has high ANSI lumens, will it tend to have a worse absolute black level?

Answer 1

The lumens as determined by intensity of lamp illumination used for transmissive or reflective images will not affect contrast ratio, but will affect black levels (not the same thing). Increasing the illumination increases both bright and dark areas by the same percentage. However, this is not to say that the image will appear the same. The lower-level illumination image may look better (more contrast) because of the non-linear response of the eye. You may not notice a 20% increase in brightness in areas that are already very bright, but a 20% increase in brightness in dark areas could be very noticeable.

There are, however, some very high-lumen projectors that have good black levels--as good as lower-intensity ones.

Answer 2

In general the higher the lumes, the lower the ocntrast ratio. (The difference between the whitest white and blackest black)