MCLENNAN COUNTY, Texas — Baylor University professor Corey Carbonara and his team at 6P Color Inc. developed a technology that can display 90% of the visible color spectrum, compared to the roughly 45% current screens show.
- The technology was inspired by a NASA problem — astronauts returning from space could not find any display capable of reproducing the colors they saw there.
- The team earned the prestigious Lumiere Award, a Hollywood-recognized achievement, after the project began at Baylor in 2018 and expanded to Brazos Innovations.
- 6P Color could reach consumer televisions, phones, and computers within 2 to 3 years, with the software applied at the manufacturer level and also capable of being run through existing raw video and photo files.
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BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Screens around the world are only showing about 45% of the color the human eye can see — but a team of Baylor University professors may have found a way to change that.
"Right now they're looking at about 45%, on an excellent television of all the colors that God intended us to see and with 6P color we unleash 100% of those colors and with what we've been able to show through our demonstrations because although this is one demonstration behind me, there are also projectors that we've worked with and experimented with to be able to prove and show that we can double that and allow that to go to 90%." Corey Carbonara said.
Baylor professor Corey Carbonara and his team at 6P Color Inc. have developed a technology they say can unlock 90% of the color spectrum on screens, from televisions and movie theaters to cell phones and computers.
"Here we are in Waco, Texas, and we're looking at a way of rethinking color for the entire planet," Carbonara said.
"We've broken through this iron triangle of red, green, and blue to show and expand out to all these colors that heretofore we could never see in the theater or on a television screen or on a, you know, a computer screen," Carbonara said.
Vice President of 6P Color Inc. Blake Birmingham said the technology grew out of a real-world problem brought to the team by NASA.
"Astronauts came back from space with the problem of I have this footage and I cannot see it the same way that I saw it in space. I've tried it on IMAX. I've tried it on laser. I've tried it on everything that I could possibly get my hands on. NASA's got connections to lots of different displays. Nothing did it justice," Birmingham said.
6P Color Inc. addresses that gap by adding more primary colors beyond the traditional red, green, and blue. Dr. Michael Korpi, another Baylor professor on the team and a 6P Scientific Advisor, said cyan is a particularly important addition because of the emotional response it triggers in the human brain.
"Seeing that additional color is — it's, uh, it's a life-changing, you know, experience. It's just like, oh, well, I've been missing all this all the time. No, it's just a simulation and your brain accepts it as being OK, but it can be a lot, a lot better," Dr. Korpi said.
The project began at Baylor University in 2018 before expanding to Brazos Innovation Partners. The team has since earned the prestigious Lumiere Award, an achievement recognized across Hollywood.
The team says the implications stretch far beyond high-end theaters.
"We're talking about a fundamental shift in the tools available for a storyteller to actually express and for a viewer, not just going to a high-end theater, right, but also at their home. What they watch on their cell phone," Chief technology Officer of 6P Color Inc. and Chief Executive officer of Brazos Innovation Partners ,Matthew Brantley said.
The team projects the technology could reach consumer screens within the next 2 to 3 years. The software can be applied to existing devices, but manufacturers would need to choose to implement the 6P update. For films and photos already in existence, the technology can be applied as long as the original raw file is accessible.
"We like to say that it's the last color standard mankind will ever need because it really is a distillation of the way that we see color," Blake Birmingham said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
