What is Pixel Shift?
Pixel Shifting is a technique used in home theatre projectors as well as commercial ones to produce a seemingly higher resolution image than the native resolution of the DLP, 3LCD or LCoS panels that are in those projectors. The most common application is to use pixel shifting technology to allow projectors to display content from 4K sources, with a perceived sharpness that is higher than the same panels chips could do without shifting.
Most pixel shifting projectors use 1080p because the actual chip or panel fires more than one time. When it fires the second time, the pixel is physically shifted open to the right by half a pixel, creating overlaps.
Combining that with fancy image processing, the end result is the ability to show more detail, than the same projector not using pixel shifting. Most pixel shifters have the option of turning off the pixel shifting ,on DLP projectors that is often referred to as the silence mode.
Many commercial projectors use pixel shifting even when not using 4K content because the data can be interpolated to emulate higher resolution, so the projector can improve the perceived sharpness of the picture, even if it is 1080p content.
Pixel shifting projectors may seem a little hard looking compared to a native resolution one, but are an ideal substitute to a native 4K due to the fact they are lower in cost and can deliver sharpness approaching that of a native 4K projector.