Conventional spatial light modulators (SLM) can only be used for projecting 8-bit or 10-bit images at normal frame rate. Therefore, commercial high dynamic range (HDR) displays typically focus on boosting the contrast while neglecting to raise the bit-depth. Existing methods for high bit-depth display generally rely on stacking two SLMs to modulate the outgoing beam twice, namely multiplicative modulation, resulting in many troubles such as low optical efficiency, difficulty in pixel-level alignment, and complex image rendering algorithm. In this paper, an innovative quaternary hybrid light modulation (QHLM) based projection display is proposed and realized. By illuminating two parallel digital micro-mirror devices (DMDs) with different light intensities, the quaternary digit-planes (QDs) with four gray levels are able to be modulated rapidly. Aiming at this ability, the quaternary pulse width modulation (QPWM) is incorporated with the quaternary light-intensity modulation (QLM) to fundamentally improve the modulation efficiency compared to the binary light modulation mode. Furthermore, the quaternary digit-plane decomposition (QDD) based image splitting algorithm is adopted to split a high bit-depth image into two images that drive two DMDs respectively. The prototype is designed and built to verify the feasibility of the QHLM based projection display. The experimental results demonstrate that the prototype can project 16-bit images at 220 fps. Through additive modulation of two DMDs in parallel, the QHLM entirely avoids the drawbacks of multiplicative modulation. As a completely different technology, the QHLM has a great potential for HDR projection applications. © 2024 Elsevier Ltd