The invention relates to an apparatus and method for transforming white incident light into two mutually synchronized sequences of three colored light pulses over a frame interval, each light pulse having one of three primary color bands derived from the incident light, wherein only one of the three color bands is shared between the two color sequences, thereby providing all three paired combinations of the three color bands over the frame interval within the two light components. The two colored light sequences are used for illuminating two respective liquid-crystal-on-silicon imagers in a two-panel light engine to permit optimum active white balancing without reducing the duty cycle. A pure solid-state two-stage color and polarization switching apparatus is provided for generating the two colored light sequences using a combination of commercially available color/polarization filters and color/polarization switches.