I'm probably going to be in the market for a Digital Projector in the next couple of months - anyone got any thoughts on the ones to look out for and which ones to avoid? Looking for decent resolution (not home cinema!) and portability.
Cheers
Posted by John MacTavish on February 28, 2007 at 8:18 AM
Dell or Epson Nick
You'll not be far away with either, but try to get at least 1024x7what-ever-it-is screen size......800x600 is a bit old now.
John
Posted by Ben Micklem on February 28, 2007 at 9:19 AM
I've got a Sanyo Z4 which is a home cinema projector with 1280x720. I'd avoid the projectors with mirror-arrays and colour wheels (DLP)- as the saturation and sharpness is poor for stills. I think the Dells I have seen all have the Texas DLP chips. The colour is made by changing the orientation of an array of 'pixels' which are reflective (to create light or dark), then colour is built up by strobing R,G,B light onto the array with a spinning filter wheel. The problem is to get enough brightness, they often include a clear filter for an extra luminousity channel- this reduces the saturation. Some people are also able to see rainbow-like strobing effects on areas of high contrast (especially out of the corner of your eye). Home cinema projectors often use DLP because they are simpler, have have a wider dynamic range (as you are looking at the projected reflection from the array, rather than relying on an LCD panel to stop the transmission of light).
The LCD projectors with wide dynamic range (e.g. my Sanyo claims a 7000:1 contrast ratio, as apposed to the 300:1 seen on standard 1024x768 data projectors) from some cinema projectors is from an additional lamp iris and/or a lamp power adjustment that changes output when the signal gets darker or lighter. This is very effective for moving images, and may be of some use it you have some images that are high key and some that are low-key (the iris will exaggerate these differences, and still show detail in the shadows and highlights of the images).
I found that 1600x1200 projectors were outside my price range, and that there was not much difference to choose between the LCD business data projectors with 1024x768. So for about the same as a business projector, I got a cinema one that looks great- probably just a little better for stills, but a whole lot better for films. When I was looking, all the LCD cinema projectors with 1280x720 used the same Epson LCDs.
Posted by Rob Ashton on February 28, 2007 at 10:30 AM
We supply Epson, Acer and BenQ DLP projectors for high quality photo output. A good example is here.http://www.benq.co.uk/products/Projector/?product=674
Discussion
3 repliesCheers
You'll not be far away with either, but try to get at least 1024x7what-ever-it-is screen size......800x600 is a bit old now.
John
The LCD projectors with wide dynamic range (e.g. my Sanyo claims a 7000:1 contrast ratio, as apposed to the 300:1 seen on standard 1024x768 data projectors) from some cinema projectors is from an additional lamp iris and/or a lamp power adjustment that changes output when the signal gets darker or lighter. This is very effective for moving images, and may be of some use it you have some images that are high key and some that are low-key (the iris will exaggerate these differences, and still show detail in the shadows and highlights of the images).
I found that 1600x1200 projectors were outside my price range, and that there was not much difference to choose between the LCD business data projectors with 1024x768. So for about the same as a business projector, I got a cinema one that looks great- probably just a little better for stills, but a whole lot better for films. When I was looking, all the LCD cinema projectors with 1280x720 used the same Epson LCDs.
Hope this helps.
Rob