Digital Projectors

[Tosh McCaber]

I am in the process of buying a projector to hook up to show my digital photos and movies/ videos. I see projectors selling from up in the £1000s, right down to the low £200s. (There is an Epson advertised in the latest Dabs brochure for £250 plus vat, and a Sony at £300 plus vat).

Can anyone give a rough spec (lumens, resolution, image contrast, etc)and pros and cons for purchasing a projector for home use? I’d be looking for something that would give the equivalent of the same clarity as the old Kodak Carousel projectors, with 35mm slides in a medium sized room. Why is there such a huge variation in price, for what doesn’t seem to be a large difference in spec?? I would like to go for something inexpensive, but will the picture quality be OK?
Any assistance and previous experience welcomed!

[WildDart]

I thought about getting one, but then i looked at the disadvantages, the light bulbs are very expensive to replace and if you watch films ect a lot they will go quickly!

Best bet is get a flat screen say 42 inch, it allows you to connect your computer up the flatscreen just like a projector, it does it through the VGA cord. In addition it has loads more ports for digitial cameras, USB's, and more! Its has the same features as a projector but better quality, but bit smaller!

[gingernut]

We use one at work, and it always seems to be on the blink- as you say, the bulbs are a bit costly.

As wildart says, why not show 'em off on a decent telly, burn your stuff to DVD with something like "Windows movie editor" (A bit of a fag, with a few bugs, but the results are pretty good).

[ORAC]

Projector Lamps - FAQ (http://www.projectorcentral.com/projector-lamps-faq.cfm)

UHP Projectors (http://reviews.cnet.com/4566-3180_7-0.html?filter=500157_5176951_&sort=edRating7+desc)

[BigEndBob]

I have a Infocus X1 DLP projector, had it for 3 odd years, so far 1000hrs on a 4000 hr bulb. Fantastic with tv, vhs video, DVD, Hd from computer etc, but the pictures stored on my computer sometimes look a little washed out when shown on the big screen.

If purchasing same again would look for a xga, 2000 lumens if only for the brighter screen. But at the moment can't see that i would get a vast improvement over what i am seeing now.

[Bushfiva]

I got the recent Panasonic AX-100. Downside, like most projectors, is the room needs to be darkish. For its pricing point, it's outstanding: auto brightness control, excellent contrast ratio (max 6000:1; declines as the brightness goes up). Lots of inputs, including HDMI. Resolution is 720p, therefore image-wise it outperforms 1080i projectors (but not, of course, 1080p).

If it's all about movies and pictures in a domestic environment, then it's almost silent operation and has analogue plane adjustment via a mechanical joystick linked to the lens: the projector can be off-axis in both horizontal and vertical planes, and still project a rectangular image. Many projectors do digital keystoning for this: you lose resolution on the corrected axes.

It's also got one heck of a zoom range. In a dark room, 200" on the wall is no problem. Evenings, 80" on a screen is great.

The only other projector I've used is an Epson. They neighbours used to wonder if I was playing with my turbine again.

[IO540]

Depends on how big a screen you want to project onto. If say 3ft wide then a 1024x768 projector will give you near photo quality in terms of resolution (not colour though unless you spend some money).

A decent old projector is very hard to beat - just like high quality slide scanning is hard to do on the cheap.

[Bushfiva]

1024x768 projector will give you near photo quality in terms of resolution

Actually, it gives you the quality of a 0.78 megapixel camera. Even a 1080i HD projector only has the pixel count of a 2 megapixel camera.

[BEagle]

At a recent meeting, we had to play 'pass the cable' to connect different computers to the beamer.

I now have a wireless printer (Canon i5200R) which allows me to connect either computer to the printer without cables - it's just added to the wireless router's client list. And very good it is too!

Perhaps soon there'll be a beamer which can be connected to a number of computers through a wireless router? Or even just a flatscreen monitor which can be connected wirelessly?