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Building the imperfect beastAug 01 '03 (Updated Oct 08 '09) Write an essay on this topic.
Popular Products in Multimedia Projectors
The Bottom Line Take your time and do your research. Just don't wait too long, summer's a wasting.
This old essay has been around a long time. Since it was written, prices on consumer level portable projectors have dropped amazingly. Now you can pick up a home projector and show movies out in the yard almost on a whim. I am still delighted with the performance of the Dell projector I bought so long ago. It has been very reliable and works wonderfully well, although most of movies I show on it now are streamed over the network via Netflix and my home WiFi setup and played using my Macbook. Probably the biggest innovation other than the precipitous price drop of projectors has been the advent of the inflatable outdoor movie screen. Though I have not bought one yet, I intend to get my hands on one sooner or later. Then the portable shows can go just about anywhere you have 120 volts available. Several years ago, my wife and I set up a drive-in movie theater in the side yard of our house. It was equipped, at first, with a government surplus 16mm projector I purchased at auction. The concept was good, but the execution left something to be desired. The main problem with 16mm films -- you know, the type you always used to watch in grade school, is that they are very heavy, bulky, difficult to find and transport, and you have to switch reels in the middle of the movie. On the other hand, there is nothing like the, well, authenticity, of an old projector clicking away as you watch the movie, light leaking out of it like a sieve, and the occasional misfeed and disaster to keep things exciting. The main reason we gave up on the film idea is that there simply was no decent selection of films available through our source of supply, the local public library. I had to order films a week in advance, seldom got what I ordered, and they had to be returned very shortly after getting them. Spontaneous movie nights were just impossible unless we were willing to purchase our own prints. The cost of doing that was just out of bounds, not to mention the storage space such an endeavor would require. No, I had to find something else. I should explain what our drive-ins are, I suppose. They are not really drive-ins, but simply movies shown outdoors in our yard during the summer. We drag patio chairs over to the side of our house and project movies on the wall. It is a most enjoyable way for the family to enjoy the great outdoors and movies at the same time, and fills a need that those of us who miss the real drive-in theaters of years ago never lost. So that is where this guide is coming from. I am not talking about high definition (per se, I will touch on it), high fidelity sound, or other features of what one would search for if looking to equip a room with state of the art home theater. There are plenty of places to look for information in that regard. In my latest search, I found the posts at www.avsforum.com to be worthwhile. But we seem to be getting ahead of ourselves a bit here, so back to the saga. Our theater just wasn't working out using the 16mm setup and so I set out on a search for a video projector. This was several years ago. I searched ebay and all of the then-popular auction sites for surplus or b-stock or used gear. This constraint was economically imposed as projectors that could handle full motion video were very expensive and hard to come by. I pretty much eliminated CRT projectors due to the fact that their 3 lens systems require complicated convergence routines that have to be performed whenever the projector is moved in relation to the screen. They are also quite large and heavy. A permanent outdoor mount would not work here, we have sprinklers that come on twice daily and the dust is far to heavy to leave something like that outdoors without a permanent, dust-tight, enclosure. So the big boys were ruled out. That left me with a portable LCD or DLP projector choice, and man it was tough. Those things were colossally expensive five or six years ago. Multi-thousands at the cheapest. One of the groups in my office purchased a NEC 640x480 VGA projector in that time frame and the bill was around $8000. It was nice and bright and works fine to this day, but that amount of cash was completely out of the question as far as my drive-in was concerned. So I looked. Finally, one day, onsale.com put up a 20-unit lot of b-stock LCD projectors. They were from the old nView Corp. and the model was the nFinity. Large sized lots are a great way to pick up a bargain and so I bid, managing to get one for 541 bucks if I remember correctly. Boy was I happy to find that deal. And overall, it worked out spectacularly. The nFinity was really a decent unit with one spectacular flaw. Instead of using the wildly expensive but long-lived metal halide lamps that are the staple of the industry, nView chose to use a cheap (okay, not that cheap) overhead projector bulb, the FXL. The FXL is a hot burner that needs tons of ventilation. Put one in an enclosed space with marginal airflow and it will cook its surroundings. HOT! So I found that the nFinity needed an nfinitive supply of those little suckers. They would burn out easily, and many times put the projector into an overheat condition. Believe it or not, on the hottest nights, I kept the thing going by resting it on a large bag of ice! The resolution was VGA only, and the projector tended to be very weak in the higher frequency light spectrum. Movies, while fine for outdoor viewing, tended to be cast in a beige tint that simply resisted all efforts by the filmmaker to show highlights and blues. But you get what you pay for, and I did not have to pay very much, and with a bit of work, our drive-in was back. The projector lasted for several years, with a bit of nursing. Finally, this summer, it gave up the ghost. It was late June and I had a yard full of family and friends over for drive-in night when the thing tanked. Bummer. The sad death of the nFinity did not come without reward, however, because it gave me the excuse to get a new one, and that is where the meat of this review will commence. The market has changed significantly since the days of my first search for a video projector. There are now three distinct technologies in use and the prices are much more reasonable. Reasonable enough, in fact, that a projector is becoming a really viable option for families in the economic mainstream. The three technologies are: LCD -- (Liquid Crystal Dispay) The image is generated by shining bright light through small liquid crystal displays, one for each primary color. The images are converged optically and projected to your screen. DLP -- (Digital Light Processor) DLP is a Texas Instruments technology that involves using a solid-state device that features a face of 1.3 million tiny mirrors. These tiny surfaces are angled to reflect or deflect light as they are turned off and on. Color is supplied by a tiny spinning wheel with translucent red, green, blue, and in most instances, clear, or white, panes. D-ILA -- (Digital Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier) This technology is the newest insofar as portable projectors go. It was pioneered by JVC and is available in a few of their units. It offers extremely high resolution with, reportedly, less of the annoying side issues involved with the other technologies. Like DLP it is a reflective technology, but it uses a liquid crystal device to generate the image. Each of the above technologies has peculiar benefits and disadvantages. DLP is bright with a high contrast ratio but the color wheel usage basically causes certain viewers to see rapidly changing colors, or rainbows, on the screen. It also is reported to cause headaches for certain viewers and no one knows who will or won't be affected by the malady. The best way to determine if DLP will give you problems is to go to a retail outlet or other venue and actually watch the DLP projector you are considering for purchase. LCD projectors do not suffer from the rainbow effect. However, since the picture is viewed after the light has gone through 3 separate LCD devices, it is not as highly contrasted a picture as that of a DLP box. There are also complaints of "screendoor" effect, which means that the viewer can see a grid on the screen caused by the pixel raster of the LCDs. (It looks, to fussy viewers, as if the picture is being watched through a screen door.) Texas Instruments recently commissioned a study of the longevity of LCD projectors and reported that a loss of clarity ensued after long viewing due to degeneration of organic compounds in the LCDs, but this test was very unrealistic and designed to highlight LCD flaws vs. DLP strengths. Essentially, the group doing the study turned on the projectors and left them on until the bulbs burned out, well over 2000 hours in some cases. This is simply not how projectors of any sort are used except for truly remarkable applications. If you are doing research for own purposes, give that study a wide berth. As I mentioned earlier, my place of business has an LCD projector from NEC that is still going strong with heavy business usage after many years. I know very little about the D-ILA setup that JVC has come out with. It is the newest of the technologies, has by far the highest theoretical resolution, and since it is reflective rather than translucent in nature, it should give better contast and brightness than that seen with LCD. A major drawback is the expense, however. JVC owns it and they make you pay big bucks. At this time, D-ILA is mainly a high-end technology for people who do not mind spending heavily on state of the art projection. As a side note, I have a friend who has one on order for the house he is building. He has a room dedicated just to home theater and it should be spectacular. Once he gets it running, I will report on the quality of his new D-ILA from JVC. Now, back to my drive-in. My search for a replacement projector for my not-quite-dearly departed nView took me all over the web. I mentioned one of my AV sources of information above, but I really looked everywhere. First on the list of requirements was that I find a small projector. Our outdoor movies require setup and takedown every time we use the gear so I needed something that was easy to move around. I ruled out D-ILA immediately for cost. That left me with DLP or LCD. For any given price point, DLP tends to run a bit brighter and have a higher contrast than the corresponding LCD models. And the technology has matured to the point that there were several recommendations for using microportable DLP projectors for real, indoor, home theaters. Next consideration was resolution. The low-market projectors as this is written are SVGA, or 800X600 pixels. Since my old projector was 640X480, I knew that anything I bought would be better than what I had. At the same time, I wanted something that would last awhile and be able to handle some of the newer, denser resolutions at closer to the native size. So I started looking long and hard for a DLP projector with XGA or 1024X768 pixels. This decision bumped me up another $600 or so in cost, so I decided to do some bargain hunting. Over the course of my search I kept coming back to the Dell 3200MP. I noticed a similarity between it and a couple of other DLP units on the market, but the Dell had the best price, even without digging. And I dug. What do I mean? Well, the price you see on the Dell website for any piece of gear is not necessarily what you must pay. People on the Dell mailing list are sent offers regularly that allow them to purchase products at prices lower than the current website mentions. They are electronic coupons, basically. I dug and found out that all of the coupons applicable to the 3200MP had expired. Normally, I would wait until they were reissued and then order, but summer is a precious commodity in my book, and I did not want to wait months to order. So, I called Dell and told the rep that I wanted to order but would not unless they could offer me the lowest coupon price I had found. The rep said, "I can offer you that price!" Turns out I should have gone even lower with my offer, because I later found some old offers that would have put my purchase price under $1500. As it was, I got it for $1699, free shipping, and a 30 day money back return privilege. Not a bad deal when you consider that the HP XB31 and the Optoma 737 are really the very same projector as the Dell, made in the same place ( a factory in Taiwan) and with only the slightest differences in features. Both of those highly rated projectors run in the $2500 range. The 30 day return was also key for me because I was worried about the rainbow effect described earlier. Turned out not to be an issue as no one has noticed anything in the way of weird color changes or propensity for headaches other than that brought about by the over-consumption of. Beer while watching the movie! The Dell 3200MP is several times brighter than the old nView. I can start movies at dusk now instead of having to "wait until dark", a great movie by the way. If there is any problem at all it is that the aspect ratio of the DLP chip is 4:3 instead of 16:9 widescreen. I am now a complete convert to wide format movies and will not rent or buy a DVD that does not offer the film in its native format. But when you put the Dell into Widescreen mode, what it really is doing is creating a virtual 16:9 area on the chip and turning off the extra pixels at the top and bottom. The "turning off" of these pixels still results in a border showing up on the screen, as if your movie was showing with some light escaping at the top and bottom of the picture. For now, this is simply unavoidable. The only way to combat the defect is to have a native widescreen DLP micromirror chip built into your projector or to use a highly black, not reflective surface bordering your screen. This is just not practical from a financial standpoint insofar as the native chip is concerned and a complex screen setup for outdoor use is just not something I wish to tackle at this point. But if you can wait awhile, native 16:9 DLP devices at low cost are on their way as we speak, as are improved color generation technologies (the death of the color wheel is coming -- they are reportedly working on solid state technology to provide the color for DLP) Meanwhile, the overall satisfaction I have with our current setup is just, well, high! The Dell is a great little, and I mean little, projector. Just about every aspect of it is an improvement over what we used to have. About the only thing that disappoints me is the speaker. It is too small to be heard, even on perfectly quiet evenings. So what I had to do was press some old powered speakers from an ancient PC I had back into service. They work great and the effect is just astounding out in the yard. Movies are clear and bright, even though they are being projected directly onto tan stucco! No special screen is required. If I wanted to get fancy, they make some great screens especially designed to handle DLP projectors, but I simply do not want to mess with any gear I do not have to, and with the Dell, that is what I get to do. This, again, is just me. Your priorities and budget will differ. But here’s the thing: If you have been looking at a Plasma or LCD widescreen television, do not buy one without first checking out the current crop of video projectors. If your room will accommodate a plasma display, chances are you will end up with a brighter picture at a lower cost by investigating a projector instead. Example: Currently you can find plasma displays with a 42" diagonal picture for around $2700. That is the cheap end of the line. They only go up from there. Larger displays run over 10 grand. A $2700 projector will get you a picture that can easily be over 100" diagonal in a normally sized room and the picture will be bright enough to see in ordinary room lighting. All you have to do is investigate. Search for a high enough lumen output unit and get a decent screen. The picture will be viewable from off axis too, something the plasmas and LCDs are still a bit weak in, in my opinion. The obvious drawback is that the bulbs on modern projectors are still expensive. The Dell replacement cost is $299 right now, and some of the LCD units have bulbs that run over $500. The lifespan of these bulbs is usually between 1500 to 3000 hours of use. So an important consideration when going this route is how long is your TV on every week. But believe it or not, you need to do the same thing when evaluating a plasma display. They are not cheap to replace, and they definitely have a limited lifespan. I have read stories of picture degradation happening fairly rapidly with them and more than one projector review I read in my searches were from guys who were replacing plasma displays. Another consideration: Do you have the proper room configuration to mount a projector? You will need an unobstructed run between where you mount the unit, usually the ceiling, suspended from a specially built bracket, and the wall where you intend to view the picture. Different projectors have different "throws" or projection patterns. The Dell throw is viewable on their website, but essentially it is designed to project the image at an upward angle from where it is sitting. The height gain at about 15 feet is at least 24", meaning I set my projector on a stand at three feet off the ground, but the picture 15 feet away is 5 feet off the ground. For outdoor use this is not an issue, but indoors, you need to think about it so that your picture will show at the height you want it. And remember, you have walls and floors and ceilings inside. They will not allow you the leeway of projector positioning I enjoy when viewing outdoors. Of course, you can fudge this somewhat by tilting the projector. When you tilt the projector you are causing the light emitted from the lens to travel a different distance top to bottom. This means that the light traveling farther has a chance to spread out wider than that at the opposite side. You end up with a trapezoid picture commonly known as "keystone" due to its resemblance to the keystone found at the top of stone arches. This keystoning effect is correctable using a digital routine via your remote control. But the correction has limits and tilting your projector too far out of level will cause you to have to use excessive correction and might even result in noticeable degradation in picture quality. So these are some of things I ran across before settling on the Dell. Your results may vary of course and it might be that another option will better fit your requirements. Just keep in mind that you do not have to pay top dollar to get what is really a great picture, projected where and when you want it. All you have to do is dig. Our home theater – outdoors, where we want it -- is an imperfect beast. But it is better than all its ancestors by far. One of these days I might even decide to set the thing up indoors and watch movies there too. But one thing's for sure, it won't be until summer is over!  |
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