Projectors: Practical advice
when is time to buy
In this Article I will explain you about projectors and tips and some advice when you are ready to buy one. They are device that integrates a light source, electronics, optic system and display for the purpose of projecting an image from various sources, including: our a/v receiver from our home theater, from our DVD player or our computer displaying the image from the source onto our screen projector for example. If we want to watch a movie in our home theater, but we can’t afford to pay 2500 or more for a nice LCD TV 32” and up ($2500 and up), it is a really good solution for our problem, because for just $800 we can watch our movies in our big screen. there are four main points that you should know before buy ing one: their resolution, display, aspect ratio and brightness.
Aspect ratio:
Currently I will mention just two, that in my opinion are the most popular:
16:9 : This ration is like you can see in the HDTV.
The brightness:
Maybe is the one of two characteristics in the projectors that differentiate one from another, most parts of the projectors are equal. The brighter the projector, the higher its price. My recommendation is to try to buy the brighter projector you can afford, because the brighter projector, the better quality image.
Brightness is measured in ANSI (American National Standards Institute) lumens: the brighter the projector, the higher the ANSI lumen rating.
Nowadays, projectors can be grouped by ANSI lumen output as follows:
• > 1000 lumens – these are the lowest light-output available today, and they are typically the least expensive. This is gonna be your first option when you are looking for a projector and you’re short of money, but the good news is that if you want it for your home theater this kind of projector is just fine, because it requires a dark room, like your home theater room to watch your movie, keep it up!!!!
• 1000 to 2000 lumens – this lumen range is a step up in performance and price. In this category we’ll find SVGA and SXGA products. They may not need to be in a dark room for its well-functioning. These machines are suitable for normal business conference room and classroom use or in our case if you have a illuminated room where your home theater is.
• 2000 to 3000 lumens – The best high-performance range of the portable and semi-portable projectors. These products are perfect for classrooms, conference rooms and for the rest of us... that means we can open the curtains a little bit and the image is going to be perfect anyway, also in this range they're offers more flexibility in terms of audience size since they can illuminate a larger screen without much loss of image quality.
• 3000 lumens and up – the ultra-bright projectors are in several performance classes unto themselves, ranging from 3000 up to 12000 lumens or more. Prices of these products also cover a wide range depending on other performance characteristics. Ok open your windows in the sunny day and watch your movie!!!! jejeje
Display:
There are 3 types (the most common) of displays:
• Digital Light Processing (DLP): The technology inside is often referred to as either "micro-mirrors", or DMD, in my opinion produce higher contrast and brighter that the others.
• Liquid Crystal Display (LCD): LCD stands for liquid crystal display and comes in many forms, sizes, and resolutions. it has three glasses (LCD) that displays green, red and blue, these components make the projector display more natural colors. This beautiful display is the best choice in my opinion.
Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS): This is a hybrid of Digital Light Processing and the Liquid Crystal Clear.
Resolution:
The Clarity and the sharpness of the picture on the screen are determined by a projector's resolution. So this is important thing you have to look in its specifications, because it refers to the sharpness of the image projected, as expressed in pixels (the higher, the better). Most of them today support resolutions that are higher than their native resolution by compressing the number of pixels. However, much of the quality and detail of the projected image is lost when this happens. Do not be distracted by the max. resolution capability of them; instead, just focus on what the native (true) resolution is. Resolution of it is differentiated in four categories.
- VGA (640x480)
- SVGA (800x600)
- XGA (1024x768)
- SXGA (1280x1024)
- SXGa+ (1600x1200)
• SVGA, or "800 x 600" – This is a popular resolution today, because most notebook computers are SVGA. Matching the projector resolution with the computer resolution will produce the best results.
• XGA, or "1,024 x 768" - XGA are generally more expensive than the SVGA. They are basically use for business laptops.
• SXGA, or "1,280 x 1,024" – SXGA products are high resolution, and notably more expensive than XGA. These products are targeted for high end personal multimedia equipment..
• SXGA+, or "1,600 x 1,200" – UXGA is for very high resolution workstation applications. These are expensive that support a broad range of multimedia equipment.
Advantage to get one of this beauties instead a big screen:
Versatile : Imagine watch a movie, photos, play your video games, or even work in
your computer in a big screen.
Save Space : Better yet, you don’t have to clean up this huge T.V every-time you have to clean your house, and it take less space that a LCD TV 32” or even less for those CRT T.V’s
Light : Don’t you want it in your basement? do you want it in your room?, no problem, a projector is less heavy than the T.V. so you can carry it wherever you want.
