School Hall Projector - suggestions

[SteveLemin]

Hi all,

 

I'm looking at a project to refresh a school hall projector system. The projector was installed 10 years ago and is quite a hefty unit but slowly the bulb is diminishing and I feel it is time to overhaul. The projected image needs to fill an 8ftx8ft (2.4m x 2.4m) electric white screen and be a decent brightness. Of course, projector throw comes in to play too as we would like to fit the projector to the original location (although not essential as we could remount if necessary - just trying to keep labour costs down on the project).

 

Any suggestions on suitable models would be most wlecomed.

 

Kind regards

Steve

[3s-gtech]

How bright is the room, what's your budget, and what sort of resolution/aspect ratio are you looking for?

 

We've always done well in the £600 bracket with Optoma projectors, refreshed every three years. Current model is 3500 lumens or so, 1080P and mighty good, even in a bright hall (we do use the curtains to shut out some light). If your hall is very bright, it will take a proper industrial unit to work though.

[Oaktech]

I would always suggest something from the Hitachi or Mitsubishi professional line for a school hall. You'll just have to suck up the fact that it's going to be big and expensive and a conventional discharge lamp.

[localzuk]

I can recommend the Optoma X501. Very well priced for its brightness (4500 lumens). We paid £966 for ours. Covers our 10ft screen.

[Mr_K]

Just worth noting as they were mentioned above that Mitsubishi have I believe pulled out of the projector market. Anything you do find is likely to be old-stock and not IMO worth looking at unless you can get a very good deal.

 

You have the screen size but not the distance from screen to the projector lens. That's needed to properly calculate the throw ratio.

 

I would look at as bright a projector as you can afford. 4000ansi will reduce to 3000ansi over a couple of years. Also might not look so good on a bright summers day as it does mid-October.

[RichCowell]

I've got 2 x NEC PA600x projectors with 1.5-3.02:1 lenses in the hall & sports hall - 6000 lumens, fantastic display quality, though not the cheapest, I'd certainly get something in that range again when I need to replace...

[Novalee]

Projector Point this website is very handy for calculating projector throw etc.

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

Hi @SteveLemin

 

Depending on your budget I would be looking at the Epson range. For a hall I would recommend a minimum 4500-5000 lumens. The big question I would ask first is to you want to stick with a 4:3 (1024x768, 800x600) ratio or do you want 16:9/16:10 (1280x720, 1920x1200).

 

Sending you a PM.

 

Anthony

[RobFrain]

We're also in exactly the same position. We had a Epson EMP1815 projector installed about 9 years ago in our hall, however its pretty awful now and requires all the curtains to be shut if in use. Our head has asked us to get some quotes to replace this. Ideally we want an Epson as all our other projectors are Epson. We'd like to keep it 4:3 and have something over 4000 lumens - higher the better. We have also noticed that the projection of black isn't great either!

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

Hi @RobFrain

 

will send you a PM

 

Anthony

[RobFrain]

Hi @RobFrain

 

will send you a PM

 

Anthony

 

Cheers

[jmak]

We have also noticed that the projection of black isn't great either!

 

Projecting black light requires special equipment