Can anyone recomend Really Bright Projectors...

[Face-Man]

Our architechs have designed a room with Glass every where 2 entire walls of it and skylights just for good messure. This is wonderful apart from needing to use an interactive whiteboard in it. Our current Sony PL15 have done well but are coming upto 4 years old and I can find them a good home elsewere. So anybody know of a really really bright projector going cheap [canary yellow not required] . preferably with a good lamp life.

[ChrisH]

I cant recommend a projector but it is inevitable that the brighter you go the less life you will get out of the lamp :?

[Andrew_C]

I cant recommend a projector but it is inevitable that the brighter you go the less life you will get out of the lamp :?

Not quite that simple, but there are trade offs. Size / Cost / Brightness / Lamp life / ease of use.

 

Christie are well respected in presentation circles, as are some of the Sanyo models (some are rebadged AS Christie)

[E1uSiV3]

You also might want to look at this article from BECTA which states you should not use a projector over 1500 ANSI lumen and should look at alternative solutions.

 

Also, look at using DLP projectors with high contrast ratios as you will be able to see the picture much better.

[Ric_]

We have a lot of BenQ prjectors which are 2200 Ansi Lumens plus they are DLP and miniscule! They cost approx. £600 each!

 

If it truley is as bright as it sounds, some blinds might help too

[NetworkGeezer]

£600!!!

 

The words "lorry" and "back of" come to mind

[john]

I say Epson or Hitachi's. I use a £6K Hitachi for presenting in a drama studio on to black walls, very very bright, somthing like 6000 lumens, but needs a full Risk Assessment before each show / event etc....

 

I hate DLP projectors, have a school that has some of the HP DLPs in and the images are really dark, the XP blue is very very dark, photoshop is useless on it as its too dark to use.

 

I would say stay LCD, brighter images. Just got an Epson EMP-X3 (i think its the X3, its in the car so cannot see it from here) and its 2000 lumens on Bright mode, but goes to 1500 in standard / economy mode, and TBH the difference is not that much, but should give another ~1000 hrs life! Making 3000 hrs, which I find is about standard in ones that are around the £600 area. I got this one for use in a really really bright classroom with a wall of glass, now it will live in 1500 by default, but if its too pale, they can turn it up to 2000, the staff have all been informed of how to work with them and the HP's they have now are in 2000 all the time, so they are used to working with bright projectors, so they should manage fine. Its all about making posters basically, we have an A3 sheet with each projector / Board saying Do's and Don'ts and basically our H&S advisors say that so long as we display that by each installation on the wall by the board then we are covered, if they don't read it then its tough. Staff were all told at a staff meeting that these posters were going up, had to be read, and the key points were quickly sumerised during the meeting with all the silly little things like projector filters, IWB pens etc not mentioned, but the critical don't stare too long at it, protect children, back to the board etc all covered during the meeting.

[Ric_]

@NetworkGeezer: I thought it was cheap too but I then realised that we were talking about BenQ kit and I did buy 15 at once

[Geoff]

Get some decent blinds is my advice. Good blinds are cheaper than high lumen projectors by a long shot.

[pshuttle]

You also might want to look at this article from BECTA which states you should not use a projector over 1500 ANSI lumen and should look at alternative solutions.

 

Also, look at using DLP projectors with high contrast ratios as you will be able to see the picture much better.

 

From what I can remember it is nigh on impossible to find a 1500 Lumen projector in this day and age...... The nearest we could get to it was 2000.

 

Correct me if I am wrong?

 

Pete

[E1uSiV3]

I hate DLP projectors, have a school that has some of the HP DLPs in and the images are really dark, the XP blue is very very dark, photoshop is useless on it as its too dark to use.

 

I had a HP VP6121 DLP and it was the best bit of kit i ever used (apart from the noise but thats a different story). I did come across the "super blue" phenomenon but this can be rectified by properly colour balancing your laptop output. I did this with my mac mini and it looked incredible. Match that with a 2000:1 contrast ratio and you can blow most LCDs out of the water...

[Andrew_C]

Have a look at Projector Central, they have a calculator that does beam angles, brightness and recommendations as to suitability.

 

For really bright look at the Hughes Light Valve. Yes, that is 12,000 lumens!

[indie]

How about a 50" Plasma and a wireless Smart Airliner?

 

We we're going to put a HD projector and Smart Board in a new Mac suite until I realised the Plasma option was so much cheaper!

[Ric_]

Just had a quote for a couple more of those BenQ projectors (PB2250) and the price appears to have dropped to £530... this is from Oliis on 0845 456 8556 (speak to Bobby).

[Face-Man]

chears for this it really useful stuff. We have had blinds in the room already but they frequently got vandlised (so it's not just the mice) so it now has electric security shutters to keep the computers in and bad guys out .And the sky light is a real problem basically imagine a green house and you are not far wrong. I've been told they have to be brighter for students who may have a visual impairment but becta seem sensibly be concerned for the people who stair directly ino the lense. And as with all these things it comes down to money ...

[SimpleSi]

How about a 50" Plasma and a wireless Smart Airliner

 

Interesting idea.

 

I'll think you need to think about relative chances of replacement cost of projector/bulbs vs whole plasma failure/damage.

 

Also, IME some people have hand-eye co-ordination problems with wireless slates vs interactive whiteboards and don't like using them (and therefore don't )

 

But if you go ahead- please let us know how it goes

 

regards

 

Simon

[john]

I hate DLP projectors, have a school that has some of the HP DLPs in and the images are really dark, the XP blue is very very dark, photoshop is useless on it as its too dark to use.

 

I had a HP VP6121 DLP and it was the best bit of kit i ever used (apart from the noise but thats a different story). I did come across the "super blue" phenomenon but this can be rectified by properly colour balancing your laptop output. I did this with my mac mini and it looked incredible. Match that with a 2000:1 contrast ratio and you can blow most LCDs out of the water...

Those are the ones, I have tried allsorts on the laptop to try and improve the output but all to no joy. Any more advice you can give would be great. for an example the XP task bar blue is what I would say is near enough the "add an attachement" bars blue on this forum, thats how dark the images are, and the MSFT pale greys are white.

[Andrew_C]

I had a HP VP6121 DLP and it was the best bit of kit i ever used

Those are the ones, I have tried allsorts on the laptop to try and improve the output but all to no joy.

Ahh, those again! My previous post on these projectors...

[john]

I will say they are not my choice, County Council recomended kit I believe. Trust me, I wouldn't recomend them as the bulbs are very expensive, they are quite big objects compaired to some, and they are DLP which is fine for Home Cinema, and maybe the Drama department, but for Classroom use where the main thing is showing Power Points, teaching applications etc LCD is what you want.

 

I like Hitachi and Epson projectors they seem both good bits of kit. I certainly don't like NECs, had two explode on me (not actually on me, but the bulbs went bang and the fan threw glass out into a classroom and a nasty gas came out of them that stained the ceiling brown) Not nice in a primary school.

[E1uSiV3]

I had a HP VP6121 DLP and it was the best bit of kit i ever used

Those are the ones, I have tried allsorts on the laptop to try and improve the output but all to no joy.

Ahh, those again! My previous post on these projectors...

 

I think the early 6121s had issues (one of them being a warn you when its overheated rather than before it does and the "super blue" issue in XP). For XP, i wouldnt know where to start to perform an accurate colour profile setup, macs come with the utilities built in so i just used that. There might be some 3rd party tools that do similar but i dont know of any.

 

I had issues with my 6121 when a fan bearing started going, which i just changed out myself and a premature bulb failure (1500 hours if i remember right) but i put it down to bad luck. For the price of the unit the quality i managed to get out of my mac was astonishing, but like i said, it needs colour balancing somehow on XP.

[E1uSiV3]

a nasty gas came out of them that stained the ceiling brown) Not nice in a primary school.

 

Sounds like mercury vapour :S

[ChrisC]

Not dangerous at all.............*rolls eyes*

 

That's really not too great!

 

Chris

[john]

It was the jollies when it happened so nobody was in, i turned it on to test it was working before term started and went out to get food then came back to glass on the floor, and a bit of gas coming out of the projector and a brown stain. It all cleaned up fine, but has as it were scared me for life of NEC projectors. I know its a risk with all units but so far only seen it happen on the NECs