Projectors...

[mrbios]

Just looking through some cheap as chips projectors and spotted these:

InFocus IN112 DLP Projector 3000:1 2700 Lumens 800x600 2700 2.17kg (IN112) at TSI Europe

 

The bulbs are also only £109 each as well, anyone used one of those before? Does the price reflect the quality or are they good enough for most classrooms? ... we generally put nicer ones in to our IT rooms but for something like a maths room we just need something that would do the job for minimal cost, fitting for that need?

[AngryTechnician]

I don't know about the IN112, but I've installed a few IN104's here and they are nice solid bits of kit. Personally I would never install another 800x600 projector but if you're happy with the resolution it should be more than up to the job.

[mrbios]

The particular classroom this is going in has been using the oldest projector in the whole school for years....projector must be about 7-8 years old! so anything will be an upgrade

[Steve21]

The particular classroom this is going in has been using the oldest projector in the whole school for years....projector must be about 7-8 years old! so anything will be an upgrade

 

Not sure if it's a good projector or not, but even pcworld is a bit cheaper on the price (considering this is without VAT).

 

INFOCUS IN112 Home Cinema Projector at cheap prices | Pcworld

 

Might be worth checking if that price is actually low, or if others are lower. Can't see pcworld being lowest

 

Steve

[6Foot2]

We have deployed some DLP projectors: The staff that have them in their rooms love them.

 

However there is a premium to pay for DLP. Also some users don't like them due to the way that they render the image [speckles when you look directly into the lamp? But you should not look into the light anyway so I don't see the issue]

 

They are quiet, don't suffer the filter issues that other projectors do and light source replacement cycles are virtually eliminated [if they are used properly: Turned off when not in use etc]

 

If I could I would deploy them in all classrooms that currently have projectors.

[mrbios]

Not sure if it's a good projector or not, but even pcworld is a bit cheaper on the price (considering this is without VAT).

 

INFOCUS IN112 Home Cinema Projector at cheap prices | Pcworld

 

Might be worth checking if that price is actually low, or if others are lower. Can't see pcworld being lowest

 

Steve

 

Interesting: Infocus IN112 DLP Projector 2700 ANSI Lumens SVGA (800x600) 2.2kg

 

Don't know whether that place is reliable mind you but for £165 that's a bargain! EDIT: ah they have an educational email address: [email protected], i might give them a try

[synaesthesia]

800x600 is only the native resolution though isn't it - i.e. it'll do a hell of a lot more without a problem?

[mrbios]

800x600 is only the native resolution though isn't it - i.e. it'll do a hell of a lot more without a problem?

 

Yep, states maximum resolution of 1920x1200 in the spec

[Edu-IT]

Let us know how you get on. :-)

[sonofsanta]

800x600 is only the native resolution though isn't it - i.e. it'll do a hell of a lot more without a problem?

 

It loses a lot of the sharpness and clarity when it fudges the image down to its native res, though, text in particular can be a bit of a swine to read when the resolutions don't match. YMMV of course, but I always much prefer feeding a projector a native res image.

[mrbios]

Put up this projector on Friday, the image coming from the computer is 1280x1024, so it's not being streched past native res that far but the image quality is perfectly fine for a classroom. I still wouldn't put them in IT rooms but for a maths room it's perfect.

 

The mount is also 1-2 ceiling tiles further away from the board than our usual install (no idea why, the mount that was up there is VERY old and before our time) and it still does the job fine. Will probably get another one soon and test it out on a PC with a 1920x1080 image coming from it and see what the difference is like.

[sonofsanta]

Will probably get another one soon and test it out on a PC with a 1920x1080 image coming from it and see what the difference is like.

 

You'll lose a lot of image real estate with that - apart from the knock on effect on the quality from the scaling, in order to avoid distortion the projector will show a 16:9 image so you'll be losing out on about 25% of your vertical space.

 

Where there's a 1080p monitor in a classroom I tend to stick a 5450 GPU and a second square monitor in for the projector to clone from, once shown how to use it all the staff that have had to deal with it have been more than happy.