Special Projector Features
In this section we discuss the importance of a number of special features found on the various projectors in this report. I should point out that we'll also discuss some very basic items such as brightness, and how much is enough...
These sections below talk about the features (and benefits) that are important to consider in projector selection.
MORE COMING SOON! We will be adding more features as we update this page from the 2011-2012 Report. -art
May 2012
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Ultra-short throw lens
Until the last couple of years, ultra-short throw projectors were rare, and expensive. Also, there were a number of projectors calling themselves ultra-short throw, that really weren't.
An ultra-short throw projector is one that has an optical system allowing the projector to be placed extremely close to the screen. For a respectable sized screen in a conference room or classroom environment, say 72 inches diagonal (if using a 4:3 ratio projector), ultra-short throw would typically have the closest part of the projector anywhere from an inch, to perhaps 4 feet from the screen. That's a huge difference due to some unusual technologies.
One key purpose of having ultra-short throw capability is to place the projector so close that it is between the presenter or teacher, and the screen. That way no one gets blinded, and annotating becomes far simpler.
One that can be placed inches from the screen can sit on tables or credenzas right below the screen or can be wall mounted right above. Of the projectors reviewed here, only the Hitachi CP-AW250N and the Epson Brightlink 455wi mount within inches of the screen (or wall). Of the two, only the Epson is an interactive model. Hitachi announced new interactive projectors about the time of this report, but none were in the country, in time to be included in the report. We anticipate reviewing one of them in the next few months.
Most of the ultra-short throw projectors that are more of the 2 to 3 feet back (measured to the lens) rather than several inches, are also designed to work with a telescoping wall mount. That mount would typically be anchored to the wall, right above the top of the screen (centered of course). The telescoping pole would likely allow placement from less than a foot away, to as much as 4 feet, based on the mounts I normally see at trade shows. Some of the manufacturers with ultra-short throw projectors also sell such mounts, but, that's not critical, since most of the major ceiling mount manufacturers also offer wall mount solutions for these projectors.
In this report you will encounter several ultra-short throw projectors, and discover that they vary quite a bit in their "throw" abilities. Three of them, an Epson, BenQ, and Optoma, are true interactive projectors, adding a host of "smart" capabilities, including annotation, saving work, touch screen functions and, really, a whole lot more.
Monitor Out (also known as VGA out)
Not everyone presents or teaches from a laptop. Schools in particular, tend to rely more on desktops in the classroom, than laptops. With your laptop, if you hook up a projector, you can still see your work on the laptop screen. With a desktop computer though, you disconnect your monitor to hook up a projector. Since it's often desirable not to have to look at the projected image, but view the computer instead when speaking, the solution is to split the signal - one for the projector one for the local monitor.
To accomplish that, you either buy a VGA splitter, or, buy a projector that has a VGA out or Monitor out (whatever you wish to call it). The alternative is to use a projector that provides the monitor out.
For that reason, monitor out has long been an important feature considered when buying for school installations. Running the extra cable (from the monitor out on the projector, to the input on a monitor), does add a slight labor cost to an installation, and a few dollars of cabling, but is going to cost less in most cases than buying a splitter.
In case you missed my point, monitor out is a potentially big thing if you are working on a desktop. If you are shopping for a school district, though, where all the teachers are using laptops, then, you don't need this feature.
HDMI or DVI Input
As long as we're out back looking at the input panel, let's talk briefly about HDMI. Some of the projectors we looked at in this report do not offer HDMI or DVI inputs. That means no pure digital abilities. The future is digital (how "last year" is that line?) But, in a K-12 environment, there are considerations. First, projectors sporting HDMI are probably $50 to $100 more than a similar model without, when such a comparison exists. Secondly, HDMI cabling is expensive, and it can be flaky at long lengths. Still there are high quality cables, and there are extender systems good for hundreds of feet, even 1000+, if needed. (Most extenders take the signal, convert it, and send it out over CAT5 or CAT6 networking cable, and convert back at the projector end.)
If you should be working at the school district level, then certainly considering HDMI / DVI - digital should have been part of previous considerations. I don't know what percentage of schools or districts are now going digital, but it has to be growing. It would be very foolish for any AV or IT manager responsible for projectors (and computers?), to not review each year, what type of digital strategy makes sense, and when (if ever) to start integrating projectors digitally.
I'm not saying all schools and districts should be digital, or should be in 5 years. There are any number of considerations in terms of bandwidth, type of content, future compatibility, that must come into play. The point is, digital is becoming more common (if still a small percentage) in the classrooms. The free advice (we know what that's worth): Stay on top of it.
We're pleased that, this year 11 of the 15 projectors in this report do offer HDMI or DVI connectors and compatibility. Note, none offer HDMI 1.4a which is essentially necessary for Blu-ray 3D. Remember, most likely any projectors you are buying today, will likely be asked to last about a decade, and unless school budgets start improving again, perhaps a whole lot longer.
So, implementing digital for projectors is an issue of long term strategy and cost containment. That means for some schools and districts, it may even make sense to start converting to digital sooner, rather than later. And that may mean starting to implement digital for projectors soon, even if other digital parts to the overall computer strategy may still be a couple of years from implementation.
DisplayLink
USB can replace your analog VGA port, or HDMI. DisplayLink is starting to gain popularity. Instead of using vga cables, or HDMI to feed content to the projector, some projectors are now using the DisplayLink protocol to replace those older methods. What that means is that if your projector supports DisplayLink and so does your computer, USB can now be used to handle the display. For that matter, it can also drive your regular monitor as well.
I don't have any pulse on the how popular DisplayLink will come, but it is another area who's use is growing. At the end of 2010 DisplayLink supposed to be upgraded, to 3.0 with far more (up to five times I believe), throughput. I cannot report on that however, and we did not work with the DisplayLink in most of the reviews, favoring HDMI or the traditional analog computer input.
DisplayLink can support multiple displays at one time, that's just downright handy for feeding a desktop monitor and a projector, at the same time.
Brightness
Well, brightness is hardly a "special" feature, but it is a key one for most decisionmakers choosing projectors. Back in 2000, the popular, large, "rental and staging" projectors - used for meetings in hotel ballrooms, small auditoriums, and large multi-purpose rooms, were typically about 50 or more pounds, and output a "blinding" 2000 lumens. Today most entry level projectors put out at least 1500 lumens in 4 and 6 pound boxes. Most of the projectors in this report are 2500 - 3500 lumens, and well under 10 pounds. We used to say, 2000 lumens is fine for a presentation to 250-400 people. Of course we assummed a nearly fully darkened room.
From a practical standpoint, 2000 lumens in a classroom-sized environment can handle pretty much anything but sunlight hitting the screen. Screen sizes in classrooms tend to stay fairly small - from 60 inch diagonal to 80 inch diagonal. On those sized screens, a solid 2000 lumen projector should be able to do a respectable job even with full fluorescent lighting on. OK, if the lights are only a foot or two in front of the screen, it might wash out a bit, but the point is, today's entry level projectors have plenty of horsepower for the classroom.
So, why buy a 3500 lumen classroom projector? Depends what you are doing. Showing videos is always a good excuse for wanting a lot more lumens, as normal "presentations" tend to be high contrast, and work well, even with a healthy amount of ambient light, but video can often be medium bright, or even dark. That's when you want more lumens.
If you are looking for projectors for, say a larger, multi-purpose room, then definitely consider the brighter projectors. Remember, you need a projector with four times the lumens, to go from one sized screen to another, with twice the diagonal size while appearing just as bright.
Color Fidelity
This will be a key focus, when you get to the Image Quality page. There is a wide range of abilities in our fifteen projectors, in terms of how good their color is. Some projectors will work great if you must be able to perfectly match the color of, say a company logo, or the blue of an American flag. Others, can be especially poor. One thing we've noticed, is that a number of the DLP projectors in this report still can't do really good yellows and bright reds, (yellows can come out mustardy yellow-green, and bright reds, more like a dark merlot wine). Some of today's DLP projectors though, are far better at it than others, and the LCD projectors in this report, are typically a little better than the best of the DLP projectors.
The point being, if you need accurate color, for whatever purpose - even for viewing photos and video, there will be wide variation in how good some of these projectors do. Note that even the worst of them start looking pretty good in their Video or Movie mode, but, then typically the projector's brightness is down around 50% or more, and the color still isn't that good on several of them.
Audio
"What?" you say? I said Audio. In the past, portable projectors (under 10 pounds) mostly have been skimpy in terms of sound. You'll notice today, that almost all of the projectors in this report are under 10 pounds - thus technically portables. Still many of today's portables really are designed as portable/or/fixed projectors.
Usually a couple of 0.5 watt, or 1 watt speakers, is all you find in most projectors. That gives the average portable projector a bit more sound than a typical laptop, but less than the typical pair of small, cheap speakers that come with most desktop computers.
One or two of those tiny speakers isn't going to carry in a classroom over two or three dozen students. It's just not going to cut it.
And, for that reason, over the last 7-8 years we've been seeing more and more projectors with healthy sound generating abilities, as the manufacturers have come to realize that schools are the largest viable market for projectors. Now, at least for those projectors targeting the K-12 and university classrooms, at least a single 5 watt system. Other common "louder" projectors have a single 7 or 10 watt speaker, one projector I've encountered even has 4 five watt speakers but that one's not in the report.
In days gone by, AV and IT co-ordinators knew the tiny speakers in most projectors wouldn't do the job, so they would also have installed at least one more powerful speaker, and run power to it from (most likely) the same computer and video player that feed the projector. Some projectors have an audio output, which would work fine to feed that extra (powered) speaker system. That's simpler than running additional wires from the equipment, but life is still simpler, and lower cost, if the projector has enough sound that it doesn't need any help.
For that reason, you will find that almost all the projectors we've reviewed have 5 watts or more of sound, and should be fine in a typical classroom, assuming the teacher has any control at all, over his/her students. One more thing. Please don't expect any serious bass out of these projectors. They weren't designed for the 1812 Overture.
Classroom Projector Lamp Life and Cost of Replacements
If there's one certainty out here in the US in 2012, it's that most school districts are having a tough time of it, with lots of belt tightening. Hopefully for all the IT and AV managers at the schools and districts, there won't be any significant hit to federal funds used for school technology purposes. I know that when I owned a dealership, a large chunk of the money being used by districts buying high volumes of projectors from us, was coming from Federal programs. Well, so far, no one has accused the Obama administration of slashing spending, so for everyone's sake (yep, even the students), there's money for some more projectors this summer.
With things as tight as ever, it's smarter than ever to look at the longer term costs associated with projector purchases. Consider, it might be nice to save $100 a projector up front, but it wouldn't be smart, to go with that projector, if it's going to end up costing you $600 more to operate it for 5 years.
When projectors are getting lots of use (and many people realize that while a projector can get tons of use in many classrooms, the reality is many other teachers don't use them much at all, and some, not at all).
That just makes the math trickier, but the fundamentals are unchanged.
Let's consider a projector as having a 10 year life (what doesn't a school try to get at least 10 years out of)? Let's say we have two projectors. One costs $800, the other costs $1000. We'll also assume they are similar in all ways but lamp life and cost.
Projector A: $800 cost. Lamp life is 3000 hours in low power mode. We'll assume today's projectors are bright enough that low power can be selected to extend lamp life, save money. Replacement lamp cost is $300
Projector B: $1000 cost. Lamp life is 5000 hours in low power mode. Replacement lamp cost is $200
Let's see how they stack up in cost, over a decade. We'll use three examples, 8 hours a week, 12 hours a week, and 30 hours a week.
At 8 hours a week, Projector A needs a new lamp at 3000 hours, since 8 hours a week is about 300 hours a year (remember, we're talking a teaching year). That means at the end of 10 years, the first lamp needs replacing. Well, if the life of the projector is only 10 years, then there's no impact.
The same would be true of Projector B.
Scenario 2, however, has Projector A requiring a replacement lamp around year 7, at a cost of $300. That brings the projector's total cost to $800 + $300 = $1100.
Projector B with its longer life lamp, still has no need for a lamp at the 10 year point, so the total cost is $1000.(OK, we're not factoring in the Present Value of money, adjusting for inflation, etc., but you get the idea).
Scenario 3, is an eye opener: At 30 hours a week, that's about 1100 hours a year. For projector A, to get all the way through year 10, you will need to purchase a total of 4 $300 lamps. That makes the total $800 + $1200 = $2000
For Projector B, though only one $200 lamp is needed. The math: $1000+ $200 = $1200.
That sure makes you want to consider lamp life and cost, as a key part of selecting projectors.
Other Costs of Operation
You thought you were going to get out of math class that easily? Sorry, still a couple more points for me to make.
What else affects long term cost of operation?
1) Repairs, and warranty duration as it relates to any needed repairs
2) Installation related costs (cabling, accessories, mounts, extra speakers if needed, etc.)
3) Routine maintenance costs (changing filters, lamps, etc.)
While it's really difficult to predict which products will prove to be the most reliable, some brands do have better reputations than others, for reliability. Support also varies a good deal. And should a projector break under warranty, is there a replacement, a loaner, or do you ship yours into a repair facility? Who pays the freight?
We can only help you with some of these questions, and they will be addressed on the Warranty page.
Still, if all else is equal, you want a projector with a longer warranty. A replacement program is great, for it normally means that the user is down only 24-48 hours. A loaner program is similar. Some districts prefer loaner programs to replacement ones because they use asset tags to track all their, well, "assets" including projectors. That means if a projector is replaced (not repaired), it means a bunch of paperwork to change all the asset tracking, and to afix a new asset tag on the replacement projector. On the other hand, other districts could care less, and are just happy to get the teacher back up and running in 48 hours or less.
Time, as they say, is money! While even over a decade, most projectors would not see more than one or two lamp changes, there are more frequent sources of maintanence.
Filter changing
There are basically four levels of filter maintenance: No filter to change, A filter to change infrequently, say every 1000 hours, A filter that needs changing frequently (say every 200 hours of operation), and finally, since this feature now exists, filters that get replaced only when the lamp gets changed. In most of the last type, it's a projector with a "rolling" filter - one that simply rolls forward a clean segment of filter, every so often.
Obviously the first and fourth types require no extra maintenance, and even the infrequent filter change is a relatively modest amount of work. But a filter than needs to be changed every couple hundred hours; What a nightmare, if you are responsible for 200 of these projectors, scattered over 20 schools. On average, assuming the short filter life, most projectors will need from one to three filter cleanings or changings a year, even allowing that you don't quite maintain the recommended level of maintanence.
Two hundred projectors - let's say 2 changes a year each. You've got to figue that's about a man year worth of filter changes. That's two a day (based on a not quite realistic 200 days per school year). Considering the logistics of multiple schools, etc., inconvenient access, one man year of labor isn't wholly unreasonable.
If you can buy a projector requiring none of that, it's a huge savings, but truth is, almost all of the projectors today have minimal maintanence. The old 100 hour standard is long dead and buried. There may still be a few projectors around still requiring that type of frequency, but they're not likely to be targeted at schools.
DLP projectors are almost alway filterless claiming a sealed optical system. LCD projectors are not sealed due to the different technology type. Overall, DLP projectors aren't perfectly sealed, but there's never been a problem to my knowledge about dust in the lightpath. On the other hand, we've all seen the inside of our 3 or 5 year old desktop computers at some time in our lives. We've seen the incredible pile up of dust dirt inside those PCs. It can't be good. That causes devices to run hotter, which in turn shortens component life.
I think there's a net plus to the DLP projectors being filter free, or in some cases having a filter to clean at extended periods, over the LCD projectors, which all have filters. There's no data to suggest that filter free projectors die sooner from dust build up, so I'd say don't give it too much thought.
USB Presentations
We're really talking about two separate things here, in some cases. Some projectors can take a flash drive through their USB port, and present from it. In normal cases, that means the projector has at least a basic image player, and can make a presentation out of a series of JPG images. There's nothing new about that, and Powerpoint, for example can be outputted as JPG images for such a purpose.
The other aspect is DisplayLink and the ability to interface with a computer via USB instead of standard VGA type inputs. DisplayLink was already covered above.
Lasers and Pointers with Projectors
Several projectors reviewed have a laser pointer on the remote. It should be considered whether students will be running the projector from the remote, and therefore if there should be concerns about those laser pointers. Out here in California, (not school related) there's even proposed legislation, to limit or ban the sale of laser pointers.
Years ago, I'd say a lot most projector remotes did have lasers. Why the dramatic decrease (especially since the costs have dropped a lot)? Easy, Students! Putting a laser pointer in the hands of a student may open up all kinds of potential liability issues. I don't know whether a school needs to really worry about it, but it's apparently convinced several major players to remove laser pointers from their remotes in recent years. The vast majority of projectors mentioned in this report, do not have laser pointers on board. I'm probably over-reacting, but wanted you to be aware of a potential liability. I certainly would not recommend eliminating any projector because it has a laser on the remote. At the very worst, cover the lens with some tape or marker, or anything that blocks the laser, if you are concerned.
Pointers are a whole different story. Epson, for example favors a pointer over using a laser. With their pointer, you can put up any of several styles of pointers (arrows, a "laser dot", fingers pointing.) You move them around using the remote's navigaton. That's not as fast as a laser pointer, of course, but it gets the job done with no liability issue. This year most non-interactive projectors had neither laser nor pointer, but at least 4 or 5 did.
Of course all interactive projectors are at the minimum pointing systems.
Networking Projectors
We are not networking people here, and don't dare evaluate performance. But we can comment on the general usage. One purpose is command and control - that the projector can be remotely operated,by the teacher (via computer), or, be shut off, automatically at 5pm every Friday from a remote server at district office or by the school's IT manager.
From Projector to Network: Many networking projectors offer email notification through the network. That means the projector can email an adminstrator (or several) if a lamp blows, a filter needs changing, or to report a malfunction (assuming the problem doesn't affect the networking).
Adding projectors to your network, can, per the examples above, save money. Leaving a projector on all weekend will use a couple bucks of electricity, and waste lamp life. Email notifications can help with management and efficiency, and probably improve uptime slightly. Remember, some projectors will shut down when lamps reach their full life. An early reminder can prevent a panic, and down time.
More and more projectors support protocols such as Crestron's RoomView which can allow messages to be pushed out over the network and displayed on the projectors all over the school, or district. That same network person could power up all the projectors and send out special announcements, etc. Very handy in emergency circumstances.
Wireless Networking
No doubt there are schools using wireless networking for handling presentations, but it is certainly is relatively scarce in the classroom, compared to say wired networking. It can certainly be a convenience, allowing a teacher to move their computer around the room while still using the projector to teach. In a properly controlled environment, perhaps a computer lab, wireless offers some interesting abilities. As an example, Panasonic had a projector that could support either 16 or 32 wireless computers, allowing switching between them, so that an instructor could have any one student's computer screen routed through the projector.
Wireless networking is definitely favored more when laptops rather than desktop computers are around, at least in the US.
That's worthy of some thought, one thing I've learned, is that we have a huge amount of old wiring in the US. Many countries, newer to technology than we are, in many cases, are reducing infrastructure costs by skipping the wire, and going wireless. In many countries now, cell phones rule, there aren't land lines. Are we too focused on using wire? Can wireless reduce costs? Not my call. You'd have to figure that out for your location.
Remote Mousing
Remote mousing, by definition, in terms of projectors, means you can control the same aspects of your computer from your projector's remote control, as you could from the computer's own mouse or touchpad.
That would be moving the cursor around the screen, clicking on items, pointing to items, even turning pages in Powerpoint and other presentation software.
Interactive projectors, are inherently offering full remote mousing, and additional capabilities as well. Of non-interactive projectors that offer remote mousing there are two basic feature types.
Less common today, but easier for use, is a mini-joystick, or button that allows you to move in any direction. More and more, instead, projector manufacturers stick to navigating using their arrow keys. That's not as fast, or as elegant, but usually means the manufacturer doesn't need a custom remote for the projectors that offer remote mousing.
If you consider remote mousing to be an important feature, (and I'm sure many teachers using interactive software - not necessarily interactive projectors, do consider it important), remember, that you can always go to the aftermarket for some excellent 3rd party remote mousing devices. Look to companies like Logitech, Gyration, etc, for such products. Many work even better than the ones standard on projectors. I personally favor radio frequency, instead of the infra-red, always used on projector remotes. They are less intrusive to the presenter, as you don't really have to point them at the projector, or a sensor. As a business presenter for years I have always been a fan of the Gyration Presenter (history). Their Air Mouse and AirMouse Go plus (operates as an in-air mouse with full features, or can work like a conventional mouse), or the Air Mouse Elite, should be considered as excellent value added remote mousing solutions for any projector (or anytime you need to leave your mouse behind).
3D Support
This year in the report, most of the DLP projectors are 3D ready, and none of the others, which are all LCD projectors. Again we ask the question; ready for what exactly? Those projectors sporting the 3D Ready, the presumption is that they have 120fps abilities. Technically you can get by with 60fps and it's been done that way for a while, just not mainstream.
Most of what is going on with the DLP projectors calls for the electronic shutter glasses. That poses an immediate problem for school situations. The $100 or more per pair price, isn't practical at the school level. In a year perhaps more likely two, there will be sufficient volume to drive the prices to $15-$30 a pair. That may make a difference. At least some are now down below the $99 mark.
The technology LCD projectors will probably go with, is stacking two projectors, and using passive glasses. I've seen an Hitachi stack, that still wasn't ready for "production" with a few too many minor artifacts, etc., at the time, however, it was also noticeably brighter than the 3D active solutions from DLP.
Unless you have specific projects in mind that call for 3D, this year's shopping season may still be one season too soon to be serious about any general 3D implementation.
With that in mind, however, the extra cost it seems for 3D ready on DLP projectors is minor (other than the big bucks for glasses), so I would recommend, that if you want to keep your optiones open.
In other words, consider 3D as a future item, at least.
Content, as they say is king, and there is more and more coming, especially for education. In the sciences, and history, but it can show up in language software, and just about anyplace else.
With a daughter now in college, I've watched the technology experience as she's gone from elementry, through high school. Not everything is coursework, which means not everything that may be highly desirable to view in 3D in the classroom, may not be designed, or even intended for classroom.
For this reason, we are concerned with compatibility across 3D, including whether these projectors that are 3D ready, can actually view Blu-ray 3D content (none of them can), as well as coursework. Also, of the four 3D ready projectors I directly worked with, only one, for example, could work with 3D off of DirecTV. Now there's a lot of interesting 3D content showing up on DirecTV and, I assume, cable as well.
There's a lot of music performances in 3D, there are documentaries (a recent one on China I enjoyed), especially travel related. There's a new documentary about the Civil War, that I think is starting production, or just released... The point is, class work has always been supplemented with movies, TV news, field trips, and many other things, not purely "coursework". I believe that plenty of the 3D content (non-movie) reaching the light of day may have some use in the classroom, so compatibility beyond 3D from the computer, could be important down the road.
You may be able to add that capability later! Consider, of the first crop of 3D lower resolution projectors more than a year ago, and the same for probably all the non-home theater 3D ready projectors right now (4/2012):
Last year Optoma announced their 3D-XL accessory. They understood that Blu-ray 3D specs call for HDMI 1.4, which even most home theater projectors don't have yet. So that their consumers buying game and general 3D ready projectors for home use, weren't immediately limited by l the lack of HDMI 1.4, they brought out the 3D-XL, which as of this moment is already shipping in the EU, but not yet here in the US.
The 3D-XL (which we hoped to have for this report), is HDMI 1.4 compatible, can accept the Blu-ray 3D output from Blu-ray 3D compatible player, and convert the signal, so that it will work on a 720p 3D ready projector without HDMI 1.4.
The education technology world probably needs an accessory like the 3D-XL, compatible with 3D ready projectors of all resolutions, so that you know whatever 3D projector you buy, can later be accessorized to handle Blu-ray 3D. Whether these same devices also address the problem of some 3D using "optional" standards, instead of one of the core group of 3D standards. This has been the problem with most of the DirecTV content in 3D, except that coming from their ESPN 3D channel, which so far has stuck with a major standard method. Yes, even ESPN content, could be useful in the classroom, to varsity (and non-varsity) teams, to News in the classroom (be it the Olympics), contemporary politics, disasters around the world, etc.
As the critical mass of 3D continutes to rise, 3D content will become a major way some deliverers of information will set themselves apart form the competition. Remember those Tsumami images from Japan? As tragic and devastating as those images were, I can pretty much guaranty they would have had even more emotional and real impact if they were in 3D and viewed in same.
Expect all kinds of content to come to 3D, and a good deal of it, that was never intended for the classroom will show up in classrooms as tools for learning.