[daves]

Hi Everyone:

I'm an instructor in Graphic Communications at a community college in San francisco, and we are in a position to replace a number of the projectors in our academic computer classrooms. We need 2 projectors for settings where image & color fidelity are very important and 1 projector that could be a lower cost value unit. Our total budget is $5000.

In each of our classrooms, the machines driving the projectors are recently purchased iMacs, so having a projector that supported HD resolutions would be ideal.

Any of you made a similar purchase recently, or in general have any recommendations that would narrow our choices? The world of projectors is confusing and ever-changing!

Thanks in advance!

[SierraDragon]

Note that room size, shape and projector placement will dramatically affect what are the best solutions.

I always liked Epson for printing/projecting with Macs, but I am not familiar with current projector hardware.

-Allen

[daves]

Thanks Allen. The projectors will be housed in small classrooms with 30 computer stations [and not room for much else!]

Any other recommendations out there?

[Eug]

I can't really help you except to say you should be careful when specifying "image and color fidelity" in the classroom setting. Often one of the big issues of classrooms is ambient light, either because of windows or because of background lighting needed for other purposes. If there is going to be the possibility of significant ambient light, then sometimes a machine that emphasizes brightness even at the expense of colour fidelity may be appropriate. Of course, there are some machines that have adequate brightness, but have good colour fidelity at lower brightness settings.

As for room placement I think what Allen was getting was the necessity to know exact placement locations, height, distance, angles, etc. because that will affect your choices. Even if projector A has great brightness and colour characteristics, it might not work at all in your room because of placement limitations. Is the zoom on the lens sufficient? Do you need lens shift? Is the placement distance going to affect brightness? What's the image size? Will you have to use keystone correction?

What are the specs for your existing units? Would it make sense to get a professional to come in to do a site assessment?

[awaspaas]

I agree that color fidelity probably ought not be your primary concern in a teaching classroom. Even if there are no windows, it doesn't make good teaching sense for the room to be a blackout other than the projector (e.g. snoozing students, inability to take notes)

I say for teaching, there's no such thing as too many lumens. Get as many lumens as you can afford from a reasonable brand (EPSON and InFocus are popular). The optimal situation is a projector bright enough that it can be used with the lights on, and have optimal image quality available with some sort of dimmed secondary lighting for notetaking.

If nothing else, make sure the lights closest to the screen can be controlled independently from the rest of the room.

[daves]

Thanks for the input, although your comments all just underline why this is a tough decision to make. We've arranged for a vendor to come in and demo a few units on site; hopefully that will make the buying decision clearer. Cheers.