Infocus X2 for Band Visuals

[APB]

Hello there,
I've been doing visuals for a while and am looking into showing them in night clubs or behind bands with a projector attached to my Powerbook and wanted to get the right projector for the job. I need to get a DLP projector for sure. And I've seen that the X2 seems like really good value, I'm just worried that at 1500 L it might not be bright enough, and maybe I should put more money into a projector. if anyone can offer me a bit of advice or knows of any projector which might be better for the job it would be very welcome as I'm a bit confused about which is the right way to go, Thanks for your time,

[JonMarsh]

Obviously, you're looking to balance output capabilities and presentation qualities with price.

How large a projected image are you considering? At what distance relative to the audience will the screen be? Are you talking rear projection, or FP onto a screen above the band, or?

The X2 is a lot of bang for the buck, but I'd point out there are a few considerations regarding the specs and your expectations.

The 1500 lumens rating is NOT in high fidelity color mode (D6500). There are two brightness modes, "standard" mode and "whisper" mode; the fan noise is probably not going to be an issue in your application- but color fidelity may be, and because of the color spectrum problems with the bulbs used in low cost DLP and LCD projectors, they have to cut the light output to get some semblance of color fidelity. The last presentation I gave at Dell was with one of their DLP projectors, and in "standard" mode, the yellows were more like a light olive drab, (biased towards green), and the red was a kind of purplish blue hue. Put into "Theater mode", the brightness dropped markedly, and the colors improved, but not nearly enough. The X2 is designed for HT as a second life, so it should be better in color fidelity. But with the type of bulb these smaller DLP's use, getting good color fidelity and contrast ratio with DLP usually limits true output to about 600 lumens.

There are projectors with better color and light output, but as you can guess, they'll cost more. For example, Sony has LCD projectors for commerical applications that have much better color fidelity than the Dell DLP at "theater mode" and do so with an honest 2000 lumens - but these projectors cost 4X or more of what the X2 goes for. So, if this is your price range - ~$1000, this is probably your best bet. For a bit more, you might want to look at units like the LP640, which are higher rez (XGA), and 2200 lumens, for about $2K. But, it's still got a typical biz DLP color balance.

Tellingly, InFocus projectors for higher output levels (small installation projectors) like the LP815, LP820, LP840 are ALL LCD. In fact, the LP840 looks surprisingly like a slightly repackaged Sony PX30, a 3000 lumen XGA LCD projector. I don't think they have any relationship; other than addressing the same market. I'd suggest finding a commercial dealer and having a look at some of these, too, as a reference.

I'd look at some of the more "commercial" oriented projectors- like Sanyo, Sony, InFocus, if your budget permits- but I'd advise to actually look at and evaluate any one you're considering, because the biz DLP's and to a lesser extent the LCD's tend to be low on color fidelity - just my obseration that because of the color wheel design on the DLP's, they're usually worse. Also, the lighter and more portable the projector, generally the more suspect the optical performance. Just an unfortunate fact of life, related to bulb and optics performance.

If you can setup your Powerbook to color calibrate the screen (if you have programs or an OS screen utility with a color profile for your screen (this is common for Mac's, but not for PCs, unfortunately), get a number of still shots using a wide color gamut, and compare what you see on the screen of your PowerBook with what is projected. That will be very revealing... and possibly dissappointing. Realize that what ever moderate cost digital projector you get, there will be compromises; the only FP system I've ever had which compares with my calibrated desktop monitor is my NEC PG9+ CRT projector since I calibrated it. And it's definitely NOT portable! :lol:

~Jon

[APB]

Chears for the tips Jon, thats loads of stuff to think about, I am going to be using the projector as a front projecter, and I hope to get an image of around 3to4 meters across and I'm not so much looking for compleatly spot on colours, for what I'm planning to do I'm just looking for a really stong punchy image, that'll grab some folks attention, after what you said I've been looking at some more powerfull Infocus DPL's and saw the LP500, which is right on the edge ofwhat I can afford, but gives out a 2200Lu image, do you have any experence with this one.
The reason I need to stick to DLP is because I am also working on some 3D video projects using stereo cameras and I want to try out using polarising filters to control what each eye see's, it's a bit complicated but I have read that LCD projectors get messed up by Polarising filters, I know it's a bit obscure but do you know anything about this?
Ok thanks again for putting time into helping me.

[JonMarsh]

LCD use polarizing filters in the beam splitter/recombiner, so this could interfere with what you're trying to accomplish.

The LP500 is brighter, but it's just SVGA- you might want to preview one at the screen size you're anticipating, because SVGA DLP's make me crazy with Pixel structure. At normal presentation distances they bug me on a modest size screen. But with glasses I have 20/15 vision, so maybe that's part of the problem! They have better fill factor, but that's just not very high res. But depending on what you want to do, it may be OK. Just be sure to check it out first.

[Brandon B]

There used to be one LCD PJ on the market that you could do 3D with, but it was discontinued a few years back.

As you surmise, DLP is presently the only way to do this.

BB