Portable projectors get more advanced
Zatni Arbi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, zatni@cbn.net.id
The news about TFT LCD monitors (thin Liquid Crystal Display monitors that have very high contrast ratio and wide viewing area) is very exciting these days. Not only has the quality improved, demands for them - as reported by Nikkei Microdevices in AsiaBizTech last week - have suddenly rebounded, forcing LCD makers in Japan, Korea and Taiwan to work around the clock at full production capacity. If this upsurge continues, prices will fall fast, making it more affordable to replace CRTs (cathode-ray tube or the usual television monitor technology) with LCDs.
What else is exciting in the IT market except LCD monitors? More and more retailers are offering portable presentation projectors. Compaq and IBM are among them. Mobile projectors - portable multimedia projectors that you can connect directly to your notebook computer - have become very popular, although they still cost an arm and a leg.
Interestingly, I have noticed that people in Jakarta tend to always call them "InFocus", in the same way that everyone calls photo cameras "Kodak", or packaged drinking water "Aqua", or toothpaste "Pepsodent".
InFocus Proxima is one of the leaders in portable projectors, and its immense popularity seems to have made it a generic name for these products. Yet, there are dozens of other companies that also make high-quality desktop and portable projectors, including 3M, ASK, Epson, Hitachi, Kodak, Mitsubishi, NEC, Phillips, Plus, Polaroid, Sony, Toshiba and ViewSonic, in addition to the PC makers mentioned earlier.
A Sanyo Projector
As you may recall, there are two types of technology used in today's projectors, the DLP (digital light processing) and the LCD. DLP technology was developed by Texas Instruments, and its strengths lie in its ability to project moving images, such as live videos, with better quality images than the LCD models. DLP projectors are smaller and lighter too, but they generate more heat than their LCD counterparts. LCD models, on the other hand, produce better color saturation.
For a year or two I was intrigued by the news that Sanyo was also manufacturing several models of LCD projectors. Sanyo used to be known for low-cost electronics of average quality. However, in recent years, they have clearly been making serious efforts to fix the image, and its projector-PLC-XW20 is proof of its success. Courtesy of PT Datascrip, a local dealer of Sanyo, Canon and other makers of office technology, I was able to test drive this compact, portable projector.
Several years ago I had the opportunity to play around with a small Sony projector that looked more like a toy. As far as I can recall, the quality of the projected image was far below that produced by the PLC-XW20 in terms of the richness of color and sharpness.
Features
The projector itself is quite small (25.7mm x 76mm x 22.9mm, WHD), and weighs only 2.8 kg. This projector comes with its own padded bag, and extra care is needed when handling it because of the contraption's sensitive optics. I was told to wait until the fan really stopped after I turned it off before unplugging its power cord.
More important, though, are its capabilities. I used it in my living room, with a blank white wall above my piano as the projection screen. I placed it around 2.5 meters from the wall, and I had an image as tall as 1.2 meters, which was large enough for the small room. The leaflet says that this projector can be placed at a maximum distance of 8.1 meters from the screen, and with a maximum zoom setting it gives an image as tall as 5 meters.
Even during the day, when I had ample light in my living room, the projected image was still very clear. This very bright projector uses a 150-watt UHP lamp (ultra high performance lamps) that produces 1,100 ANSI lumens (standardized scale of projector brightness).
Subjectively speaking, the color saturation was excellent. The focus of the image was good in all areas. At 300:1, its contrast ratio is also quite good, although other projectors now claim to have a contrast ratio of 400:1. A low contrast ratio, such as 200:1, will give you a muddy image. This projector's maximum resolution is XGA or extended graphics array (1,024 x 768 dots), but I had no problem using it with my 800 x 600 resolution notebook because it had the capability to automatically detect and adjust its resolution to the input signal.
Datascrip only supplied me with a power cable and a male-to- male cable to connect the projector directly to the external monitor port of my notebook. The remote control, which looks more like a thin chocolate bar wrapped in aluminum foil, replicates the controls that are on the unit. When the unit heats up, a remote control becomes very handy. To secure it to a fixture, use a Kensington lock and chain.
Sanyo has an optional remote control that also has functions for using a mouse. The unit itself has a slew of ports and jacks for all needs, including a PS/2 (IBM personal system to personal computer) jack for remote mouse control, S-video input (a type of video signal), audio input and output ports. It even has a USB (Universal Serial Bus, a device invented to replace PC cable clutter and can support up to 63 devices) terminal.
Other features
It was very easy to connect this projector with my cheap, China-made VCD player, but the result was very good. I was able to watch movies as if I was in a small, private theater. The colors were natural, including the skin tones. I did not test the audio function of the projector, although it has its own amplifier and speaker.
This projector, which is HDTV (high definition television)-and-DVD-ready, has almost all of the features that you would expect in a high quality projector, including zoom, on- screen menu display, 10-bit digital gamma correction, a cinema mode for optimal movie screening, 3D Automatic Uniformity Correction Control (AUCC) to produce uniform and more natural gradients.
In addition, it also features a keystone adjustment to correct a trapezium-like projection caused by the position of the unit, which is too low for the projection screen, image freeze and No Show to avoid distracting your audience as you search for or jump to the earlier slides in your presentation. You can zoom in and enlarge a particular area of your slide, too. However, this projector does not handle the DVI (digital visual interface) digital signal.
According to Budi Haryono, marketing manager for the Multimedia & Presentation Systems division at Datascrip, overall sales of projectors in Indonesia grew by 30 percent last year while their prices dropped by 20 percent. What is also interesting is that the ultra-portable models, which weigh less than 2 kilograms are increasingly popular. Weighing just 2.8kg, Sanyo calls the PLC-XW20 a "Micro Portable Multimedia LCD Projector".
At US$3,999 this projector is definitely beyond my financial reach. However, if your job involves giving high-powered presentations, you may consider this one as a companion for your notebook computer. Just make sure to check out the fact sheets for things such as weight, resolution (nowadays XGA is considered the norm), ANSI lumens, contrast ratio, remote control functions and the price of a replacement lamp when you make your final choice.