Portable projectors get more advanced

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.