StarkLord said:
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http://www.projectorcentral.com/Sanyo-PLC-XW55A.htm
http://www.projectorcentral.com/Optoma-EP708.htm
http://www.projectorcentral.com/Hitachi-CP-X251.htm
http://www.projectorcentral.com/Epson-PowerLite_77c.htm
http://www.projectorcentral.com/BenQ-MP622c.htm
Is it just me, or are prices getting lower for some really great projectors? I'm looking to project from 4' to 6', depending on whether I use a ceiling mounted mirror. All of these have relatively short throws and resolution looks good at 1024x768 XGA. And the brightness on all is over 2000 ANSI lumens. So is there a con to any of these budget-priced units?
No. It's not just you. Projector prices are falling - and will fall even further this year as Texas Instruments' original DLP patent expires this year.
The falling new price is reflected on eBay's used 800x600 projectors. They are $300ish now in price. Even the used XGA projectors are in the $400 range.
We've also seen a movement of projector technology both into rear projection sets and into front screen projection in living rooms.
It appears that rear-projection DLP's were at their height a year ago and are only decreasing in market attractiveness now as large HDTV LCD panels have dropped significantly in price. Unless there are significant developments in this coming year in DLP technology, I think the rear-projection DLP will go the way of the dodo - and fast. Sony is already abandoning the rear projection field. Large Flat panel LCD's had a big price disadvantage but that has largely vanished during the time this thread has been on ENworld.
How that trend will effect projector prices is not yet known. But I think the result is that projectors will continue to decrease in price.
Going flat Panel on the Tabletop
Arguably, you might dare to purchase a 40 to 42" flat panel LCD HDTV right now and mount the thing recessed, lying flat on a custom table and just PLAY on top of that HDTV monitor screen. More expensive than a projector? Currently? Yes. But at $1,000-$1,200 or so for a 40-42" flat panel, less expensive - or at least the same cost - as most of the people on this thread paid to buy their BenQ or Dell projectors at a "new" cost two to three years ago.
And the price on those panels continues to fall. By Fall/Xmas 08 - I think the 40-42" will be all under 1k, with a few at the $800.00 mark.
If all you were getting out of your projection setup from top down projection was a 40-42" inch screen - you could get
vastly more detail out a flat panel 1080p built into a table for that purpose right now. The resolution on my Sony Bravia 40" LCD is 1920 x 1080 and yes, it has a VGA port.
The math on a 40" 1080p HDTV LCD panel is:
1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels on a 40" 16:9 image = 700 sq inches = 2962 pixels per sq. inch. That's a hellavu lot of pixels folks.
Our group's two current gaming projectors are:
800x600 = 480,000 pixels on a 42" 4:3 image = 850 sq inches = 565 pixels per sq inch.
1024x768 = 786,432 pixels on a 42" 4:3 image = 850 sq. inches = 925 pixels per sq. inch.
In the result, the flat panel HDTV yields a resolution over three times as sharp as the XGA and 5.5 times the SVGA projector. And there is no question that the brightness and clarity of the HDTV image is an order of magnitude higher.
I'm happy to have my flat panel mounted on a jury rigged wall mount for installation in my current wall unit. I have no plans to alter that for tabletop use and my wife would KILL ME if I did.
But getting another one to be mounted flat in a recessed tabletop doth hath its attractions. And the image resolution would be absolutely spectacular. So spectacular the main concern might be finding a source image of high enough quality to display on it during play. At a certain point - it can start to look TOO good
Other Projection Technologies
By far the most exciting projection technology on the horizon is Sanyo's ultra short throw patented mirror projection system used on the XL50. This complex mirror set-up produces an image that permits radically different projector locations (relative to the projected image location) and permits images of up to 80" on the diagonal from a range of just
15" from the lens.
80" is, in fact, larger than most tables could easily accommodate. Practically speaking, a normal tabletop with a jury-rigged plexiglass-in-wood-frame design can physically accommodate a 70" 4:3 image.
And you can achieve that 70" image by mounting the projector under the table surface and still be able to play at the table with your legs and chairs underneath it in the ordinary way.
Pixel density and image sharpness drop though - and by quite a bit. The math on such a projector is:
1024x768 = 786,432 pixels on a 70" 4:3 image = 2352 sq. inches = 334 pixels per sq. inch.
334 pixels per sq inch is very low. That image is going to appear to be HIGHLY pixelated to the player's eye.
Assuming you could get a 1080p projector using that same Sanyo ultra short throw mirror technology (and to be clear, such a projector does not exist right now - and if it did - it would probably be in the $7,000-$10,000 cost range), the numbers are a lot better:
1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels on a 70" 16:9 image = 2074 sq inches = 1000 pixels per sq. inch.
That would be a very decent projector indeed
My guess is that it is on its way, too. The only real factor is cost.
In the offing as well, we have OLED LCD based panels. Organic permits even better color and ultra thin monitor panels - less than 1/2" thick. Stand excepted, you could just lay the thing down on a tabletop.
OLED's are expensive though right now - and the main players have just invested **billions** in large scale LCD flat panel manufacturing plants. I don't see OLED's coming to the market in large sizes for another 5-8 years, at least.
Is the marginal attractiveness of a 1/2 inch panel vs a 4 inch thick HDTV panel all that big a deal? Probably not, imo.
Micro-Projector Technology
Also, would it be worth it to wait until the Microvision SHOW is released? The $200 - $300 price range is a pro that may far out weigh the cons on this unit. CES 2008 is this week and I'm sure we'll know more afterwards.
No. You should not be waiting for this. There is a point where physics is getting in the way of usable projection technology.
Can they get a lens and DLP based projector in a hand-held rig? Yes they can. Mitsubishi has already done it with its pocket projector - and the SHOW is essentially the same design, albeit with a slightly different light source. (The difference between an LED and a Laser is largely a matter of semantics. Once you have a Blue LED - you have a blue laser. LED's and LD's are two sides of the same coin and manufactured by the same players in the same mftring plants.)
You don't magically get 2000 lumens out of a handful of LEDs or LD's, given our current understanding of that technology. Your light source needs to be much bigger to get significantly more power out of it and all the other kit that goes with making a coherent beam of light that bright.
End result - you are not goign to get a 2000 ANSI lumens - or even 1000-1200 ANSI Lumens out of something the size of a deck of cards given our current lighting technology. The current Mitsubishi Pocket Projector Model II has an output of 80-100 ANSI. (Model 1 was under 50 lumens) That is just far too dim for gaming in a normally lit room.
Now, if it turns out I'm wrong, and these guys have a 1200 ANSI projector coming out of a pack of cards that can throw a XGA 48" image at three feet from a $300 projector, then WotC will be a happy company - because that will change the look and feel of tabletop gaming at a stroke.
But that's just not going to happen in the short to medium run. Unless somebody figures out how to generate incredibly bright coherent light without the heat and all the supporting electronics to make it fit in a tiny projector. Will it happen? Probably. But there is no evidence to suggest it will be happening this week at CES - or anytime soon, either.
Thanks in advance for your comments. And thank you, Steel Wind, for starting a great post over 2 years ago!
The thread will be three years old in a few weeks. The remarkable thing about it is not how it continues to attract attention. I think that's inherent in the technology.
I think the remarkable thing is how much the price has come down surrounding this technology in the time the thread has been going. There were a lot of naysayers in this thread early on concerning how "rich" you had to be to do this. It annoyed me - as even in the $600-$700 range for a gaming group - that was easily affordable.
Now? It's about half-that in price.
Take a look on eBay. Look under "completed" listings for LCD projectors and DLP projectors. Ignoring the "buy it now" sale, you will see a LOT of SVGA and XGA projectors have sold on eBay for under $300-$400 range in the past months. Not just a few of em. But a LOT.
This technology is affordable, it is practical and its time is *now*.
