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-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from ZDNet Australia. --------------------------------------------------------------
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Bright sparks in the boardroom: 10 projectors reviewed By Kire Terzievski, Technology & Business magazine December 01, 2003 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/coolgear/electronics/soa/Bright-sparks-in-the-boardroom-10-projectors-reviewed/0,139023382,120281463,00.htm
 Looking to make a good impression? Our latest roundup of data projectors for the boardroom includes projectors with wired and wireless networking, memory card slots, and even built-in browsers.It has been exactly 12 months since we last took a look at projectors. We have been keenly watching the pricing and competition in the marketplace since that time. The momentum seems to currently be drawn from the personal or home market, be it for small businesses needing a portable or ultraportable projector for on-the-road presentations, or even entry-level home users, where the consumers are taking the increasingly cheaper data projectors to watch DVDs and HDTV and get that big-picture feeling in their lounge rooms. All this recent activity can only be good for corporate buyers; the more product the vendors move, the cheaper they become across the whole range. A relatively well-featured mini data projector can now be had for around AU$3000, whereas even a year ago a similar unit would have cost around $7000. However in this review we took a look at larger projectors for use in a corporate boardroom setting. The major players are still using the traditional LCD panel projection technology, however there are more DLP (digital light processing) units coming onto the market now. There are now two other lesser-known emerging technologies: LCOS and D-ILA. What’s the difference? LCD projectors use liquid crystals—one for each pixel—to allow or block light travelling through a piece of glass on which the crystals are mounted. DLP projectors use tiny mirrors for each pixel that move to either reflect or not reflect the light. LCOS is a hybrid of both these techniques, which uses liquid crystals mounted on a mirrored surface. Why is this better? Because of the high resolution and small spaces between pixels, LCOS projectors have minimal pixelation problems. Also, the edges of pixels tend to be quite smooth, whereas pixels in DLP projectors have sharper edges. Overall, this makes picture quality very good, although LCOS projectors don’t have as high contrast ratios as some DLP projectors. D-ILA is another form of LCOS and stands for Digital Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier and is currently being spruiked by JVC. JVC claims D-ILA produces a higher brightness and contrast ratio. This really benefits those businesses that use a lot of full motion video and/or multimedia within their presentations. However, for the majority of business users out there the difference could be considered negligible with other features to be considered over the type of projection technology used. If you wanted a hybrid projector that would do well with both data and video presentations then DLP, LCOS, or D-ILA would be the way to go. However, for most boardroom or road warrior data presentations, LCD is still perfectly viable. Another movement besides the pricing has been in the overall rated ANSI lumen output (Lamp Brightness) and contrast ratios. Most entry-level data projectors start at around the 1000-lumens mark now whereas a short time ago that level was around the 600 to 800 lumens. The majority of the larger projectors now are around 2500 lumens or higher. Compare this to our review 12 months ago, when only two projectors reached 2000 lumens, and the majority were less than 1300 lumens. Resolution is also a critical consideration. Many portable projectors currently—particularly those under $3000—are SVGA (800 x 600) native resolution. While this may be acceptable for video playback, if you are seriously considering buying a projector for data projection then you need to ensure that you have a XGA (1024 x 768) unit. Many SVGA units are advertised as being XGA “capable” however this is a relatively rough-and-ready software interpolation that ends up making the image looked distorted. So ensure you look at a minimum of true XGA resolution data projectors before investing. On to the reviews. The vendors who submitted products for this review were BenQ, Canon, Epson, Hitachi, HP, InFocus, JVC, NEC, Panasonic, and Sony.
Benq (formerly Acer Communications and Multimedia) has taken the spotlight off many of the other vendors by offering good picture quality at a low price. These guys have been in somewhat of a dogfight with InFocus, which ultimately means lower prices for consumers. Like the HP model, the Benq is a DLP-based projector. It’s rated at 2600 ANSI lumens, putting it in the middle of the pack in terms of brightness. And the fact that it was the smallest and lightest projector by far impressed us even more. It could almost pass as a portable, however it doesn’t feature a carry handle. The Benq also had an extremely high contrast ratio of 2000:1. It also had a good range of connectors including all the standard connectors you expect to find except for DVI or a network port. The Benq didn’t live up to our expectations in terms of brightness, and didn’t justify its brightness rating. There were lower-rated projectors that were brighter, and the brightness was also uneven. Contrast was quite good, but it wasn’t as good or as warm as any of the others, given its rating.
The LV-7555 is Canon’s new large venue and conference room projector. It’s Canon’s brightest projector delivering 4600 ANSI lumens in Turbo Mode or 4000 ANSI lumens in standard mode. The Canon LV-7555 was the brightest projector we tested and also the largest, weighing in at 9.3kg. It has a powerful 300W NSH lamp that can run for approximately 2000 hours. Its native resolution is set to 1024 x 768—if you want to, you can set it to 1280 x 1024 but you get a compressed image. You can purchase an optional Network Imager that connects the LV-7555 to your network. This allows you to remotely manage the projector. You can switch the input mode, adjust the picture, and it can e-mail you alerts. Canon claims the projected image can fill a 400in screen with 90 percent uniform brightness. Out tests showed Canon may be exaggerating slightly. The picture was slightly less uniform than Canon claims, but nothing to worry about. The LV-7555 was sharp, extremely bright, and even when we turned turbo mode off it was still the brightest. Colours were also strikingly vivid.
The Epson EMP-7850 is an installation and large venue projector. It’s rated at 3500 ANSI lumens. Only the Canon was rated higher. Epson also sells a 5200 ANSI lumens model if 3500 isn’t enough. The EMP-7850 is an LCD-based projector with a native resolution of 1024 x 768. Epson’s next model up, the EMP-9000, has a native resolution of 1366 x 1024. The EMP-7850 features a PC Card slot for adding peripherals or a wireless card. Epson supplied an 802.11b wireless LAN card. This will enable you to do a presentation without having to use any cables. The EMP-7850 featured all the standard connectors except for component video. As for picture quality, the Epson was excellent. It was sharp as well as bright and it had a very even picture. However, we had to move the projector closer to our screen as it was projecting way outside our screen boundaries. We had to move it approximately 80cm closer so the projected image could fit perfectly on our 110in screen. To be fair, we moved the projector back to five metres and found the brightness levels had reduced by as much as 25 percent.
Year after year Hitachi sends us some great projectors, and this one was no different. The Hitachi CP-X880W has a brightness rating of 3000 ANSI lumens and contrast ratio of only 500:1. It has a 275W UHB lamp and according to Hitachi it lasts for 2500 hours, which is longer than any other lamp in this review. As far as connectors go the Hitachi features an extra RGB port, DVI, BNC, and component video. The Hitachi was one of the more expensive projectors. It featured a few niceties like a motorised zoom and focus, and a clever control panel that allows you to quickly select from one of the six different input types. You can purchase an optional wireless and network module which allows the projector to be operated without any cable connections to a PC. The Hitachi performed quite well. It was generally very bright and the contrast surprisingly wasn’t too bad despite its low rating. The Hitachi was also the cheapest to run.
HP hasn’t been in the projector market for all that long and only offers a small line of projectors. The HP XP 8010 is a very large projector however not very powerful. The XP 8010 is rated at 2200 ANSI lumens and has a contrast ratio of 800:1. It has a 250 W P-VIP lamp that’s good for 2000 hours. The HP was one of the only two DLP-based projectors that were submitted for testing. DLP projectors are predominantly used for home theatre and this was evident in our tests. Being so large it was able to support a large number of connectors including DVI, an integrated network port, and extra VGA inputs. The HP didn’t perform too well in our tests. It was the least bright projector even though it was rated higher than the JVC and Sony. Text appeared dull and fuzzy, however, it had good contrast—blacks were dark, while colours appeared warm.
InFocus for a long time now has been producing high-quality business and home projectors. Rated at 3000 ANSI lumens, this is InFocus’s third brightest projector. The LP840 and LP850 are rated higher at 3500 and 4500 ANSI lumens respectively. The LP820 is an LCD projector that has a native display resolution of 1024 x 768. It has a 800:1 contrast ratio, which is pretty standard, and has a good mix of connectors. You will be able to connect almost any device to this projector. As well as having all the standard composite audio and video and component video connectors, it features a DVI connector and a network port so you can control the projector from a remote location. Even one better, you can control this projector without the use of any cables. InFocus supplied us with the InFocus LiteShow kit. The kit features an 11Mbps wireless adaptor card that plugs into the DVI port of your projector and a wireless LAN card that plugs into your notebook. Client software is also supplied so you can manage the projector from your notebook. The InFocus was the second brightest projector. Surprisingly it was brighter than the Epson, which happened to be rated higher. The InFocus was very sharp and its contrast was excellent. Its only downfall was the variation in brightness.
JVC has launched the first consumer D-ILA high definition projector. It had the highest native resolution at 1400 x 1050. If you prefer a widescreen picture, it can run at 1400 x 788 in a 16:9 aspect ratio. It has a brightness rating of only 1500 lumens which is a little on the low side, and a contrast ratio of 800:1. With that in mind, this is more of a home or general presentation projector. The JVC was awesome at displaying video. We felt like we were at the movies. The picture was even, colours appeared just right, and the image was sharp. However when we were displaying plain text, we could see this projector wouldn’t do too well in a large boardroom in terms of brightness.
The Mitsubishi range extends from the home theatre to installation-type projectors. The company has an impressive line up of projectors to say the least and for this review it submitted the XL30U, which is classified as a desktop/installation projector. The XL30U is rated at 3000 lumens. Mitsubishi has a more powerful 4700 ANSI lumens projector heading its fleet, but the XL30U was a better candidate for this review. It’s more affordable and its more suited to a mid-sized boardroom. It’s an LCD projector that uses a powerful 270W SHP lamp. The lamp can run for 2000 hours in economy mode before it needs replacing. Mitsubishi didn’t provide us any details of how long the lamp would run in normal mode. You will find most standard connectors on the back, however there’s no DVI or network. The Mitsubishi has a low contrast ratio of 350:1. This made the picture look dull. The contrast range was also poor which made it perform even worse in difficult conditions. It also lacked sharpness and was uneven in terms of brightness.
Panasonic is a serious player in this area. You only have to check out its Web site to see the huge range of projectors it has on offer. This time around Panasonic sent us the PT-L735NTB, which is an ultraportable wireless LCD projector. It’s rated at 2600 ANSI lumens and has a contrast ratio of only 300:1 making it the lowest in terms of contrast. It has wireless capabilities and features a SD card slot so you can store your presentation on memory cards and present without a PC. It also comes with all the standard connectors but there’s no DVI or component video. Despite it having a low contrast rating, it didn’t cause us too much of a problem. When we turned up the contrast, we were able to project quite a pleasant image. This projector is designed for large boardrooms. From five metres we couldn’t get the projected image to fit properly on our 110in screen—we had to move the projector closer to the screen. Like we did on the Epson, we then moved this projector back five metres from the screen to ensure the testing was consistent.
We were quite surprised to receive this model from Sony. We actually reviewed the VPL-PX15 almost two years ago now. Nothing has changed since then besides the price, which has come down dramatically. The Sony was one of only two boardroom projectors to feature a PC Card slot. It also features an integrated network port. The Sony was limited in its range of connectors. This projector integrates the Windows CE operating system allowing you to browse the Internet without needing a PC. Also, you can remotely control the projector from your browser. The Sony was rated at only 2000 lumens. In terms of brightness it didn’t fare too well against the serious boardroom projectors. Text appeared fuzzy and the picture was quite yellow. The “screen filter” effect was also quite bad on this projector. Even though this effect is known to exist across all LCD projectors it seemed to be slightly more apparent on the Sony.
Specifications
Interoperability Futureproofing ROI Service How we tested Each of the projectors was connected to the test rig and given adequate time for the lamp to heat up and stabilise. All the projectors were placed five metres away from the screen. They all projected images on a screen that was 110in in diagonal. We measured the relative brightness of each projector with a Topcon IM-2D digital luxmeter. The Topcon allowed us to measure the brightness of the display from 13 points around the screen and derive an average, maximum, and minimum range for each projector. Projectors tend to be brightest at the centre and considerably dimmer around the edges, so this test allowed us to judge how uniformly bright each projector’s picture was. We also ran a series of subjective jury display quality tests using DisplayMate for Windows from Sonera Technologies. This series of images is designed to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a range of attributes, including geometric patterns, colour scales, greyscales, uniformity, and resolution. The jury tests consisted primarily of examining images from DisplayMate. Jurors rated the monitors first by whether they showed any of these flaws. If they did, the jurors decided whether the flaws were “barely visible”, “easily visible but not an issue for real-world use”, or “distracting in at least some circumstances”.
InFocus LP-820, Canon LV-7555 About RMIT Test Labs
RMIT IT Test Labs is an independent testing institution based in Melbourne, Victoria, performing IT product testing for clients such as IBM, Coles-Myer, and a wide variety of government bodies. In the Labs' testing for T&B, they are in direct contact with the clients supplying products and the magazine is responsible for the full cost of the testing. The findings are the Labs' own--only the specifications of the products to be tested are provided by the magazine. For more information on RMIT, please contact the Lab Manager, Steven Turvey.
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BenQ PB8230
Canon LV-7555 
Epson EMP-7850 
Hitachi CP-X880 
HP XP 8010 
InFocus LP820 
JVC DLA-SX21 
Mitsubishi XL30U 
Panasonic PT-L735NTE 
Sony VPL-PX15