New projector suggestions

[Esoteric]

As I was taught, distance effects brightness because it increases the coverage area. Also, most zooms decrease output because of the effects of the glass (I am not 100% clear on the technicalities of why zoom effects output, but I have been assured it does).

Mike

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by Kirt

I'm trying to decide if 2 LED 50" Television would be better than 2 projectors and screens. We want to project Video's, Worship Lyrics, and Sermon Points.

The legibility of text is greatly dependent upon the height of the text characters, thus the taller the text can be, the further away it can be read. Assuming that you would want to display the same text on either display, the 24.5" image height provided by a 50" diagonal, 16:9 format display severly limits the associated viewing distance. If you want people to read what is on the screen then a just over 2' high image is no where near large enough for a 75' to 100' viewing distance.

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by Esoteric

As I was taught, distance effects brightness because it increases the coverage area. Also, most zooms decrease output because of the effects of the glass (I am not 100% clear on the technicalities of why zoom effects output, but I have been assured it does).

If you have a fixed lens then the throw distance and image brightness do directly correlate as the throw distance and image size also directly correlate. With a fixed lens a shorter throw distance (closer to the screen) results in a smaller image and thus a greater image brightness while a longer throw distance direct results in a larger image and thus lower image brightness. But when you throw in zoom lenses that all changes as you can vary the relationship of image size and throw distance, a throw distance no longer relates to a specific image size nor an same image size to a specific throw distance.

In both cases it is the image size that is determining the image brightness. With a zoom lens there is simply no longer a fixed relationship of image size and throw distance, and thus also no longer a fixed relationship between image brightness and throw distance. When zoom lenses are involved, one has to base the resulting image brightness on the image size rather than the throw distance.

What also happens is that lenses incur some losses in their optics, not 100% of the light from the projector's light engine comes out the other end of the lens or at least not all in the image area. These losses tend to vary over the zoom range of a zoom lens and also with the general lens characteristics, for example very long throw lenses tend to have greater losses versus comparable shorter throw lenses. The losses may also vary between lenses or manufacturers.

[yagabu]

We went ahead with the recomendation for the Viewsonic Pro 8500. Installed it just the other night and so far are extremely pleased with it. The first service it was used at, everyone thought it was running Hi-Def. That tells you how bad our old projector was. The images are so crisp and clear! We are using it in Eco mode and it is still more bright then we need. All the light in the sactuary and even the lights that splash the corner of the screen don't even make a difference in the image. Our old projector, we had to dim all the lights in the sanctuary just to even see some of what was being shown on the screen.
I would recommend this projector to others. The only issue which really is not one, is that I have not been able to get the e-mail alerts to work yet. If that is the only issue, I can live with it.


Thanks for all the help in chosing one.

Greg

[cw4u]

Glad it worked out well for you!

Our 8400's have been installed for about a month now. They're working really great! I haven't had time to run a cat5 cable to them yet but that is in the works.