It's a fact I'm lazy or maybe just lack the energy. I have all I need for 2 or 3 builds/rebuilds but can't seem to get motivated. I always come up with good excuses.

I've been watching the advances made with long life lamps/light source commercial projectors. I don't have direct knowledge but do have a great interest on where this technology is going. I won't provide any links to respect the fact that this is mainly a diy site and only hope that maybe LL would at some point consider a group buy where they take a cut off the top when the right projector comes along. That way they don't take a hit like they did with the EVO. Those who want to can Google the topic will have sufficient info to find the products I'm talking about.


This is not an exhaustive list by any means and many of these are dlp and some don't use a colour wheel so the "apparent" lumen may be understated when compared to full panel technology designed for lcd monitors and televisions used in our diy:

First we had the 10 and 25 lumen led mostly pico variety projectors like the Mitsubishi PK20 Pocket Projector at the high 25 lumens. There may be exceptions but many of these suffer by being low resolution some being 320x240 or less to at best (vga) 640x480 at the top end but realistically although as a new development they are exciting, IMO, for movies, they weren't worth a serious look.

Then there is the Sony 410cc unit which uses a prism, 14 RGB LED (4R 4B and 6G), 3 lcd and is rated at 50 lumens. At least the lumen are heading the right way

Now things are getting more interesting.

Another is the Boxlight BumbleBee LED Micro Pocket Projector has a lamp with a 20,000 lamp life, a native resolution of 800 X 600 and a brightness of 150 lumens. Some places rated the led at 10,000 hours which would make a big difference since LED projectors are often throwaways at end of life. Some reviews also said that the claimed 150 lumens was way overrated and the pj did not perform anywhere near that highly they called it the next generation pk20 under another brand name.

Comparative SVGA (800x600) native resolution models are:

LG has the HS102 at 160 lumens which uses a 5 colour wheel and is rated at 30,000 hours. Samsung has the P400 or(P400B or P400BX) rated at 150 lumens and the soon to be released improved P410 rated at 170 lumens. These seem to have better overall ratings and are truer to spec.

I might consider those last LG and Samsung models if it wasn't for the following.

A company called Forever Plus Corp (Taiwan) has 3 models. 2 are mini av type and the other is referred to as a 720p portable. The FPC-55 and the A65HZ LED with claimed life of 50,000 hours. These claim to be native resolution 720p (1280x768). I couldn't get a model number for third. The only problem I could see is that one reference said that the portable FPC-55 projector was only rated at 70 lumens. So there are question marks but 720p is another nice step up.

Then I came across a company called Projection Design which makes a variety of lamp projectors but one model the FL32 Series is said to be an LED 1080p native res rated at about 700 lumens with a led life of 100,000 hours. This projector does not use a colour wheel.

Lasers. A better technology?

Not an expert but the evolution of these products could eventually supplant large screen tv.

Samsung is now selling a Micro laser Projector MBP200 starting in Korea but possibly elsewhere by now. It's a multiple use device which contains a 480x360 projector the clarity at 50" or less looked pretty good in the Youtube demo. I wouldn't let the resolution fool you on this one.

A company called Microvision demoed a laser lit pico projector about a 1 1/2 year ago. There are a couple of videos on Youtube you can Google "Microvision pico projector" to find them. Things must have progressed since then.

Last but not least on my list, a company called Evans & Sutherland or E&S has developed a laser projector which claims 16 times the resolution of 1080p. It can project a res of 8000x4000 pixels or 3D at 4000x4000 pixels. Supposedly this will be seen in the last half of 2009 but expect the price to be out of this world. This of course is not for the average consumer but if this is true then a downgraded version will surely come about for the home market within a few years.

The advantage of laser is that it is always in focus so requires no adjustment moving it back and forth to resize and requires little cooling so is ultra quiet. The technology can be kept very small even as the resolution is increased.

This may well be the one that wins out over LED in the long run and effectively replaces large screen televisions in many homes.

Meanwhile LED is still making strides. This article says that they now have developed 1200 lumen palm sized XGA led projectors.

ProjectorPeople

btw) I skipped over some models as near duplicates. Also one company SeeStation claims to have a projector model # SS-PJ-LED105 which it says is a SVGA LED Projector at 3500 Lumens lasting 50,000 Hours. It's highly doubtful that a 45 watt projector could produce 3500 lumen so that spec has to be wrong and I could only find 1 reference to that projector so it may be fake.

I saw the other day on QVC they has an LED projector targeted for ages 8 and up for $95USD by Jakks. Eyeclops Mini Projector.

The performance didnt wow! me, but the price did.

All the searches I tried came back with the same info taken from an article in Feb 2009



Expected to be in the toy variety and resolution will probably like some of the other toy models released before. The pixel grids (screen door) are really annoying. The led is a good step and may encourage someone else to step up with something just a notch up in resolution.

Either way I think there's no going back. Watch the price of old style lamp projectors and replacement lamps start to drop fast within the next year as new led and laser projectors hit the market.