Technology News

Archive for July, 2009

An LCD multimedia projector can be a great asset to you, or your company. But, lets face it. They are not a dime a dozen yet, and most of them require significant financial investment. You need to make an informed choice.

There are a lot of makes and models around now, and you really need to do your homework when you are looking around to purchase.

Here are the top 7 factors to take into consideration.

1) Environment you intend to use it

Of all the different things that need to be taken into consideration, this is probably the most important, as all other factors are going to depend on it.

Will you be using your LCD projector in areas where there is a high level of ambient light ? Are you going to be doing presentations, or predominantly showing movies ? Do you have to keep moving it, or is it permanently installed in one location ? Will you always be using a single PC as your video source, or do you wish to be able to connect several video sources (either individually, or at the same time) ? Are you on a restricted budget ?

2) Brightness and Contrast

This is probably the second most important factor to consider. You must make sure that your projector has sufficient light output to be clearly visible. If you are going to be using your unit in areas where there is high background light then this is even more important. Nobody will enjoy a presentation that they battle to see.

The brightness is measured in Lumens. A brightness output of 1000-2000 Lumens is usually fine for a smaller office or classroom environment, and an output of 2000 Lumens or more is sufficient for bigger classrooms or conference rooms. You should not be considering anything with less than 1000 Lumens of output.

The contrast is always expressed as the ratio between the lightest and the darkest parts of the display. You should not be considering any LCD multimedia projector with a contrast ratio of under 400:1, especially if you are going to operate in an area with background light. Low contrasts give a “washed out” looking display.

Digital Cameras – Most digital cameras use memory cards to allow users the option to upgrade their storage space, while many even use memory cards instead of any internal memory. This gives the user the option to bring down the cost of the camera if they only want it for casual photography, or to expand the memory up to 32 gigabytes and soon 1 terabyte if they need to take lots of high definition photographs for their profession or hobby. At the same time this guarantees easy compatibility with computers, printers or digital photo frames.

Netbooks/Notepad – The laptop’s tiny little brother which brings their overall weight down to as little as 1kg so that commuters and others can work or browse the web on the tube or anywhere else that takes their fancy. As netbooks are too small for CD drives a memory card is a must to allow compatibility with larger laptops and PCs.

Computers/Laptop – Most computers now come with built in slots for memory cards which enables you to upload and edit pictures and videos from cameras or documents from your PDA’s and netbooks, or to store music for your MP3 players.

Memory Card Readers – Here the clue is in the name. Using a memory card reader you can make any computer compatible so long as it has a USB port.

Smart Phones – Most smart phones now come with a large selection of productivity software which benefits greatly from being compatible with PCs and laptops. Most also now have a variety of media software such as MP3 and video players meaning they can benefit greatly from expanded memory. One of the biggest flaws of the iPhone (that’s right, it’s not perfect) is lack of SD card support.

PDAs – PDAs, like smart phones, are incredibly versatile giving you a range of media and productivity options in your pocket. This is partly due to the versatility of the Windows operating system that most come packaged with, which allows developers and hobbyists to create all kinds of applications and even ports of 3D games and console emulators (which allow you to play your favorite Gameboy and Megadrive games). As PDAs are known for their large hard drives, extra memory again comes in very handy.