Features

Projection perfection

30 Jun 2009 by Sara Turner

Today’s powerful projectors can turn any boardroom or living room into a mini cinema. Mark Prigg tries them out.

Both in the boardroom and the living room, projectors have undergone a huge revolution in the past two to three years. What were once clumsy, noisy gadgets are now digital powerhouses capable of turning any room into a high-definition (HD) screening venue.

And while HD projectors have got bigger, at the other end of the market are some amazing, tiny models you can take anywhere. These “pico” projectors mean the end of scrabbling around for cables when you arrive to give a presentation.

Many manufacturers are even developing mobile phones with projectors built in, capable of casting a TV-sized image on to a wall. Admittedly, you probably wouldn’t want to use them for watching films, but for presentations they’re perfect.

As with high-definition TVs, the quality of the signal has a huge effect on what you see. Standard television looks pretty bad on a really good HD projector, especially if you’re switching between HD and standard-definition broadcasts.

DVD viewing quality can also vary. To get the best picture it is definitely worth investing in a Blu-ray player (Blu-ray is the next-generation, high-definition DVD standard), but for your existing DVDs, an “upscaling” player is a must-have. These are relatively inexpensive and, by enhancing the picture for an HD screen, your old DVDs will look far better.

If you’re using your projector at home or in a permanent meeting room, it’s worth spending some time setting it up correctly. Most projectors do a reasonable job straight out of the box, but as with a high-definition TV, a bit of tweaking can make a big difference.

Sim2 C3X Lumix

£20,000

sim2.com

Spending the price of a decent car on a projector may at first seem overkill, but this is no ordinary projector. If you’re serious about home cinema and have money to burn, this could well be your dream machine.

The Sim2 has three separate projector chips, one for each primary colour, and this goes some way to explaining the incredible picture quality. It’s also amazingly bright, and will work in any living room. Forget recreating the cinema, this is way better than anything you’ll see at your local Odeon if it’s set up properly – and while this is easy to do, if you are spending £20,000 it’s probably worth paying an engineer to come in and set the colour balance for you, as it can make a world of difference. However, if you decide to set it up yourself, the highly advanced Sim2 has a vast number of options to make sure you achieve perfect picture quality.

There are many connectors available, including six HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) ports, so everything from DVDs to games consoles can be plugged in without any problems. There’s also a full complement of other connectors available.

The Sim2 is also stunning to look at, although bear in mind that as well as the projector, there’s a separate box of electronics to process the pictures.

Overall, as you’d expect for the sky-high price, this is as good a projector as you’ll find anywhere – even rivalling professional cinema projectors for quality (although, obviously, the screen you use will be smaller).

It’s a jaw dropping, mind-blowing piece of kit, but you really do pay for that. If money is no object, then this is, without question, the projector you should have for your home cinema.

For the rest of us, it’s an amazing glimpse into what can be done, and what will hopefully be in all our living rooms and offices in a cheaper form at some point in the near future.

PROS Incredible quality and performance

CONS Very high price

Infocus IN80

£1,599

infocus.com

The Infocus projector looks rather like a curved version of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and is a giant slab of technology. Still, it manages to look slick with it, and the curved design means if it lives in your living room, it won’t be an eyesore. Turn it on, and once you’ve got over how noisy it is, you’ll notice the superb picture quality.

The IN80 is a high-definition projector, so to get the best out of it you’ll need to feed it decent HD content – ideally from a Blu-ray disc, or a high-definition TV service such as Sky+HD. The picture is sharp, crisp and bright – even when you’re projecting on to an entire wall.

Colours appear clear and vibrant, and the projector copes very well with fast movement – Wales winning the Six Nations Championship has never looked better than when the BBC’s high-definition feed was projected on to my living room wall with the IN80.

Set-up is a little fiddly – getting the screen straight can be a pain thanks to the rather annoying movable base, but after a bit of trial and error you’ll get there, and hopefully it’s something you won’t have to repeat too often. There are some neat on-screen menus for adjusting the picture once you’ve got the projector straight.

For presentations, the IN80 is superb, and Powerpoint has never looked so good, but if you want a quieter machine, it might be worth considering the Sony (see overleaf).

Overall, this is a superb projector that will give any home cinema or boardroom a touch of class. I even found it replaced my TV entirely – although wall-sized standard television does take a bit of getting used to, especially after you’ve seen high-definition broadcasts.

PROS Superb quality for price

CONS Noisy; set-up is tricky

Optoma Pico pk101

£229

optoma.co.uk

The Optoma Pico is, as the name suggests, tiny. Measuring 100 x 50 x 15mm and weighing 115g, this is a projector you could carry in your pocket rather than your briefcase.

Instead of a traditional light bulb, the Pico uses a mini LED lamp, and this allows it to be far smaller. In fact, Optoma says the perfect accompaniment for it isn’t a computer at all, but a mobile phone. While it comes with a universal connection cable, there is also a selection of leads available to buy for linking it to computers and iPods.

The battery-powered device certainly has the wow factor – take it out in a meeting and it’s a huge talking point. The image it projects can be blown up to 60 inches wide, although at this size you need a dark room to see it properly.

The picture quality is decent enough, considering the Pico’s size – it is the worst here, but that’s to be expected given how unique the product is. However, if you move it closer to the screen or wall so the picture is about

30 inches wide, it’s perfectly okay, and certainly good enough for showing off your holiday snaps, videos or Powerpoint presentations.

It’s not going to replace your living room TV any time soon, and overall it’s a bit of a gimmick, but it is a fascinating glimpse into how small projectors can get.

PROS Small size

CONS Poor picture quality

Sony VPL-HW10

£2,000

sonystyle.co.uk

This isn’t a petite projector, at 10kg, but in typical Sony fashion, it’s stylish enough not to look out of place on a coffee table. And, crucially, it’s also virtually silent.

The HW10 uses the same high-end Sony projector chips found in its professional models, and it shows. Set-up is relatively easy, and a 1.6x zoom allows you to find the right image size, with horizontal and vertical lens shift to ensure it’s the correct shape on your screen.

Zoom and focus are manual as opposed to motorised but, overall, this is a simple projector to operate. The on-screen display is well thought-out, and the backlit remote is easy to use, if a little on the large side.

Still, it’s the picture quality that really matters, and the HW10 is, for the price, breathtakingly good. Blacks are clean, and colours are sharp and vivid – skin tones in particular look good. The lamp that projects the picture is adequate for most spaces, although not quite as bright as some of the others here.

The unit doesn’t quite have the performance of its high-end cousins, but for the money this is a great projector worthy of any serious home cinema.

PROS Great performance and looks

CONS Weighty and not very bright

LG HS102

£550

uk.lge.com

One of the latest small projectors and measuring only 154 x 117 x 50mm, the HS102 will fit in most bags along with your laptop, and it only weighs 780g.

Despite its tiny size, the projector will throw out a 60-inch display at a native resolution of 800 x 600 pixels. It’s not high definition, but for business presentations it’s fine. There’s also a handy USB port that can be used for storing pictures or videos, and a touch-sensitive panel on top of the projector that controls all of the functions.

Picture quality is perfectly good for presentations and short video clips, and colours are decent. But for home cinema, the HS102 isn’t going to replace your TV – it’s simply not bright enough, and the picture quality isn’t there.

But for the business traveller it’s another story. The convenience of having a projector you can take to meetings is amazing, and as long as you don’t need a huge screen, the display is more than adequate.

It’s easy to set up and although the price is high for what it is, if you need to do a lot of presenting in different rooms, the HS102 could be the answer to your prayers.

PROS Modest dimensions and light weight

CONS Picture quality not good enough for viewing films

Epson EMP-DM2

£620

epson.co.uk

Epson’s DM2 is a superb product – a small projector that’s simple to transport and includes a DVD player. It’s pretty dinky so you can store it in a cupboard, and a built-in handle means you can carry it easily between meetings.

The DVD player is a standard-resolution version, so no Blu-ray here, although it does play audio CDs as well. It also has a slot for a USB drive, and can play back most file formats you’ll find online. This is a great feature as it means you can download films or TV shows online (legally, of course) and watch them by plugging in a USB thumb drive.

However, these features come at the cost of picture quality. With a widescreen resolution of only 854 x 480 pixels, the DM2 is nowhere near a high-definition projector. That’s not to say the quality is awful – feed it normal images and it’s fine. Just don’t expect the jaw-dropping clarity of its HD rivals.

As a home projector that’s occasionally used for films or games, the DM2 is ideal. For business, it’s also pretty decent – all you’ll need is a VGA cable and a power point, and you’ll be able to present almost anywhere.

What’s more, it’s relatively cheap and simple, so if you’re not after the latest in high-definition technology, it might be the perfect budget option. It’s also worth shopping around, as the DM2 can be purchased online at varying rates.

PROS Easy to use, built-in DVD

CONS Performance not great

Home cinema audio systems

If you’ve invested in a projector, it’s also worth upgrading your hi-fi to give you surround sound. Here are some of the best options


ONKYO TX-SR706

£600

eu.onkyo.com

A powerhouse of a home cinema amplifier, the Onkyo TX-SR706 will handle almost any surround-sound format out there (and there are a lot). It will even support THX, the cinema format George Lucas invented for Star Wars.

This means seven speakers and a subwoofer can be driven, giving you a spectacular set-up. It’ll even calibrate itself using the supplied microphone, so you always get decent surround-sound effects.

Music and movies both sound great, and the remote is easy to use, although it might have a few too many buttons for the technophobe. Crucially, the Onkyo also handles high definition brilliantly, and is the perfect complement to an HD projector. Feed it normal TV or a DVD, and it will even “upscale” it to high definition – aligning the picture quality to near HD levels.

There’s also a neat trick that allows the receiver to play music stored on your PC via a network connection. Unfortunately, the on-screen interface is awful, so for the moment you’re best off plugging in an iPod. But for serious home cinema fans on a bit of a budget, this is a great choice.


BOWERS AND WILKINS MT30

£1,540

bowers-wilkins.co.uk

Another option is to go for the latest mini speakers. The Bowers and Wilkins Mini Theatre 30 speakers are the best of the bunch, sounding amazing while being unobtrusive – apart from the large silver subwoofer, but that looks so incredibly

slick it can be forgiven.

The MT30 package has five speakers, including a tiny one in the centre and the subwoofer, and they all sound superb. Surround-sound effects are great, while, as you’d expect from B&W, music sounds clear and bright. For a mini speaker system this is a revelation, and will give all but the most expensive standard speakers a run for their money in terms of sound quality.


YAMAHA YSP-40D

£700

yamaha-uk.com

If having speakers dotted around your living room with wires trailing behind isn’t for you, then the Yamaha YSP-40D sound bar might be the answer. It appears to be a single speaker, but instead crams in 40 small speakers and two subwoofers. By controlling these using some clever software, the unit can process surround sound to give you the impression it is coming from all directions.

In practice, it works extremely well. Sound genuinely appears to come from behind and all around you. It’s not quite as good as a dedicated surround-sound system, but impressive nonetheless. It’s also a worthy replacement for the living room hi-fi, as you can simply plug in an iPod, and it even has a built-in digital radio.

For minimalists, it’s ideal, and for anyone trying to find an easy way to produce decent sound in a meeting room, it’s also well worth a look. Note that as with all electronics, it is advisable to shop around, as many retailers are discounting the YSP-40D.

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