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[Andrea Litti]

Hi, I currently own a Acer H6517ST short throw projector that I use for corporate events, mostly with a 4x3 meters frame mounted screen (with both front and rear projection options available) that I rent from a friend when needed.
Since I'm getting more requests for this type of jobs lately, I'd like to upgrade to a new short throw projector with higher luminosity (4000 ansi lumens or higher? I want the projected material to be visible a couple of hours before complete sunset) and trapezoid correction on horizontal and vertical axis.
I'm not deeply acknowledged on the subject, so any technical advice/practical tip is more than welcome on which parameters I should take into account besides resolution and luminosity.

Thanks!

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

Hi, I currently own a Acer H6517ST short throw projector that I use for corporate events, mostly with a 4x3 meters frame mounted screen (with both front and rear projection options available) that I rent from a friend when needed.
Since I'm getting more requests for this type of jobs lately, I'd like to upgrade to a new short throw projector with higher luminosity (4000 ansi lumens or higher? I want the projected material to be visible a couple of hours before complete sunset) and trapezoid correction on horizontal and vertical axis.
I'm not deeply acknowledged on the subject, so any technical advice/practical tip is more than welcome on which parameters I should take into account besides resolution and luminosity.

Thanks!

I routinely use 4500 lumen projectors with 4m x 2.5m rear projection screens indoors in moderate light and they are OK. If you’re trying to use these outdoors even with the sun low in the sky you’re going to need A LOT more brightness. If you can rear project and box in the rear of the screen so that no sunlight washes the projected side of the screen you might be sort-of OK with 10,000 lumens.  You will find the cost of 10,000 lumen projectors to be significantly more than the cost of projectors in the 4000-5000 lumen range.

Laser light sources are preferable to discharge lamps. Even cheap projectors have 2 dimensional keystone adjustment in the digital domain. Larger/more expensive projectors do some or all of this in the optical domain, but again that adds significantly to the cost.

If you can give us a range you’d be willing to spend on this, that would help foster a realistic discussion.

[Andrea Litti]

I routinely use 4500 lumen projectors with 4m x 2.5m rear projection screens indoors in moderate light and they are OK. If you’re trying to use these outdoors even with the sun low in the sky you’re going to need A LOT more brightness. If you can rear project and box in the rear of the screen so that no sunlight washes the projected side of the screen you might be sort-of OK with 10,000 lumens.  You will find the cost of 10,000 lumen projectors to be significantly more than the cost of projectors in the 4000-5000 lumen range.

Laser light sources are preferable to discharge lamps. Even cheap projectors have 2 dimensional keystone adjustment in the digital domain. Larger/more expensive projectors do some or all of this in the optical domain, but again that adds significantly to the cost.

If you can give us a range you’d be willing to spend on this, that would help foster a realistic discussion.

Thanks for the reply. After some search, I see that 800 euros is the starting price for >4500 lumens short throw projectors, so I thought 1000 euros would be ok. After reading your reply I guess I'm far from any considerable upgrade, at least for outdoor gigs (for which rental becomes the no.1 option)
As for indoor events, do you think that upgrading from my current 3000 lumens projector to a 5000 unit would be a substantial improvement?

[John L Nobile]

I'm saving up for this one

https://www.necdisplay.com/p/NP-PH3501QL

[Andrea Litti]

I'm saving up for this one

https://www.necdisplay.com/p/NP-PH3501QL

Interesting but I still need my kidney and lungs, so I think I'll pass.

[John L Nobile]

Interesting but I still need my kidney and lungs, so I think I'll pass.

Expensive, yes. But 40,000 Lumens? I'd love to see that!

[Taylor Hall]

Expensive, yes. But 40,000 Lumens? I'd love to see that!

You wouldn't see it for very long, and it'd be the last thing you ever see!

[Mac Kerr]

Expensive, yes. But 40,000 Lumens? I'd love to see that!

Expensive yes, but not super expensive. $140k and up is what big bright projectors cost. Many of the events I have worked on have multiple stacks of stacked 40k projectors double or even triple stacked for increased brightness and image safety.

HERE'S ONE that's popular with the event production crown.

Mac

[John L Nobile]

Bulb life is 400 hours with a 7 kW "bulb". Wonder what the bulb is worth?

I've been happy with the 6,000 Lumen projector I bought for the resort. Until now.

[Mac Kerr]

Bulb life is 400 hours with a 7 kW "bulb". Wonder what the bulb is worth?

IIRC the lamps for the Sony Digital Cinema projectors my daughter used to deal with were around a grand each. Those were for 250 seat theaters.

Mac

[Erik Jerde]

Expensive, yes. But 40,000 Lumens? I'd love to see that!

Some of those really high lumen units you have to lamp on site too.  Can’t ship the PJ with the lamp installed.

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

Thanks for the reply. After some search, I see that 800 euros is the starting price for >4500 lumens short throw projectors, so I thought 1000 euros would be ok. After reading your reply I guess I'm far from any considerable upgrade, at least for outdoor gigs (for which rental becomes the no.1 option)
As for indoor events, do you think that upgrading from my current 3000 lumens projector to a 5000 unit would be a substantial improvement?

Getting back to reality here, if you're currently using a 4:3 format projector cropped for modern 16:9 content, you're getting less than 3000 lumens of usable output. Migrating to a 5000 lumen 16:9 projector would likely double your apparent brightness, not to mention the lamp in your existing projector is probably not as bright as it was when it was new. That very well could be worth the upgrade.

1000 euros might get you a Panasonic PT-VZ580U which is 5000 lumens and 1920x1200 resolution with a throw range of 1.06:1. This is still a conventional lamp projector, but for occasional use, that might be fine. Laser light sources are better, but the cost goes up.

[Jordan Wolf]

Take a look at the Sony VLP-PHZ10 and the Sony VPL FHZ66. The PHZ10 gets a lot of great reviews from Houses of Worship, but it is a fixed lens system (~1.1-1.6:1, I think) that may not be short-throw ENOUGH for rear projection.

The FHZ66 also gets a lot of love from the HoW & install industry, and it has interchangeable lenses for flexibility.

Do realize that short-throw rear projection also typically requires that you center the projected image on the display area to (1) minimize hotspotting as viewed from the audience perspective, and (2) maintain image crispness throughout the field of the image. Short-throw lenses tend to fisheye the image and the edges can quickly become out-of-focus when small adjustments are made to overall zoom & focus settings.

[Andrea Litti]

Thanks for all the replies so far, they were all useful in some way, I'll keep educating myself on the subject before I make a choice.

[Taylor Hall]

Thanks for all the replies so far, they were all useful in some way, I'll keep educating myself on the subject before I make a choice.

Projector Central is also a great resource. They have a very robust database of technical specs and a handy throw distance calculator which should help with your short throw requirements.

[Scott Holtzman]

Projector Central is also a great resource. They have a very robust database of technical specs and a handy throw distance calculator which should help with your short throw requirements.

Short throw lenses are a pain in the ass.   We have 7000 lumen sxga Christie's that when we rear project have to build boxes out of pipe and drape to contain light leakage.  It is brutal.

For front projection the old Christie's have done well for us. A surprising amount of people are willing to compromise on 4:3 system when they see the cost difference.

We got a screaming deal on the projectors with flyware, 3 sets of glass (long throw, standard and short) cases, tons of SDI BNC cables, spare lamps and such.   The big boys are getting rid of this gear, you should be able to find a similar deal.

When we buy it will be Panasonic 10k lasers.  They are universally accepted it and we can cross rent all we need.

More important than renting the gear on any job with video is we get an experienced operator.   It's a whole different skill set.  I tried to be the video tech at one small corporate event, I got through it but never again.

Hope you come up with a workable and profitable solution.

[Taylor Hall]

When we buy it will be Panasonic 10k lasers.  They are universally accepted it and we can cross rent all we need.

Looks like we're on roughly the same path. We have a small fleet of 6k panasonics that work great for us in most cases, but with more rentals requesting larger screens now (15-20') we end up renting a 10k for those screens and have gotten those laser units a few times now. Wonderful output, robust inputs, and lamp life an order of magnitude longer than standard halides? Sign me up.

[ProSoundWeb Community]