DLP vs LCD projectors for powerpoint

S

Steve

Three years ago I had to choose a small video projector to use with
powerpoint in speaker ready rooms. Prior to that I had seen that LCD didn't
do such a great job rendering certain colors, and was told that DLP machines
did a better job, so sight unseen I bought a BenQ DLP projector. It is 2200
lumens - plenty bright for smaller screens. HOWEVER, I have found that when
using powerpoint, yellows look green, blues are turned grey, and light
pastel colors hardly appear at all. Dreadful! Having said that, video
sources looks terrific though this projector. But that's not why I bought
it.

SO, I am faced again with the decision of what to get. Can anyone recommend
a 2000+ lumen, XGA, portable video projector, that renders all colors
reasonably accurately with powerpoint? My clients work hard to pick colors
for their charts, etc, and expect to see them displayed accurately on the
screen.

My BenQ will live out it's remaining days on the ceiling of my family room.
I cannot take making excuses for it's poor color any more.

Thanks much,
Steve
 
A

Austin Myers

Steve,

Almost all projectors come with some sort of color management software.
Further, almost all video cards allow you to adjust color to the individual
monitor (or in your case projector). Have you played with those
adjustments? As an example my ATI video card has extensive color management
settings for each attached monitor.

With all that said, DLP projectors are really designed for displaying
movies, (DVD, video clips, etc.) and its strength is that it can change
pixels very quickly and provide a high contrast ratio between black and
white. LCD projectors tend to do best with where high contrast and fast
pixel changes aren't critically important. PowerPoint presentations tend to
fall into the later category because colors are heavily saturated, and
objects tend to have very clearly defined edges and its very rare to require
the extremely high contrast needed for movies.

Honestly, the best suggestion I can give is that you build a test
presentation with the color scheme your client wants to use and visit a
retailer willing to hook up various projectors so you can see what you are
getting before buying one. In the end, all the specs in the world mean
little compared to what you actually see.


Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Provider of PFCPro, PFCMedia and PFCExpress
www.playsforcertain.com
 
B

Brian Lynn

Your DLP should not have blue as grey... And yellow as green, it sounds to me
like the color settings in the projector are off. It is possible to "tweak"
the colors internally on most projectors. This would include setting your
black and white levels via contrast and brightness, and then check your color
bars for accuracy.

Also in question is your source. Many laptop graphics cards can tweak their
own color output. Confirm your colors on a calibrated monitor before hooking
up to the projector.

Most small boardroom projectors like the kind you mention have issues with
accurate color reproduction. And many do not have the contrast ratios needed
to do light pastels and fine color gradients.

For the most accurate color reproduction you will need something like a
Christie Digital HD18K... its a 3 chip DLP projector with a DVI input. Even
these projectors can shift color however which is why I prefer the Christie
to the Barco. Christie lets you tweak colors per channel even on DVI inputs,
where as the Barco assumes the DVI is perfect and allows you very little
control at all.

Anything you can get under $10,000 for a projector will have color issues,
brightness issues, contrast issues, or sync issues, or any number of other
problems that is inherant in the form factor. The little guys do a great job,
for what they are... but you have to remember that they are what they are...
small, very compact, and something has to give!

All that being said, both LCD and DLP have improved. It used to be one for
graphics, one for video, but both do a pretty good job of either these days.
If you can afford it, there is another system from JBC called DILA. Its very
accurate, but less bright, and very expensive. For my money, for any
projector I would buy, for any small application, would be DLP. There are
other problems with LCD such as color shift over time. I have seen some very
expensive NEC LCD projectors completely fry their blue panel making them
useless (NEC replaced them all, once... after that no more).

Best thing you can do is to test drive a projector before you buy. If you
are buying in a store, then take your laptop in and request to demo the
projector. If you are buying online or through a dealer then you should be
able to request a demo unit that you can test drive before you make a
purchase decision.

Hope this helps!
 
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