Projectors
So my mother managed to land a pretty sweet deal on a slightly used InFocus LP335 digital projector recently, thanks to eBay. She's ostensibly going to use it professionally, though she dropped it off at my house last night so I can screw around with it. It's got computer, s-video and composite video interfaces, and while it's not quite as well equipped as newer models, it projects quite a nice image. It's got less than 40 hours on the lamp, too.
I had it hooked up to the PowerBook in about five minutes yesterday afternoon and was blasting a big picture on the wall. Last night I decided to hook it up to the home entertainment center, and, woof.
As it turns out, the outside wall of my living room is just about the perfect size to project an image on. I have a love seat framed on either side by a 550 CD rack and a large video tape rack. The space in between is, with only about two inches to spare on either side, is completely filled with the image from the projector. I've got it perched on top of the stereo cabinet -- if this was a permanent installation, I'd get a ceiling mount, for sure.
The color is a bit washed out -- tinged a little more blue than I'd like. And the projector's fan is loud, even in standby mode when the lamp is off. But given that I'm just borrowing it temporarily I don't really care that much. There's still this huge novelty in looking at these giant images in the living room. Can't wait to try it out with the GameCube and PlayStation 2!
When you consider the extraordinary cost of a wall-mounted wide-screen plasma TV or even of a decent projection TV, compared to the size, dimensions (it's about the size of a Yellow Pages phone book) and price (used on eBay, $500 and change), I think the cost/benefit ratio of a projector is pretty extraordinary. The downsides are that the lamp burns out every 2000 hours or so and costs a fair amount to replace, the fan's kind of loud and you need a dark room to display the image properly. But if you can live with the drawbacks, wow -- it's pretty damn cool.
Comments
I've had a projector for a year and a half and couldn't be happier with it. The big picture, (bigger than any tube or plasma tv), is great but for me the killer feature is that when its off, its gone. It doesn't dominate my living room the way a regular tv would.
Because my apartment is basically one giant room, I try to keep the clutter to a minimum and the ugly gear out of sight. You never know when those Queer Eye guys could be dropping by for tea.
Posted by: Colin | October 11, 2003 09:42 AM
Which model did you buy, Colin? This brief experience with this olde InFocus leads me to believe that this should be our next major home improvement purchase.
Posted by: flargh | October 11, 2003 12:37 PM
Plus if you ever get pissed at someone can you pull a problem child and video tape them having sex and project it on the outside of their house!!!
Posted by: James | October 12, 2003 09:45 AM
I got a Sim2 projector for a couple of reasons... it was the only one with a long enough throw to go from the top of my fridge, 25 feet to the wall above the fireplace. Most projectors are designed to throw big from a short distance, i.e. the end of a conference table to a screen a few feet away...
The other reason is that I'm a sucker. I was lurking around the projector forums for months at AV Science... http://www.avsforum.com/ - All those projector nerds had me convinced I needed a certain relolution, an 8-time color wheel, and other nonsense like that, so I spent waaay more than I should have. I don't regret it for an instant though.
Plus, I'm 200 hours past the stated life of my bulb and yet it still burns bright. It's like a minor jewish miracle. :)
Posted by: Colin | October 13, 2003 12:23 PM