quick off topic question..i'm interested in a mini projector..anyone have one or a recommendation? i was looking at PIQO
Set Up a Cinematic Experience Anywhere with This Mini Projector's 240" Image, 200 Lumens Brightness & Built-In Hi-Fi Speakers
shop.popsci.com
I have no recommendations about that brand but some general observations and suggestions.
The light has to do extra duty. Most screens project light directly at you -- as happens with an led TV or led lighting. The digital projector throws light onto a surface and it then reflects back to you. It's a longer travel distance for the light and there is a reflecting "screen" in the middle of that distance. This means:
Colors tend to get washed out from ambient room lighting. so, for movies or other entertainment where you want vivid colors, you'll want to darken the room, especially if watching during the day.
The reflecting surface makes a difference. You can project onto a wall, white, preferably but the paint will only reflect a portion of the light back to you. Projecting onto a projection screen will make a large difference. Much brighter and less color loss, especially in red spectrum. I've taped a white sheet of paper onto a wall and had good results.
The Lamp and projection system:
LEDs will be bright at first, decline rapidly and level off. There is a lifetime rating for brightness, they give it in terms of hours to 50% loss in brightness. In the specs for your system, they just say "long life" without saying what that means. LEDs have a long rating -- 20,000 hours or more. But the drop off can be significant at the beginning. How you use the projector will determine how long you will be satisfied with the brightness and color quality. If it's going to be used every day, and a lot during the day, you might not be satisfied with its performance. Especially when the lamp starts to lose brightness. An LED screen might be better if it will be used every day/any time of day. As an entertainment system, where you use it as a mini-home theater, it might last a long time and give best satisfaction. Color brightness and color fidelity will not be as good as a full sized led display. OTOH, there isn't that huge LED screen lurking about all the time, so, it's up to the user to decide.
The projector uses a white light LED lamp, the colors are filtered through a motor-driven spinning color wheel. ("filter" light = loss in color brightness). The DMD is an array of mirrors that switch on or off. In this case, in a 1080 array, that is 1,080 little mirrors/pixels that switch on or off when the appropriate color filter is illuminated depending on the picture in the display. The pixelized light is then projected through a lens onto the screen. Over time, those little mirrors can stick in the on or off position, leaving your screen with a pixel that is either bright all the time or dark. I've seen it before. Usually not a big deal unless there are more than one or two. Also, the bearings to the color wheel can start to make noise as it ages too.
About LED lamps:
M. David Stone takes a look at the different types of projector light source technologies and breaks them down to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each.
www.projectorcentral.com
www.npr.org
