What Projector for a 12 ft Inflatable Screen ??

[Superfun]

Hi - I'm new to the forum. I have owned an inflatable rental company for the past 10 years (moonwalks/bouncy castles/slides etc) and just recently purchased my first inflatable movie screen. It's a Sima 144" 16:9 widescreen and it came with two 80 watt powered speakers but I need to purchase a projector. My plan is to rent this out as a complete backyard movie night package as this seems to be a growing market in my area. I've been reasearching projectors and was hoping that someone may have some good advise to offer me regarding making a wise business decision. The projector will most likely be showing DVD movies, games or perhaps an occasional sporting event. I was thinking that I would go with a good WXGA 1280 x 720 resoultion projector so the picture quality would be very good. Problem is some people are telling me that I will need at least 4000 lumens. The 1280 x 720 DLP or LCD projectors seem to max out at about 1500-2000 lumes. Will this be too dim or dark on this 12 foot screen? If I go with a high lumen XGA projector will I suffer in picture quality and woun't the image be scaled and not fill up my entire screen (since it's 4:3 ratio)? Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't a a native WXGA 1280 x 720 projector going to give me a better image that an XGA 1024 x 768. I'd like it to fill the widescreen and rather not have to deal with any bars on the top or sides of the sceeen. This all seems very confusing and I'm not sure what I should be focusing on, lumens, contrast, resolution .... ??? It's backyard theater but I would like to still be able to offer a high quality picture to my customers. Anyone have any thoughts, experience or words of wisdom here ???

 

[SHARYNF]

If you want to project in widescreen as most dvd's are these days, then you probably will need a widescreen projector. Twelve feet is pretty large and the quality of the rear projection material will also factor in.

Here is a link the the Panasonic range the 5100 and 5700 do a good job.
You are probably looking at well over 5 grand. You will need to decide just how expensive a projector you are willing to send out

older 5600's show up for about 4-5 grand these days

http://cgi.ebay.com/Panasonic-PTD56...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5ad05fc691
It is possible to go down to a 3000 lumen projector or so, and go with 1024/768 resolution and live with the re scaling and drop your cost down to about 1000 dollars, not ideal but maybe more practical

Sharyn

 

[BillESC]

A happy pick in the middle would be BenQ's MP771. This ultra wide throw DLP projector offers 3000 lm, 2000:1 contrast ratio and XGA (1024 x 768) resolution. The MP771 will only need about 7' of projection distance to fill a 144" diagonal screen.

BenQ Global - Consumer Electronics

 

[museav]

One of the factors maybe the environment. What you can get away with out in a field in the middle of nowhere late on an overcast night may be quite different than what is viable in a parking lot with lights or in someone's back yard with some lights on or at dusk. And if the thought is to use it during the day well that's an entirely different matter.

A 144" diagonal, 16:9 screen has an image area about 125.5" wide by 70.6" high or about 61.5 square feet. For night use a 2,000 to 3,000 lumen projector may be just fine at 32.5 to 48.7 ftL (assuming a screen gain of 1) but if you are thinking daytime use or under brighter lighting conditions then you could end up needing much more.

If you go with a 4:3 format projector such as the one Bill noted, then because you have a 16:9 format screen you will actually have to create a larger image than the screen. For example, to fill your 125.5" wide by 70.6" high screen, a 4:3 projector would actually have to create a 125.5" wide by 94.125" high letterboxed image. Think about watching a letterboxed show on TV, part of the image above and below is black. In you situation it would be similar with the black areas being above and below your screen. And because only part of the overall projected image is used for the actual viewed image, and part for the black areas above and below the screen, the effective brightness of the projector is reduced compared to the published information.

On the business side, the Sima screen referenced is shown as a home theater screen, which may mean that all warranties, etc. would be void with rental use. I also don't know if your plan is to simply rent the equipment or to provide a service, but you might want to check with an attorney into your liability for any copyright related issues. If you get into situations such as renting it to groups for events or fundraisers there may be more liability on your side. So check with an attorney and ascertain the risks, it may be as simple as some language in your agreement to the effect that he party renting it assumes all liability for obtaining any necessary rights and absolves you of any such responsibility.

 

[Superfun]

Thanks Brad,

Daytime use in NOT something I'm tring to accomplish. Dusk into darkness is when I would tell people that this set up must be used for optimal viewing. I'm torn on just renting this out or sending it with a staff. I guess I could offer both options at differnt pricing, but I'm leaning towards sending a staff member since the screen has to be inflated, staked and the projector needs to wired up, place appropraitely etc... I imagine my phone would be ringing constantly with questions from customers on how to do this and how to do that if I just sent it out with some printed instructions. I have read some posts in differnt forums on licensing concerns and will address that as well. Thanks for the heads up. I am seriously considering the 3 LCD Panasonic PT-AX200U (WXGA-H (1280 x 720) which has 2000 lumens, 6000:1 contrast ratio, and with the zoom can throw a 144" diagonal image from 20.1 inches. I am also thinking of doing rear projection since it will create way less cords and chances of equipment damage, especially if kids are using this to play Wi or Rock Band, etc.... Does rear projection reqire even more lumens ??? I'm tring to stay with a reasonable budget (1k-2k) but I really don't want a dark crappy image either, so it's a fine wire I'm tring to cross here. Plus I think a native 16:9 projector is the way to go. 720p will be fine as well, I don't feel like I need 1080. It seems that the high lumens projectors are all XGA format - why is that? I thought those were primarily business projectors that can show movies but not as nicely as the 1280x720 projectors. And scaling also seems like a negative to me. Am I misssing something here. You seem like you have a good understanding of this subject. If you have any more advise for me please pass it on along with your thoughts on those things I'm mentioned here already. -- Thanks

 

[museav]

There's a number of people here who can potentially help you and provide good insights and some of them probably have more experience in this particular type of application.

Rear projection has both advantages and disadvantages. It is less susceptible to ambient light provided the projection path is enclosed, but just sitting out in the open it has basically the same issues as front projection and perhaps even worse as you could have light hitting both from the rear and from the front. You would also probably want to trim or dress around the screen and would probably be looking at a stretch screen rather than an inflatable screen. You would also need to have sufficient room behind the screen, something that may be fine in some applications and a problem in others. A projector with the option for either type of screen might be more flexible, something you could do with a 'snap on' stretch fabric screen and multiple screen surfaces.

For 'movie night' type applications 720p is probably technically fine, however some people may specifically be looking for 1080p to go with Blu-Ray sources or because that is what there flat screen is or simply because they believe they need/want it. That's also where specifics such as the projector having an HDMI input or the right adapters could factor in. There is no real right answer, it is more knowing what your market wants.

 

[BlazingStarCinema]

You will not need 4000 lumens, though it would be nice. For your 12' screen a 2500 lumen projector will be enough for the vast majority of shows your going to do and thats from experience in the business.

You have lots of options in that range and I would utilize ProjectorCentral.com to research those options. For that type of screen and for residential events we use an Optoma HD71. It's a 720 projector, native 16:9 aspect ration, 4000:1 contrast, can be had for under $1000, long bulb life, on and on. But there are other options in the same range depending on what you want and like.

We've been running this projector for sometime now under a bunch of different night time lighting conditions and it has performed exceptionally well. I've not had one person question or complain that it was only 720 and not 1080 not have I had anyone specifically request 1080. I would in fact advise against 1080 because of potential problems with HDMI handshakes. Nothing worse then losing a handshake that shuts your show down for 5 - 10 min or more.

Need more information or have other questions let me know.