When it comes to picking a projector system for any church, there are a lot of variables to consider. When that church is small and portable this list doesn’t get any shorter. Some of the factors you must consider include ambient light, projection surface, and brightness of the projector. And this doesn’t even take into account contrast ratio, lenses, inputs, lamp replacement and maintenance costs. Add to this the ever-changing innovations in the market, like the introduction of laser-illuminated projectors, and you now have a list of potential projector systems that is very long. How does one go about shortening the list? The first thing you need to do is define the important, need-to-have options.
Ambient light is one of the largest factors to take into consideration when determining the brightness of the projector you need.
Typically, these are easily defined; things like input type are important, and the choices are limited. Next, the thing you need to know is image projection size, because this will determine lensing for your projector. Many projector manufacturers have calculators on their websites to help determine and compare lenses. One of the important factors in most of these calculations will also be distance to projection surface. When it comes to small and portable setups, one of the often overlooked but very important features is ease of image manipulation. How difficult is it to zoom, focus, and keystone the image? In a portable scenario, having a zoom lens is a must. If you are hanging projection surfaces that are subject to being in slightly different positions from week to week, the ability to quickly shape your image to compensate for changes in position is huge. This will save you many early-Sunday-morning headaches if you have a projector that can quickly be focused and keystoned by a volunteer.Another important feature to consider for a projector in a portable scenario is corner pinning. This allows you to tell the projector where the corners of your screen are. The projector will then compensate for the screen size as shape with image manipulation. Good corner pinning will allow you to quickly fix irregularities with your projection image that would be difficult if not impossible with simple keystone and lens shift. For example, if your projector has a slight Dutch angle to it, no amount of keystoning will fit the image to the screen. If you can corner pin the image to the screen, it could compensate for the angle and make the image fit perfectly.
Projection Surfaces
It’s not uncommon for churches, especially portable ones, to simply throw a projector up on a wall. While this is certainly cheap and fast, typically it’s not good. Part of the reason for that is a good projection screen will help the overall brightness of your image when compared to projecting on a standard painted surface. Typically, there is an inverse correlation between the portability of a projector and its brightness. Surfaces like acrylic have the highest gain but are rigid and inflexible, making them a poor choice for portable set ups. They can also be cost prohibitive. Many screen manufacturers offer the same screen with multiple brightness options, so it might be cost effective to invest a high gain screen vs. a matte screen to get a brighter overall image. Ambient lightAmbient light is one of the largest factors to take into consideration when determining the brightness of the projector you need. Basically, in a pitch-black room most projectors will look good.
However, rarely do churches operate in a pitch-black room like a home theater. Even if you don’t have windows in your auditorium, chances are you have some lighting on your pastor and, more than likely, some lighting in the house as well. All of this contributes to the ambient light your projector needs to overcome to be seen. I won’t bore you with the details except to say this, it is important that you know the math and go through it when determining what kind of projector you need. In his cheat sheet, Coppedge notes that 30 foot candles of ambient light change the projector lumens needed by a factor of about 10. This likely moves your projector choice away from something off the shelf at the local office supply store. Those are the types of details you can’t take for granted. Also, having good hard facts often makes the budgeting process easier because you can point to the facts and say “this is what is required.”
Laser Projection
Laser projection is the latest and greatest innovation in the projection market. Most manufactures are offering laser projection as an option in some of their higher end models. The main benefit of laser-phosphor projector systems is that they are closer to maintenance-free and do not have the expensive lamp replacement costs that occur with annoying regularity in traditional projectors. Typically, standard lamp life is measured in hundreds and sometimes thousands of hours, depending on make and model. Many laser projectors advertise they are maintenance-free for tens of thousands of hours. In real terms this means, depending on use, possibly years of maintenance-free projection.
Another important feature to consider for a projector in a portable scenario is corner pinning. This allows you to tell the projector where the corners of your screen are.
Laser projectors also typically have a much higher entry price, so be sure you are comparing cost of ownership over the life of the system when trying to find the right projector. Laser projectors tend to really shine in fixed installations where the projector is in a hard-to-reach area. At our church, we take into consideration that we must rent a lift each time we change a lamp in our projector, the cost over life of the projector is substantial.
Being able to off-set any of the care and feeding costs provides opportunity to spend more money directly on the projector itself. It’s easy to make the case that we can continue to give money to the local lift rental place or we can invest in a better projector. This brings me to my last point: total cost of ownership. When you are trying to figure out a budget number for your projection system, compare how much the system will cost to own over the life of the product. In fact, depending on the size of your projection needs, it might be worth considering LED panels. While they are more expensive, they have a comparatively low maintenance cost. As a result, you are only amortizing the cost of the LED panel and not much additional cost over a pretty long life.
Compared to a projector that requires lamps and filters, annual maintenance costs that amount to 1/5 or 20% of the cost of the projector will double the projector’s total cost of ownership over five years. When you go to your budget meetings, be sure you are considering total cost of ownership when comparing projector solutions. If nothing else, having all the available information could demonstrate how reasonable your preferred solution is.
