outdoor daylight screen and projector

[Linbluebell]

I work for a charity doing outdoor presentations at County Fairs and shopping centres etc. Up till now I have used a plasma screen but find it too heavy and cumbersome to move around. Is there a cost effective solution using a screen and projector? Hope someone can help.

 

[Jammyb]

Since no one more knowledgable has replied.

What you want to do isn't possible, projectors need darkness, a really poweful projector can work with ambient light in the room, but strong daylight is never going to work. Even with a rear projection setup you're going to struggle and it would be less portable as well.

Large LCD's weigh less than the same sized plasma, there are also new technologies on the way that promise even less weight and depth, so there may be better solutions in the future.

 

[AV Nik]

Hi,
Actually, there are many Outdoor projectors.
In all honesty though, your never going to reproduce the same clear bright image on an outdoor projection for less than £25,000 or more.

I've been an AV engineer for many years and we have tried many times to combat this problem within an acceptable budget to no avail.
The only way you can use projection outdoors in daylight is to create a back projection system with covers to blackout the light both between the screen and projector plus create a shadow on the front of the screen. This would probably take up as much space and weight as any Plasma or LCD.
The benefits to this are the size of the screen is at least doubled.
Using blackout materials, you can get away with using low powered projectors from 2500 ansi lumens upwards but, on the sunniest days, if your screen is static, as the sun moves, so does the shadow. This will then affect your screen. (eg: at 12 mid day, your image is good, at 4pm, your image is faded. Move the screen or create a larger front hood to overcome).

However, you can have plasma/LCD screens on wheeled systems which envelope into flight cases for Transit. The average size of the case for a 42" Plasma is around 6ft wide, 4ft deep and 5-7ft high (depending on lift system).
These are specially made to order.

Hope this helps?
Kind Regards
Nik

 

[cyberheater]

It might be possible to contruct relatively cheaply a back projection video wall made up of 4 projectors in a 2 x 2 configuration which means you'll have 4 times the brightness and a much shorter throw for the same image size.

You can pick up a 800 x 600 DLP projector for around 500 quid these days so it would cost you 2k just for the PJ's plus the build of the wall, maybe another 800 quid and of course you'll need to get a videowall controller but it is doable.

 

[Linbluebell]

Just to clarify - the presentations are done in a tented environment open at one end, where people sit on chairs, so not bright sunshine.
For the 4 projector suggestion: I have 2 older projectors both Sharp XBC1E and and we are planning to buy a better quality 3rd. Would this work for the back projection wall or do I have to have 4, also would it work with 2? Is it OK if the projectors are different lumins, models?

Finally I reveal my ignorance - what is a videowall controller and are they expensive easily obtainable?

Very grateful to everyone who has replied so far - much appreciated

LInblubell

 

[AV Nik]

I cannot see the point of buying 4 new projectors to produce 1 image. Yes this is possible but it's not easy.
You cannot use 4 different projectors as you will end up with 4 different quarters to the whole image.
I have used 4x Canon LV7555 projectors to do a similar job. Worked well but, the environment was dark and the image we created was 26ft wide by 21ft high. What we actually did was doubled 2 projectors in one cage, yes a cage. No matter how you intend to do this, each projector will have to be either bolted to another or both (2 left, 2 right) onto a platform. The reason for this is that each projector will have a bright spot. To eleviate the possibility of 4 bright spots, you put 2 projectors on top of each other. One upright, one upside down. You can then use the same baseline and flip one image to be the same way up as the other. When we used them Side by side, the bright spots were obvious. When using them ontop of each other, the bright spot became 1 (out of 2).

The cost of 4 projectors is probably more than buying 1 larger projector to do the same job without the hastle of building cages and dual level platforms.

One way we combat brightness issues is to double our projectors up in a cage as two projectors (identical) focused on the same surface adds aprox' a third more brightness which is quite conciderable when you see it.

One suggestion would be to look into Glim screen surfaces (the thinnest Rear Projection Surface available today (also used to view both sides of the screen at once) and One projector. Not cheap but more effective.
I'm willing to talk through this as I have installed a few to date.

Hope this helps?
AV Nik
www.cvsmedia.co.uk