Projectors

Hello

I've been burning my pictures to DVD with Proshow Gold and get good slide shows on my 32" LCD TV.

But I want to go bigger and have slide shows like one used to with 35mm slides.

Has anyone had any experience with projectors such as the Canon LV S4? What is the quality like in a large (by UK standards) sitting room using a 5 foot by 5 foot screen?

Any other comments most welcome.

Best Wishes

Geoffrey Pocock

Are you referring to a projector that connects to the video output of a computer and displays images from image files on that computer? If so, it has always been a high price issue for me. I haven't seen any good ones for much less than $2000 US.

Yes, except that I would probably use a dvd player rather than a laptop. They are expensive but no one said photography was cheap. I guess most of us have spent well over £1000.00 on kit.

Photographs are no good unless we look at them and with the resolution and quality one can get from a dslr it is nice to see large pictures - A3 or better if printed.

That's why I would like to project them like 35mm slides but I don't want to pay the money if the technology still has a way to go. I guess, I can try to borrow a projector. But I would still welcome any opinions on quality.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Best Wishes

Geoffrey Pocock

Just don't lose sight of the fact that most prints (and electronic displays) have more resolution than needed based on the criteria of the human eye's resolution power (which is about 1/4th of a milliradian.

Also keep in mind that your resolution will be more limited on a DVD than it will straight from a computer. Typically DVDs are 720x480, unless your player supports one of the HD formats, AND you've burned the images at that resolution. By comparison, most new projectors will display 1600x1200 straight from the computer. Not a huge difference on a small screen, but it may become noticeable (depending on how sharp the projector is) on the scale you're looking at.
Slide film has the advantage of being analog--no jaggies to show up when your resolution drops to a low ppi.
A possible workaround/cheat would be to use something like Microsoft's PhotoStory to transform static images into moving ones (ala Ken Burns)--the motion will help to hide those issues from our eyes.

Very good point about the DVD resolution. I was not aware of that. I was thinking in terms of images stored on DVD's as JPG's, which would not be limited to 720x480.

Just out of curiousity, what format are we talking about on the DVD's - some kind of video slide show where the slides are presented in continuous fashion, or are you really talking about the format as displayed on the TV set or whatever monitor is used with the DVD player?
I'm really not understanding where the 720 x480 limitation comes into it.

Even if the images were saved on a data DVD (ISO or UDF format), and the DVD player is capable of browsing data discs and displaying the images (definitely possible), the DVD player's video output is limited to a particular resolution. The lowest common denominator is 720x480 (or 720 x 576 for PAL).
See http://www.dvddemystif​ied.com/dvdfaq.html#3.​4 for all the mind-numbing details
If the DVD player is capable of progressive scan, it can display a higher resolution.

I'm using the slang version of resolution here, because it's awkward and probably confusing to do otherwise. Obviously resolution is more than just X pixels by Y pixels--there must be a "per unit distance" in there. Otherwise it's just a pixel count. 720x480 on a 60 inch display will have a resolution of 12ppi; on the 35" display you're currently using, it's 20ppi. Typically you need a far lower resolution on displays than in print (where you'd like more than 150ppi).

A lot to think about here.

Thanks for the input

Best wishes

Geoffrey Pocock

Have you considered a High Definition large screen LCD or plasma TV? They do something like 1368 x 768 pixels, you can get quite large ones, and it would have more than one use. You would need something to drive it (HD DVD?) at that resolution.

I've created DVDs using Proshow although I use producer. Quality on DVD is nowhere near that of the exe files it produces for playing on the PC. In the DVD settings on producer you can increase the quality/resolution of the video output. Not sure if this can be done in Gold. Bump this up as much as you can to increase the quality. Make sure it's set to best/highest quality for output and it should be ok.

Cheers
Jim

I keep meaning to stick some 1280 x 1024 maximum quality JPEGs on an SD card, and put it in the card reader of our Dell 4100MP projector - another family member is a freelance consultant and trainer, which is why we own this projector.

I wonder how I'll land up feeling about the results. I have no way of calibrating the projector - an ICC profile would be nice, but I haven't got the right sort of profiling kit for that job. It might be an interesting experiment, if nothing more.

David

Are you suggesting that it won't read and display a JPG of the full virtual image size (5 - 8 MP)?
In other words, why would you have to downsample the images?

From memory, the card reader in the projector will downsample the images, but I may as well create them myself at the target resolution, sharpened as I want them.

In any case, I shoot RAW plus small JPEG, but discard the JPEGs fairly early in my workflow (I only use them for previewing). The projector doesn't understand RAW files.

David

There is also one limiting factor...the projector itself is limited to it's own display resolution. Unless you own a 1080P unit (DLP 1080P is starting from 17k+) there isn't reason to have those files larger in resolution. Most DVD players will downsize them, if your doesn't...well there is a reason why to downsize them before burning.

Hello

this is getting more complcated that I thought - that's life.

But we have lots of theory and no practice. Does anyone regularly burn images to disc and use an lcd or ldp projector for slide shows and think that the pictures they see on screen are good, poor or awful?

I want to bore/impress my family like I used to with my 35mm slides.

Best wishes

Geoffrey Pocock