Pocket Projector


Wookiee said:
benjymous said:
Clickety - More info


There is also this.


Nice how neither of these products mention how many lumens the light produces. The images are probably only viewable in the deepest darkest caves and dungeons. :)

According to this: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/...ightest-led.htm about 800 lumens appears to be the limit nowadays.

a 72" screen would need 1000 lumens minimum. But for something smaller, say 32", 800 would just about cut it for a nice dark room. Even still these babies use 700mA. It's no wonder the first one only lasts 1.5 hours on battery.

Granted, the geek in me wants one anyway.
 
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mindlord said:
Wookiee said:
benjymous said:
Clickety - More info


There is also this.


Nice how neither of these products mention how many lumens the light produces. The images are probably only viewable in the deepest darkest caves and dungeons. :)

According to this: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/...ightest-led.htm about 800 lumens appears to be the limit nowadays.

a 72" screen would need 1000 lumens minimum. But for something smaller, say 32", 800 would just about cut it for a nice dark room. Even still these babies use 700mA. It's no wonder the first one only lasts 1.5 hours on battery.

Granted, the geek in me wants one anyway.

The article says that its 9 lumens

QUOTE
Now, let’s be clear: no pocket projector is going to produce as much brightness as tabletop projectors 10 times its size. The Pico manages 9 lumens (that’s how they measure the brightness of things like projectors), compared with, for example, 2,000 lumens for a $900 tabletop projector. That may not sound like much, but it’s plenty bright at the Pico’s shorter distances and smaller “screen” sizes.


I'd guess the one on Firebox is about the same. Definitely no replacement for professional use.

QUOTE
the geek in me wants one anyway.


+1 ;)
 
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I've been following the Microvision line of laser projectors for a while. I'm really hoping these devices will be good enough to replace the portable projectors our sales force and trainers use today. No lens, low power draw, insane "bulb" life, no need for fans... these just sound too good to be true!

I'm sure the first generation of these won't be "all that", but future revisions might be pretty amazing.

Pretty old video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UfarRM0BoM
 
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mindlord said:
Wookiee said:
The article says that its 9 lumens
* Is no longer impressed *


9 lumens?

That's gotta be a typo. You could beat that with a candle.
 
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Is a lumen a little invisible man made of light that draws the picture on the wall with magic and usually works at a cinema?
 
it is the measure of light given out by one candel in all directions.

part of definition:
That is, a light source that uniformly radiates one candela in all directions radiates a total of 4π lumens.

so this projector i would consider very unusable.
 
VRAndy said:
mindlord said:
Wookiee said:
The article says that its 9 lumens
* Is no longer impressed *


9 lumens?

That's gotta be a typo. You could beat that with a candle.


Actually, you would need about 9 candelas :p

The Aiptek PocketCinema V10 from Firebox puts out 10 lumens, but I heard bad things about its focusing optics (cheap, unstable). One of the main problems of LED-based pico projectors is getting enough light from the LED through the miniature optics. Todays HB-LEDs can put out more than 100 lumens, it's just the projection optic that swallows all the light. That's also the reason why regular sized projectors have to use 150W+ bulbs and a loud fan.
The Microvision approach seems more sensible to me. Their problem has been to find lasers powerful and small enough, seems like they finally solved it.
 
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Hollenderster said:
VRAndy said:
mindlord said:
Wookiee said:
The article says that its 9 lumens
* Is no longer impressed *


9 lumens?

That's gotta be a typo. You could beat that with a candle.


Actually, you would need about 9 candelas :p

Not at all.

I'm assuming I can rig up some reflectors to focus 72% of the candle's output onto a screen. That doesn't seem impossible.


Even without the reflectors, your math only works out if you're assuming that the projector is focused onto a point. Which would not be a useful configuration for a projector. 3 candles, each casting a third of their light onto the screen (Easy if they're close enough) would equal 9 lumens.
 
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Bramrash said:
Is a lumen a little invisible man made of light that draws the picture on the wall with magic and usually works at a cinema?
If you look at the youtube video, it is quite bright. It's done with lasers and that might have something to do with it, since conventional projectors pass light through an lcd panel and a lot of that light is lost in that process and some more through the lens. Also, realize it's not meant to be used in a well light board room from 20 feet away from the screen. To me, this tech looks awesome. I've been following it for a while and I'll get one when they are available and under 100. maybe by 2012. They will be brighter, lighter, better battery life and cheaper.

Chris

Foehammer said:
I've been following the Microvision line of laser projectors for a while. I'm really hoping these devices will be good enough to replace the portable projectors our sales force and trainers use today. No lens, low power draw, insane "bulb" life, no need for fans... these just sound too good to be true!

I'm sure the first generation of these won't be "all that", but future revisions might be pretty amazing.

Pretty old video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UfarRM0BoM




When I think of Microvision, I can't help but think of blockbuster, the pack in game for the very first cartridge based portable game system, Microvision.


Chris
 
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QUOTE
Even without the reflectors, your math only works out if ...
Adding math would have decreased the recocgnition value of what was meant to be a pun (didn't you notice the smiley?)
However, I did a rough calculation and assumed that the projector is emitting into a solid angle of one steradian. This makes the conversion from lumens into candela so easy that even Google can handle it. Without the reflectors and with both light sources at the same distance from the screen you would need 9 candles (= candela) to achieve the same luminous flux as the projector. Sure, the candles are brighter if moved closer to the screen, but the same holds true for the projector.
 
Hollenderster said:
QUOTE
Even without the reflectors, your math only works out if ...
Adding math would have decreased the recocgnition value of what was meant to be a pun (didn't you notice the smiley?)
However, I did a rough calculation and assumed that the projector is emitting into a solid angle of one steradian. This makes the conversion from lumens into candela so easy that even Google can handle it. Without the reflectors and with both light sources at the same distance from the screen you would need 9 candles (= candela) to achieve the same luminous flux as the projector.
Fair enough. ( Yes, I was using candella and candle interchangeably.) I apologise for implying that no math went into your post.

I was thinking of total lumens across a fixed sized screen. I suppose you're right that a more fair comparison is based on the size of the image projected by the projector at a given distance.
Still, It could be done with with mirrors!
Seriously, though. 9 lumens has to be a typo or something. I can't imagine a projector that casts less light than nine candles.
 
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Still sounds cool, and I would love to have one. But, as the above said, maybe a few years down the road when the costs come down and there has been some hardware revisions I would be willing to pony up for one.
 
I've been thinking the exact same thing since I put my Pandora order in.

I'm on a Caribbean cruise in February and in the evenings when I'm in the cabin I usually like to watch a couple of TV shows before going to sleep. You can't pick any proper TV up at sea and the boats just re-run a few old films or stream CNN (and you can't plug anything into their TVs - the AV in sockets are disabled).

The last time I took my Macbook - but it was a bit heavy and I worried about leaving it in the room all day (the Pandora would fit in the safe).

My intention is to use the Pandora as a media player combined with a pocket projector to project the video off the cabin walls (the internal cabins are pitch black with the light off).

What kind of video-out does the Pandora have, and would the internal speakers be loud enough?
 
The lumen ratings of those little pocket projectors aren't really comparable to those of normal projectors, since normal projectors illuminate ALL pixels of the image continuously, while the pocket projectors only need to illuminate one pixel at a time.
 
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