Business projectors are invaluable tools to help grow your business. The projectors can be used in a wide range of applications, from training new employees, to presenting marketing proposals or year-end reports. For this reason, purchasing a quality business projector makes good financial sense for businesses of any size — from large corporations to small home offices.
But just like any major business investment, it is important to know what to expect before you go shopping for projector. There are advantages and disadvantages of the different types of projectors, and in this article, we’ll guide you through the technology that is available, to help you decide which projector will most benefit your business, and fit your budget.
Basically, there are two different types of projectors: LCD projectors and DLP projectors. LCD injectors have several distinct advantages over the DLP type, and one of the most important is in the way that LCD handles color saturation of images.
The difference is that DLP projectors boost the overall brightness of the projected image by sacrificing color information. This results in an image that can appear “washed out” at times, and though the image may in fact be bright enough, it can lack the depth of color that LCD projectors can provide.
Another definite plus for LCD projectors is that they tend to produce sharper images. In a side-by-side comparison, you can easily notice that images displayed on the screen tend to get fuzzy around the edges when using a DLP projector. On the contrary, LCD projectors tend to produce a sharp, well defined border on the projected image.
Another difference in these two projector designs is in what is known as “light efficiency.” LCD projectors normally generate a higher light efficiency ratio, resulting in a brighter image than DLP projectors can offer. Even when using a lamp of the exact same wattage, LCD projectors will normally produce a higher light output in the projected image.
But DLP projectors also have their advantages, and one of these is that they do not produce images using individual pixels as LCD projectors do. LCD pixels can at times be visible on large projection screens, adding a harsh digital look to images.
Another big problem with LCD projectors is that it is common for individual pixels to burn out over time, resulting in uneven color and luminance on projected images. To make matters even worse, it is virtually impossible to repair a pixel that is burnt out on the LCD chip, which means you must replace the entire chip in order to eliminate the problem.
Because DLP projectors are not pixel-based, this is not an issue. Furthermore, DLP designs are known to handle true black better than LCD designs. This results in DLP projectors generating richer colors than LCD models, especially when viewed on very large screens.
So it is easy to see that both LCD and DLP projectors have advantages and disadvantages. Overall though, and LCD projector offers the best performance to cost ratio, and has the advantage of producing a sharper, brighter image with most source material. Before deciding on which type of projector best suits your needs, be sure to try out several different models using a wide variety of source images. If at all possible, it is a good idea to set up a head-to-head comparison between these two different types of business projectors.