If you conduct business meetings frequently, are an instructor or just like to show pictures to your family and friends at home, a multimedia projector is a good investment. You can expect to pay anywhere from $750 into the tens of thousands for a new projector, but the first-class, vivid presentation quality that you will get from a multimedia projector is well worth the cost. A multimedia projector could be the difference between a so-so presentation and a positive, fruitful meeting.
Instructions
1. Decide which type of multimedia projector you will need. Conference-room projectors are very bright and made especially for presentations in large meeting rooms. Ultralight projectors are made for portability---you can take them on the road with you, and they are best for small presentations at home. Finally, in-house multimedia projectors are very large units that are used at large auditoriums and theaters.
2. Consider the weight and portability of the projector when deciding on a multimedia projector. The lightweight units weigh as little as 3 lbs. and the largest units go as high as 100 lbs. or more. If you will be traveling with this projector frequently to do presentations, you have to think about the practicality of lugging around a 20- or 30-lb. piece of equipment.
3. Choose among Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), Digital Light Processing (DLP) or Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCOS) projection systems. All of these systems give you a good picture, but DLP gives you a good contrast while LCD makes your images sharper. LCOS is considered the industry best because it combines the strong points of both LCD and DLP.
4. Determine what type of lamp the projector uses. Replacement projector lamps can be extremely expensive. Depending on the brand, your projector's lamp will last between 1,000 and 4,000 hours. Choose a multimedia projector that takes an energy-efficient, relatively inexpensive, low-watt lamp to increase your projector's efficiency and keep your costs down.
5. Decide on an acceptable projection resolution for your multimedia projector. The screen resolutions vary from 800 by 600 (decent) to 1,280 by 1,024 and higher. (The screen resolution is a measurement of the number of pixels that produce your onscreen images---the more pixels the better quality picture.)The higher-resolution devices will be more expensive, but they are your best bet if you will be doing professional presentations.
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