I checked it out today, and pussy-footed away from it when I saw the quality of the screen image. The ads and the accompanying sound was burned to a DVD-R disc, and the DVD player was a conventional high-quality unit. The projector was the size of the Kodak slide projector. The manager told me the whole system costs about $8,000.

With the house lights up full, the image (which was a full 1.85 ratio) was at about 17 foot lamberts.

I know nothing of this new system we are using. From what I have seen, I was blown away by the quality. The hand writing is on the wall.

I am going to stuff a DVD in that thing to see if:

1. It will play
2. How good it looks
3. How good the sound actually is.

Anyone familiar with these new fangled units?

Paul

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Hopefully, I'll get over to the theater later today and goof around with it, and find out more about it. But it sure was impressive. I'll get back to this tread and keep you updated as to what I find.

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I am a member of the "Worship Support Team" (i.e. Sound Guys), and if I remember correctly, the lens swap-out cost us about $1,200.00 +/-.

Since this machine is esentially a video projector that we have hooked up to a computer, VCR, and DVD player in the booth, I've always had a question about the quality of the image that comes from the computer. Is the quality of the projected image signal from the computer directly related to the type of video card in the computer? (i.e. "Cheap video card in computer = bad picture on the screen")

If we swapped out the cheap Gateway video card in the computer to a decent card, would the image be better on the screen?

I still want to see a video projector fill a drive-in screen.

This depends on a few things.
What resolution will the projector project? 800X600 is probably the minimum acceptable and almost any video card will support this.
1024X768, or XGA, is better. There are several higher resolutions possible but probably XGA is adequate... much better than an SVGA video feed, anyway.
What are you projecting from the computer? If it's business graphics you can get away with 256 colors, again even the cheapest (reasonably current) video card should do that at 1024X768. For "real" images - either photos or video off the computer - you need at least 16 bit color and preferably 24/32 bit color. The ability to display high resolution color at high video resolution is limited on some cheap cards - it takes a lot of memory. (The projector will handle any color resolution you send it)
I expect your card will be able to handle 1024x768 and 16/32 bit color. This is pretty much standard now. What you get with the fancy expensive video cards is mostly related to computer games, they can draw 3D game graphics very fast so the games play better. A cheaper card will usually do the same job but slower. For showing pictures or AVI video there is no advantage to an expensive card.
So unless you want to play Quake in church on the big screen it shouldn't be a problem.

There are no adjustments to fiddle with, except focus.

Very impressive on our screens. It is kind of sad when a 130 watt bulb beats a 1600 watt Xenon. It sure looked better than 11 foot-lamberts, but I have nothing to compare it with. That pile of junk we have is one of those old ORC Consoles with a vertical lamp, a crappy reflector, and an equally crappy filter.

However, the audio sucks - a WHOPPING 1.0 X 2watt mono amp, which is not used.

The sheet says it has an image size of 40 to 200 inches, with an aspect ratio of 4:3.

The DVD player was a Pioneer DV-341, and the SVHS output jack was used in this setup. The left and right audio output was feeding the cinema processors.

There was an mysterious little black box that "just happens to be there", but since there are no tags on the screws that say keep out, I guess I will take a peek to see what is in it. I am guessing it is a control box of some sort.

The video projector is a Mitsubishi LVP-X400BU that cost $7500. It puts a 32-foot wide picture on the screen at 64-feet of throw. The native resolution is 1024x768 at 16.7 million colors. It's a mid-sized LCD projector, with dimensions of 11.75"w x 6.25"h x 14.5"d.

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OK I am kidding. But considering, it didn't look too horible.

Given time, like another year or so, film could be dead as we know it.

And more power to it. I would rather just pop in any old dvd and then take a nap.

Then reminisce about days of yore when we had to put film guard on film! It is so much better as a dvd cleaner.

quote:

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I would rather just pop in any old dvd and then take a nap.

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Why would they need you to pop in the DVD? The manager could easily do it on his way to the office to scam off some $$$ for himself. You would be outside of the theater, rooting through the dumpster looking for things to take back to your new home, which is the cardboard box right by the dumpster!

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