The <$1000 Projection Project - Part 2 - Where to Begin
Building a film project system is not as complicated as many might think, in fact it is quite simple. For the purpose of this experiment, I think that we should aim for a projection system that will be capable of comfortably reaching a crowd of 500. I know there are systems out there claiming to be able to reach double that number , but to be honest, most of the places a system like this would be used are rural communities where the average crowd would more likely be in the 100-200 range.
Modern projection systems are made up of 6 parts:
1. Video/audio Source - What plays the video you want to project
2. Projector - Takes the video source and projects it onto a screen
3. Amplifier - Takes the audio source and amplifies it to play through the speakers
4. Speakers - Make it loud
5. Screen - A material on which the video can be projected
6. Power Source - What runs all of the equipment
With these six pieces of equipment, along with a host of cables, you can theoretically project any video, anywhere, any time.
Video Source:
Let's start this discussion where it all begins, the video source. Over the years countless media sources have been used to project films. VCRs were the first but were never totally reliable because VHS tapes were susceptible to damage and VCRs were notorious for collecting dust and breaking down in harsh environments. While DVD's easily replaced VCRs in most of our homes, they also proved to be extremely problematic for projecting films in harsh environments. DVDs are extremely susceptible to scratching and there is nothing more annoying that trying to show a life impacting video while it is stuttering and skipping. Fortunately video has made the leap into fully digitized non-volatile format. Compressed digital files can now easily be played on most computers, tablets, cellphones or other media specific playback devices(ipods, mp3/mp4 players and even digital photo frames).
I have personally used each of these video sources and I, for one, am so happy that we have moved past VHS and DVD. There are a miriad of digital video sources, but only certain ones will work for our purposes. It all comes down to connect-ability. Many cellphones will play video, but lack a way to output it to a projector. The same applies to digital photo frames and many dedicated mp3/mp4 players. Many tablets and laptops have video connections, but only via HDMI, which some compact projects have yet to implement. Apple does a pretty good job of allowing video output from their mobile devices(Ipad, Iphone, Ipod touch, Ipod nano(3rd generation, Ipod classic(5th generation)), but only if you buy an extra video cable. There are a myriad of other devices allowing video playback, far too many to list here. The factors you need to look for are as follows:
-Video capacity - if it only fits 1 hour of video and your video is 2 hours, your sunk
-Video output - check what output the device has, RCA, VGA or HDMI and make sure it matches your projector.
-Battery life - If the video you want to project is 2 hours long and the battery only lasts 90 minutes while playing video, you are going to be disappointed.
-Price - The purpose of this exercise is to build a system for under $1000, so if you decided to use a $500 Ipad air as a video source, that doesn't leave much for us to play with.
I have personally projected using a laptop and Ipod classic and they both worked well.
Fortunately, much of what I have been writing about thus far will be rendered mute because we are fortunate these days that most compact projectors have a built in digital video player. I wanted to take the time to talk through a few video source options since it is always my prerogative to have a backup source just in case something goes wrong(corrupt media card, video format incompatibility, or that situation where you arrive at a remote location to show a film just to realize that you left the SD card containing your video files in your computer at home...a four hour drive away...yup, been there)
So, like I mentioned above, the ideal video/audio playback source is the projector itself. Most compact projectors will ports or connectors for USB dongles, SD or microSD cards and even built in memory. These projectors will typically play mp4 video, although it may take a bit of experimenting to find out what codecs, bitrates and audio/video compression formats will play nicely with them. I know there are a lot of programs for the PC that will do this compressing, and even ripping from DVD, but I don't have personally have experience with them so cannot suggest one over another. If anyone has any experience with this please lend us your advice. If you are a mac user, it is easy. All you need is the program "Handbrake" and then you can modify your settings based on what the projector's manual suggests.
For example, I am currently using an AAXA M1 ultimate-X projector and to make the files work, I compress using the following parameters:
File formate: .mp4
Video codec: MPEG-4(FFmpeg)
Framerate: 29.97(NTSC) constant
Quality: 12
Audio codec: AAC(coreaudio)
Audio samplerate: 48kHz
Bitrate: 160
It will be a bit different for every projector, this is just an example.
There you go. In my opinion it is best to use the built in video/audio player on the projector, but I would also suggest thinking about having some kind of back up video source just in case.
...Next topic - projectors
Modern projection systems are made up of 6 parts:
1. Video/audio Source - What plays the video you want to project
2. Projector - Takes the video source and projects it onto a screen
3. Amplifier - Takes the audio source and amplifies it to play through the speakers
4. Speakers - Make it loud
5. Screen - A material on which the video can be projected
6. Power Source - What runs all of the equipment
With these six pieces of equipment, along with a host of cables, you can theoretically project any video, anywhere, any time.
Video Source:
Let's start this discussion where it all begins, the video source. Over the years countless media sources have been used to project films. VCRs were the first but were never totally reliable because VHS tapes were susceptible to damage and VCRs were notorious for collecting dust and breaking down in harsh environments. While DVD's easily replaced VCRs in most of our homes, they also proved to be extremely problematic for projecting films in harsh environments. DVDs are extremely susceptible to scratching and there is nothing more annoying that trying to show a life impacting video while it is stuttering and skipping. Fortunately video has made the leap into fully digitized non-volatile format. Compressed digital files can now easily be played on most computers, tablets, cellphones or other media specific playback devices(ipods, mp3/mp4 players and even digital photo frames).
I have personally used each of these video sources and I, for one, am so happy that we have moved past VHS and DVD. There are a miriad of digital video sources, but only certain ones will work for our purposes. It all comes down to connect-ability. Many cellphones will play video, but lack a way to output it to a projector. The same applies to digital photo frames and many dedicated mp3/mp4 players. Many tablets and laptops have video connections, but only via HDMI, which some compact projects have yet to implement. Apple does a pretty good job of allowing video output from their mobile devices(Ipad, Iphone, Ipod touch, Ipod nano(3rd generation, Ipod classic(5th generation)), but only if you buy an extra video cable. There are a myriad of other devices allowing video playback, far too many to list here. The factors you need to look for are as follows:
-Video capacity - if it only fits 1 hour of video and your video is 2 hours, your sunk
-Video output - check what output the device has, RCA, VGA or HDMI and make sure it matches your projector.
-Battery life - If the video you want to project is 2 hours long and the battery only lasts 90 minutes while playing video, you are going to be disappointed.
-Price - The purpose of this exercise is to build a system for under $1000, so if you decided to use a $500 Ipad air as a video source, that doesn't leave much for us to play with.
I have personally projected using a laptop and Ipod classic and they both worked well.
Fortunately, much of what I have been writing about thus far will be rendered mute because we are fortunate these days that most compact projectors have a built in digital video player. I wanted to take the time to talk through a few video source options since it is always my prerogative to have a backup source just in case something goes wrong(corrupt media card, video format incompatibility, or that situation where you arrive at a remote location to show a film just to realize that you left the SD card containing your video files in your computer at home...a four hour drive away...yup, been there)
So, like I mentioned above, the ideal video/audio playback source is the projector itself. Most compact projectors will ports or connectors for USB dongles, SD or microSD cards and even built in memory. These projectors will typically play mp4 video, although it may take a bit of experimenting to find out what codecs, bitrates and audio/video compression formats will play nicely with them. I know there are a lot of programs for the PC that will do this compressing, and even ripping from DVD, but I don't have personally have experience with them so cannot suggest one over another. If anyone has any experience with this please lend us your advice. If you are a mac user, it is easy. All you need is the program "Handbrake" and then you can modify your settings based on what the projector's manual suggests.
For example, I am currently using an AAXA M1 ultimate-X projector and to make the files work, I compress using the following parameters:
File formate: .mp4
Video codec: MPEG-4(FFmpeg)
Framerate: 29.97(NTSC) constant
Quality: 12
Audio codec: AAC(coreaudio)
Audio samplerate: 48kHz
Bitrate: 160
It will be a bit different for every projector, this is just an example.
There you go. In my opinion it is best to use the built in video/audio player on the projector, but I would also suggest thinking about having some kind of back up video source just in case.
...Next topic - projectors
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