We have a couple of older 5000 lumen Boxlight projectors in our worship center which are beginning to fail. I’d like to move to a laser projector to avoid lamp replacement if feasible for cost. I’d like to stay in the $8-9K range per projector. I don’t have exact numbers but our placement right now is about 25-35ft from the screens and the screen size is 16:9 format and about 12-13ft wide. I’m thinking 6000 lumen will be better.
Today we run the projectors from our Blackmagic ATEM 1/ME switcher at 720p, SDI out to HDMI converters at each projector. I’m not super versed in this stuff yet.
I’d love to hear any recommendations for projectors from you all.
Of the ones I’ve seen in person I would highly recommend the Sony. I would also recommend talking to AVE (https://audiovideoelectronics.com/) for a bid on them.
We just (6-9mo ago) replaced three BenQ SP920 6000lm projectors with NEC P502HL 5000lm laser projectors. Nominally they’re 1000lm less than the old ones but they appear brighter. I suspect that as the laser source ages the projector will dim somewhat, but who knows. We paid just under $4k each.
We also bought four P502WLs which are the same but 720 instead of 1080, for our overflow seating. They were just under $3k each.
No problems thus far. Five year warranty included, and at our usage even if we only get half the lifespan the manufacturer predicts they’ll still probably be obsolete before they wear out.
You can certainly get better products if you have more money to spend but these hit the price/performance sweet spot for us.
Thank you for the feedback so far! The NEC laser option sounds like something to look at. How large is the screen you’re projecting to in your worship space? I’d love to see a photo if you have a chance to take one. Thx!
Sorry about the delay in reply, Easter craziness showed up and life got away from me.
The screen is 12’ wide. It was originally 4:3 and we masked it to 16:9 (16:10?) so it’s now 7.5-8’ high. The throw length is about 25’.
I really couldn’t get my phone to take a decent photo in the contrast between the bright screen and dim room, but I’ll try to get you some professional photos from Good Friday later today so you can see it in the space.