In the world of the boardroom, conference room and training room, have we finally achieved the perfect projector? If not, we sure are close. What’s perfect? Well, well enough for 95% of the installations. Sure, there will always be those esoteric installs and rentals that require huge light outputs and long-throw lenses, but have you considered that the end-user market is now seeing stuff that is good enough – no, actually most even exceed their real needs.

What’s the “perfect specification"? Well, that’s still up for debate, but it is clear to me that the new breed of projectors hitting the street right now (i.e. Sony’s VPL-PX30, InFocus’ LP770 and Proxima’s ProAV 9400+) are awesome and would do just fine in almost every installation.

OK, for those videophiles out there and for the benefit of the hard-core CRT’ers, I will certainly admit, as would most manufacturers, that there’s nothing like a CRT projector when it’s set up perfectly. The quality of the video, the size of the beam spot and the amorphous resolution of the phosphor make it virtually impossible to beat in the category of image quality. But, the fact is that most people couldn’t set them up perfectly anyway. And, those that could were constantly tweaking them as they continually drifted out of convergence. So, maybe what we have here is good enough.

Now, I’m not saying that we should quell all product development and improvements as we’ve hit the benchmark in perfection, but certainly we must be on the verge of eliminating ANSI lumens and size as design concerns. Think about it, the average installation grade projector in this new generation of projectors weighs less than 17-pounds and outputs more than 2400 ANSI lumens. Do we really need more than that? In fact, studies have shown, and we even proved at INFOCOMM 99 in the ANSI Lumens room of the Projection Encounter, that the average human couldn’t tell the difference between 1000 and 4000 ANSI lumens without a reference (side by side). They may see one as sharper or crisper than the other, but most people don’t actually identify one as brighter than the other. So, what’s the future? The future install projector will probably take the form of 12-20-poounds (at the MOST), 3000-4000 ANSI lumens (certainly that’s all that’s needed) and deliver 1280 x 1024 and 1280 x 720 native resolution imaging with compatibility with HDTV, PCs, MACs and, of course, video.

I don’t think this surprises most as most people agree it’s going to happen soon. But, it’s almost here. In fact, it will be within the next 8-months. Features? Well, it needs RS 232 control, component video, NTSC, HDTV and PC compatibility, interchangeable lenses that make it either a drop-in replacement for a CRT in the ceiling or that can zoon from 1.2: 1 and 2.1: 1 and that truly has the ability to adjust the white point so that colorimetry can be set per the ambient environment.

Oh, one other thing, it needs to have better contrast ratio. It’s always amazed me how dealers and end-users have always jumped on lumens as the spec to watch for when contrast ratio is really more important. Black needs to look like black, not light gray!

Over the past year and a half, the trend has been to replace the CRT as the dominant installation projection technology with LCD. Well, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s happened. The next BIG trend will be to install PORTABLES and even ultra-portables in the ceiling? Think I’m crazy? Well consider that the average portable today has 7-10 times the light output of the brightest CRT projector, projects XGA (1024 x 768) or SXGA (1280 x 1024) and includes most of the features needed to install it. Some don’t have RS 232 yet, but they all will soon (kudos to Epson for setting the trend here). In fact, consider that the average ultra-portables have three to five times the light output of the average CRT.

Still doubt it? Think that quality will win out in the long run? Well, you might not admit it immediately, but how many people out there are using SUN computers in their houses or watching home movies on a Betamax player? SUN has the top of the line computer and certainly Beta was far superior to VHS. But, in both cases, the best technology didn’t win. The one that was good enough did.

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---- Gary Kayye is Principal of Kayye Consulting a firm that specializes in providing marketing consulting and training development to the professional audiovisual industry.