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Mitsubishi LED Projector: Small, Cheap, Durable
mcaycedo writes "This new projector is my top number 1 "must have" gadget. The reasons: price (US$699), size (fit in your hand), convenience (uses AC, batteries, card adaptor) and duration (lamp life:20000 hours). The cons: only SVGA (800x600), lumens (N/A)" There are tons of applications for a LED projector of this size, too: in cars, integrated into portable video players, information displays of all kinds ... and as resolution and brightness improve, even more will emerge.
"only SVGA (800x600)"
My 80486DX4 is only VGA (640x480), you insensitive clod!
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Mitsubishi Launches Mini DLP PocketProjector
by David Chait [Theater, Mobile] Tuesday, February 08th, 2005
If you've always wanted a front projector that you could take with you anywhere, the upcoming PocketProjector from Mitsubishi might just be what you've dreamed of.
Mitsubishi PocketProjector in hand
Certainly rating as one of the smallest projection units out there, the new Mitsubishi PocketProjector is a tiny 14oz powerhouse of a projector. A unit small enough to fit in your hand, run off batteries or car adapter, yet create a 20 screen with only one foot of throw.
Mitsubishi PocketProjector A/V Jacks
The PocketProjector can drive 800x600 SVGA resolution through its Lumileds tri-LED DLP system, rated at over 20,000 hours of lamp life. And it sports composite, s-video, and VGA connectors, great for visualizing anything from a laptop presentation to a portable DVD player. Heck, with a digital camera that has AV output, you can set up a virtual slide show no matter where you are - well, so long as you have a clean, flat, white surface to project onto. ; )
Mitsubishi PocketProjector Next to Cell Phone
The PocketProjector will be available in July at an SRP of $699 US - not cheap certainly, but a fair price for an SVGA projector with multiple inputs, multiple portable power solutions, and that is pocketable. They'll also be selling battery packs for the unit, plus 'solutions' of cables/etc. for different users/industries. Hopefully as soon as they're ready, we'll get one in for testing. I know a LOT of people who'd jump at a mini projector like this...
Here is a mirror http://mirrordot.org/stories/94956edfe592d87195c41 25ea9151084/index.html
until someone ports NetBSD to it?
It's nice to see projectors finally coming down in price. The lowest price used to be the 2200MP Multimedia Projector for $899. Hopefully we will see more in the lower price range and maybe even under $500. The smaller size is definately a plus.
Browse the Information Directory
I got to read the first page of the article. It is pretty impressive. I didn't get to the dirty details but I'm pretty sure this uses three of TI's DLP chips. I have seen this sort of thing coming for a while now; the DLP chip is truly a technology marvel.
Now, as far as the Lumens are concerned... Lumens are a way to measure the light which is isotropically radiated from a given source. A projector doesn't isotropically radiate though, its emission is highly directional. For this reason, lumens are a very crappy way of defining, technically, the "brightness" of a projector. But, since people are used to buying lightbulbs according to the market-ese of Lumens, that's how Projectors are rated as well. Since the projector uses LEDs (Luxeons, from the sound of it) as the light source, I suppose that's why they're lacking a fancy lumen number to throw around: because LEDs, as highly directional light sources, are measured in Candles (abbreviated "cd" or millicandles as "mcd") and not measured in Lumens.
They'll probably make up a marketable number before too long, fret not.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
You could build a full-resolution cinema-sized display, then all you'd need is a couple of matrox multi-head cards to drive them :)
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
The Mitsubishi site doesn't appear to have any real content on it about this product, but here's another review:
r ojector-8482.htm
http://www.techworthy.com/Blog/Mitsubishi-PocketP
Hmm. I have $699 to burn...
Do I buy a LED projector, or a SCO license?
I keep looking, but I cannot see how this is anything more than a product pitch. No comparisons, just 'this thing is really cool and think of all the cool things you can do with it'. TFA is nothing more than a rewarmed press release of the projector.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Offical Press Release, without pictures
2nd article with 1 picture
_JS
but what if you mounted one on your dashboard, and followed a semi with a nice white door..
with a little fm transmitter, you could even share the monotony breaker with neighboring cars..
watch a DVD on a cross country trip?
whoa fred- screens getting big! better brake!
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I'm curious what other number 1 "must have" gadgets are on your list.
Google is our friend.
http://www.buydig.com/shop/product.aspx?sku=IRI
http://www.normthompson.com/jump.jsp?itemType=P
Search terms included: mp3-player plays-mp3s with-alarm alarm-clock
(why the hyphens in the search terms you ask? alarm-clock will match alarm clock, alarm-clock, and alarmclock; whereas "alarm clock" will only match "alarm clock". In other words, using the hyphen to conjoin two words instead of the quotes expands the possible pool of search results by including minute variations on a theme. hard-drive is another good example, catching: hard drive, hard-drive, and harddrive.)
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
I think it would be really useful. While you drive, you can now:
Watch the projector,
Comb your hair,
Change the Radio Station,
Talk on the mobile phone, AND
Flip off the moron that just cut you off.
All at the same time.
Who cares about size?
Apparently, you've never heard of the Law of Geek Chic:
The goal of all electronic devices is to eventually become a choking hazard.
How else are you going to watch TV on your cell phone?
More
Lumens are a way to measure the light which is isotropically radiated from a given source
...LEDs, as highly directional light sources, are measured in Candles (abbreviated "cd" or millicandles as "mcd") and not measured in Lumens.
Not to nit-pick (that's a pun...get it?) but what you are thinking of is referred to as "mean spherical candela". Lumens are simply the photometric equivilent of Watts (that is to say they are watts normalised to take into account the photopic curve which describes the spectral responsivity of the human eye) and are thus an excellent means of describing the optical output of a source or system.
Again I must disagree. As an illumination engineer I rely heavily on the Lumen ratings for the LEDs with which I design since that value is the integrated amount of light available from the source and is not related to the distribution of the emission. LEDs are indeed more directional than conventional sources but there is a wide range of emission patterns available.
Getting back to the matter at hand, I can't read the article but I agree that this device probably uses Luxeon emitters since they are the most concentrated sources available right now. The technology Lumileds is developing is advancing in leaps and bounds so it is unquestionably the case that these projectors are going to get a lot brighter quite soon. I wouldn't rush out and get this one since you will be able to get one about 50% brighter within a year for no more money (or at least no more cost to the manufacturuer, not always the same thing).
-Pinkoir
Video projectors haven't been following Moore's Law lately. A 2000 lumens 1024x768 for under $1000 has been years in coming, since that profile dropped below $3000 a few years ago. It appears that it's because the projector vendors target salespeople, and are feeding them with ever more portable projectors, more costly to produce than big, stationary ones. Maybe the higher turnover of travelling salespeople means they sell more units in that sector, always needing the "brand new" one, at the highest price, than across the board. I'd have thought the mass-marketing of home theater would have offered larger profits on more sales, without competing on miniaturization R&D.
Where is the 20lb ceiling-mount livingroom projector for $1000, that does 1024x768 @2000lm? Maybe this Mitsubishi projector will help compete them into existence.
--
make install -not war
Luxeons aren't the most concentrated source out there. They're probably the most publicized high-power emitter out there, but Check out Lamina Ceramics if you want some real concentrated sources. Their highest-end commercial line, the BL-3000 line, has some pretty impressive specs for something less than 1.25 x 1.25 inches, including a 26-watt 567 lumen 5500K white light engine (which will set you back about $80 from Mouser Electronics. Search for Mouser part# 599-BL-32D0-0133).
I was following Lumileds pretty close until I read about the LTCC-M technology that Lamina is using. They're able to pack so many LED chips with this technology that it blows my mind, and they keep getting better at doing it, having just recently cut prices across the board for its two major product lines (BL-2000 and BL-3000).
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
My next project is with a laptop screen and an overhead projector with a one of those builders halogen lights
Em, you've been beaten to it
(Well apart from the OTT bulb :)
For $699, you get a LED (dim) LCD (crappy image) projector.
RTFA:
"It is lighted by three Lumileds(TM) LEDs (red, green, blue) that produce an SVGA (800 x 600 pixels) image formed digitally by the latest DLP(TM) chip by Texas Instruments."
Squeezebox? Looks like an alarm clock (I have one on my bedside table), sounds great, nice big bright green display, alarm function, plays mp3, wma, etc etc, and streaming radio. Nice little unit ($200 for cat5, $280 for wifi).
Here
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
So for 20,000 hours of viewing it's:
$ 699 for the new LED unit.
$2100 for the InFocus X1a.
Are you/they sure it's 20,000 hours of lamp life? If that were true, that would be about 10 times more than for a typical projector. Just recently I purchased a Panasonic projector. During my research and shopping around I observed that all bulbs have between 2,000 and 3,000 hours of life in them.
So.... I question that 20,000 hours of life time quote...
You shouldn't... this projector uses LEDs, not lamps. The projectors you were looking at all used incandescent or flourescent technologies; a bright/hot/charged region getting electricity slammed through it to force it to give off photons.
This uses solid state LEDs; silicon junctions whose atomic makeup cause them to give off a specific frequency. Suitably heatsinked (and these come from the factory suitably heatsinked) you can give off TONS of light for a very long time.
This is good. This is exciting. These LEDs probably cost LESS than a bulb for a traditional projector, and last for a much longer period of time.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
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