Digital Trends

Image Courtesy of NEC

This digital projector caught our eye recently at the fabled wonderland that is CES. Small, compact, wireless, and you would think the presenter's dream. We found that may not be the case. Still it is worth covering since this is only one of several machines with the feature on the market. If you are a fan of display technology, read on and find out why we think this machine is leading the way for projectors of the future.

Wireless

In a wired world the big move now is to one without wires, and the wireless standard that is most used is 802.11b. This feature might not always be a good thing, the number of devices transmitting on the 2.4Ghz spectrum can slow transmission speeds down at times. The general idea is to make the presentation as smooth as possible so that you are able to sell your product in the most effective manner.

Setups such as those at colleges or businesses where they already have a fixed projector that presenters can plug into will not benefit as much as the mobile professional. Unfortunately 802.11b does not have the bandwidth needed to show full motion video, such as .mpeg, .avi, or DVD, so in that respect the LT 260 is still lacking. The good news is that it will have no problems handling a slide presentation or to demonstrating the operation of a program.

The reason for going into the limitations of wireless was to dispel any assumptions about the technology before the actual review to prepare you for what these machines are capable of accomplishing. Wireless connectivity in digital projectors is a step in the right direction, but it won't be until 802.11a devices become standard will we see the true benefit.

Compatible Network Interface Cards Include:

802.11b WiFi
Linksys WPC11
NEC/Samsung SWL-2100N-NU (5V version only from NEC)

Wired
Linksys PCMPC100 (Ver.2 only, confirm version when ordering)
D-Link DFE-670TXD
3COM 3CCE589ET

Display

This display is bright, especially for its size, at 2100 Lumens. It needs it too, for most meeting rooms are well lit during the presentation to present a more professional image. Another great feature for this projector is its excellent contrast ratio, at 1300:1 it will make those presentations pop. With a maximum screen size of 33.33 feet wide by 25 feet tall, you can be assured that a very large audience will be able to see what you have to say.

If you have had problems in the past getting your presentation to look centered and square than you can worry no more. This little machine will do all that for you automatically after you set the four corners of the screen. Keystone correction is apart of their 3D-reform geometry technologies. For those times when you can't get the projector centered just right this technology will come in handy indeed. All it takes to set it is few clicks a USB mouse and you are on your way to a square image. What makes this special is NEC has included horizontal, vertical and diagonal keystone correction.

Digital Light Processing (DLP) was developed by Texas Instruments with the primary goal of enhancing projector technology. DLP employs MEMS, tiny mirrors that can swivel independently, to control when light should be reflected through a spinning color wheel and on to the screen. By changing the angle of incidence for each of the tiny mirrors as the wheel spins they are able to blend the colors at the pixel level. The resulting image is sharper due to an increase in contrast, which happens because you get less mixing of the subtle hues. This of course also means that the color rendition of the image data stored in the computer is going to be more accurate. Texas Instruments has a good overview online.