For many years now there has been a great debate as to whether or not projectors are a dying viewing medium. I mean, we all know that today there are a lot of tv accessories like TV wall mount brackets which are more worth to have to help enhance your viewing experience. Even now, if you just go to your search engine, type “projectors”, and sort by news I am confident to say that you will see one or two articles that say something like: “Influencer’s Name can see the end of the projection industry”, or, “Projectors Still Shining Over Televisions – An Industry with a Bright Past and Brighter Future”. You might even see both of those opinions on the same search engine result page, I certainly have.

This article will be highlighting some of the key points in both sides of the argument to help you gain a better understanding of the future of projectors, and whether or not it’s likely for event planners to switch from projector rentals to TV solutions anytime soon.

Why People Believe Projectors are Dying:

LCD walls and LED television displays are becoming much easier to afford, and image quality on TV screens is better than it has ever been with most, if not all, television companies trying to produce more and more ultra-high definition 4K resolution displays. This is one of the two main areas where projectors have significantly fallen behind, and everyone who has made the argument that projectors will not be around ten years in the future knows this.

The second area where projectors have fallen behind in is light output. Simply put, if you have a television and a projector that are around the same price, the television will be able to produce more light than a projector in most scenarios. Dimming the lights when watching movies or shows on a television is an optional thing people do to set the mood, but dimming the lights for some projectors is just par the course for actually being able to see what is being projected.

The Case for Projectors:

Finally onto the positive, let’s start with the big one: getting a large venue projector rental (or even buying a projector) is far cheaper than renting a large amount of televisions or a dozen video walls. High-lumen projectors are still currently more cost efficient at creating an image over a large canvas-covered area than a large array of televisions occupying the same space.

Another factor to consider is that projectors still dominate a unique market familiar to performers and event planners. Projectors are still the most viable display option for images that require 3D mapping, such as the “hologram” of Tupac Shakur that appeared at Coachella in 2012. While 3D image production is a very niche market, it is still substantial enough that on its own this field could keep projectors alive and kicking for the foreseeable future.

Conclusion:

While televisions are getting higher quality resolutions and cheaper to produce, so too are projectors, and currently projectors are already the most affordable AV option for people who need large displays. Televisions may now be cutting into the market shares of projector companies, but projectors aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Running a large event these days can be quite the operation. Not only do you have to set up space, find a good time, invite your guests, and contact catering, you also have to figure out the increasingly complicated IT side of things. We’re here to help. We know that projector technology can be complex and expensive to buy and operate for large events. That’s why our projector rental service aims to provide an affordable, scalable turn-key solution for your event rental needs.

What We Do

Large events require large projections. Such venues as conference centers and theaters generally create problems for regular projectors. Outdoor venues are especially tough, requiring a very bright projector with a high-quality lens and projection screen. That’s because there is environmental lighting competing with the projection. These special configurations are our specialty.

We provide projector rentals for large events such as regional conferences, corporate meetings, awards, galas, and banquets. We can help you choose what kind of projector, screen, and other AV equipment best meets your needs.

We have heavily invested in our state of the art equipment to serve your event. Our projectors range from a couple of thousand lumens of brightness to over 10 thousand lumens, which can be used to display video, slideshows, still image, logos and graphics, or any other kind of presentation.

In addition to our signature projector rental service, we provide other audio-visual equipment rentals including speaker systems, video walls, huge TVs, monitors, and other visual aids for presentations, concerts, movie nights, stage projections, and more. We aim to be your one-stop solution for audio-visual rental needs.

Why hire us?

Don’t be disappointed when the expensive projector you purchased fails to display your media in an acceptable fashion. Instead of wasting precious time adjusting the technology to display properly, reading through jargon-filled online manuals, and pulling your hair out, let us help! We have years of experience and expertise in projector technology which we apply to determine your needs and provide end-to-end projector services for your large event, allowing you to focus on the other important aspects of running a successful event. The more time you spend on those areas, the better your conference will be.

Large event tech is difficult. Have you ever been at a presentation when the visual displays are fuzzy and you can’t tell what is on the screen, or the audio is so poor you can’t hear a word being said? That is not only unprofessional, it undermines the entire event! We’ll set up the technology so it fits the actual needs of your event space and enhances your presentation.

What are the benefits?

You simply cannot handle everything yourself as an event coordinator. Highly technical aspects of the event, such as audio and visual technology, should be trusted to our experts. We know that event management means juggling a daunting number of responsibilities and fighting against the clock. Producing a successful event requires collaboration and partnership.

Our service is designed to provide a helping hand. We save you money otherwise spent on acquiring expensive new equipment just for one large event. We save you the time and hassle of setting up complex audio-visual systems. We eliminate the risk of staff damaging the projector or lens and having to replace expensive projector bulbs or worrying about the transport of fragile, expensive equipment.

Let us save you some valuable time. Our projector rentals are perfect for your large events and can let you focus your energies on the countless other things that will make your next large event a true success. Call us today at 888-736-8301 to learn more about our projector and AV equipment rental services!

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Spring may be here, but for Ohioans and probably for other northerners it still feels like winter is upon us. Since you probably will not want to use a projector for fun-in-the-sun activities if there are four inches of snow on the ground and clouds blocking the sun, you’ll want to use your projector indoors until the weather gets nicer.

One of the most common uses of our rental projectors is playing movies. Whether you have a dvd projector which can play movies directly from their discs, or if you are planning on hooking up your projector to a laptop through an HDMI cord, you are still going to need to set up a space if you want to have the best experience during your movie night.

Step One: Find a surface to project on

While this is extremely common sense, finding a good surface to project your movie onto is crucial. If by some odd chance you happen to have the optimal projection equipment – a stretchable projection fabric screen – use that. If you don’t have the projection equipment laying around your house, which you probably don’t, consider hanging a clean thin white bedsheet or any other type of sheet to the wall.  If all else fails, projecting directly onto a wall might be a reasonable solution.

Step Two: Kill the lights

Dim the lights or turn them off entirely. A lot of projectors don’t have the lumens needed to display good quality images in very well lit rooms, and even tiny amounts of ambient light in the room can ruin the colors of the show or movie that you are watching.

Step Three: Get some speakers or a speaker bar

A lot of projectors do not have their own built in speakers, so you may need to invest in a few external speakers. If your projector doesn’t have its own audio system, I would highly recommend hooking it up to a soundbar, or if you don’t have one of those, any speakers you have in-house.

Step Four: Follow up measures

Now that you have all of the projector related stuff set up, do whatever you want. Invite friends, or don’t. The great thing about setting up a projector for movie night is that you don’t have to get weird looks for going to the movies alone – and you don’t have to pay seven dollars for a bucket of delicious but unhealthy popcorn.

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It’s finally happened. The Sony Xperia Touch has arrived in the US, and it is expensive. If you try to buy one of these bad boys on Amazon it is going to set you back $1,699.99. At this point you are either thinking that this price is way too high, or you are thinking that this price might be justifiable if the Xperia Touch is a good projector, or you may even be thinking about getting it as a projector rental.

The key question of this article is whether or not the Sony Xperia Touch is actually a good projector. While I do not have any personal experiences I can inform you with, I can compile the reviews from a bunch of other sources and lob them at you for you to ponder.

Let us start our review journey with the humblest of review platforms, the Amazon customer review section, in which there is only one comment for the Sony Xperia Touch at the time of this article’s publication.

The lone reviewer gives the Xperia Touch 2 stars out of 5, and says that the sound system on the device wasn’t great, also saying that “The projector is a joke”, in reference to the lumens put off by the device.

According to Sony’s webpage for the Xperia Touch, the projector only projects a 100 lumen image. For comparison, our short throw and standard projector rentals have projection brightnesses ranging from 1500-2500 lumens, which we recommend for low light and some light scenarios, but do not recommend for well lit environments.

If one Amazon review is not a good enough source for you, tech reviewers also have gripes with the display, but from what I have seen they are more forgiving of the low lumen count. However, tech reviewers are generally less forgiving when concerning the projector’s casing and battery life, so it evens out a bit.

I don’t want to draw this out too much, so I am just going to say that there are much better short throw projectors out on the market if you are looking for brightness. The one saving grace of the Xperia Touch is the fact that you can touch the projected image and get a response. If that is something that interests you, shoot for the moon.

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When you hear the term “virtual reality” you probably start thinking about virtual reality headsets. While virtual reality (VR for short) has certainly developed over the last few years, VR is a still growing technology field – a technology field in which projector rentals may soon become much more important.

Film director James Cameron has made quite a few hits throughout his career but his 2009 film Avatar was a massive success which preceded (or more likely caused) other filmmakers incorporating 3D into their works. While I am extremely hesitant to call 3D glasses VR technology, Cameron’s box office hit  has encouraged him to continue looking for ways to improve 3D movie viewing. 

James Cameron is planning on making several Avatar sequels, and with these sequels he has plans for improving 3D movie technology. Cameron says that he wants to make 3D movie viewing glasses-less through the use of projectors. Cameron’s production company has renewed its contract with the projection company Christie Digital Systems in order to make a new form of 3D movie viewing.

If you are not sure how projectors could possibly be used for making a 3D movie viewing experience, here’s a video demonstration.

This video was made by a VR company called BroomX using their MK Player 360 projector. Considering the fact that BroomX is a startup company, it will be interesting to see what Cameron and Christie Digital are able to cook up with their deeper pockets.

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The Sony Xperia Touch has finally hit the shelf in the United Kingdom and other European countries, and it is still scheduled for release in the United States. The Xperia Touch currently carries a pretty hefty price tag, as it is currently selling at £1,299.99/€1499, which is twenty dollars short of or five dollars over $1700 depending on which currency you are converting from. The high price point will probably deter many consumers for buying this as a product to use around the house, but the Xperia Touch is actually a projector which could make for a good business projector rental.

So, why is the Xperia Touch so expensive? First let’s look at what is under the hood of the Xperia Touch. The Xperia Touch isn’t the most portable projector in the world, but there’s good reason for that. The Touch comes equipped with the Android 7.0  Nougat operating system, a 32 gigabyte storage, and 3 gigabytes of RAM. The touch also has built-in Wifi and bluetooth compatibility and a micro (Type D) HDMI port.

Another thing which may contribute to the high price point of the Xperia touch is the amount of sensors the device has. According to Sony’s website, the touch has gps trackers, gyroscope, barometer, humidity detector, movement sensor, ambient light detector, accelerometer and a temperature detector.

The Xperia Touch is also pretty impressive in terms of display and touch registration  (unless you are currently planning on using the gesture mode, don’t). The Xperia touch is capable of projecting a clear display even in regularly lit rooms, and the display has a variety of sizes – from 23 to 80 inches. The projector is capable of detecting up to ten inputs (fingers) on the projected image, but the detection will require your projector to be closer to the surface you are projecting on in order for it to register properly.

The Xperia Touch is not “ultra-portable”, but it is lighter weight than a lot of laptops and is much more portable than standard projectors are. The Xperia Touch would be a good projector choice if you needed something which you could carry with you to a small sized business meeting or even over to a friend’s house just to watch movies. Although, the battery life of the projector is pretty lackluster, so if you are planning on using your projector for a time period longer than an hour bring a charger.

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During many articles, I talk about how you can get a projector rental for outdoor movie nights. Normally during these articles I do not fully dive into the intricacies of movie nights, but since summer is finally upon us this article is fully dedicated to the art of hosting outdoor movie parties.

Preparing the Outdoor Theater Space

A general rule of thumb when it comes to party hosting is that you want your guests to have a good time. Although it is easy to buy bulk ammo from Palmetto State Armory but you can’t directly force people into having fun with it,\. There are two tactics which will help you increase the probability of your audience having a great night. These two tactics are:

1. Thinking about what could cause your guests to have a bad time

2. Thinking about what you could do to give your guests a better viewing experience

Pretty simple, right? Even though these two strategies easily fall into the category of common sense, as humans we have a tendency of doing things which do not make sense.

Planning for the Negatives

In order to have your party not feel haphazard, you need to think over the two strategies listed above. For the first strategy, all you have to do is ask yourself, “What would make my party suck?”. In the context of outdoor movie nights, I can easily think of two things which can make your party miserable: mosquitoes and bad weather. The former you can take care of, if you happen to have the best propane mosquito killer lying around. The latter, not really avoidable.

Of all of the life on this green earth, mosquitoes are easily my least favorite. Luckily, those little party-poopers can be stopped with the aid of bug spray, and if you want to go the extra mile you can set up Tiki torches with Citronella, Citronella candles, or if you are comfortable with killing off all of the insects in your yard, you can spray pesticides, however there are other methods of mosquito deterrent besides these three options that you may want to investigate before resorting to pesticides.

What you are not able to control when planning an outdoor party of any sort is the weather. Unless you move indoors, your party will be at the mercy of the weather. The ever-relevant, if not overused, Murphy’s law adage which says that, “anything that can go wrong will”, most certainly applies to your outdoor movie night plans. Pay attention to weather forecasts when planning a date and time for your outdoor movie night.

Improving the Experience

I said earlier that you cannot force people into having fun, but that does not mean that you can’t try to do it anyway. If you want people to have fun at your movie night, think about ways you can improve your movie night to make it an even more fun experience. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself which will get you on a train of thought from which you can improve your movie night:

1.How do I want my outdoor theater space to be set up?

2.Do I want to have a specific theme for my outdoor movie night?

3.What kind of snacks and drinks should I get?

4.Is there enough space for guests to sit comfortably?

Setting up the Gear:

Now that you’ve considered the non-technical aspects, let’s get into the nitty gritty of hosting an outdoor movie night. If you’re not just throwing a TV outside on your back porch, you can go big and go home with a projector rental. Buying a wall-sized TV screen would cost you an arm and a leg, but a projector rental can be used to project in the same wall-sized proportions without you needing to fork over an amount of cash somewhere in the quadruple digits. If you want better  image quality, you can also get a projector screen rental.

It is also important to note that a lot of projectors do not have good sound systems. If you are hosting a movie night you will want to have something, such as a soundbar or a bluetooth speaker, set aside for your audio needs.

A Final Tip and Common Courtesy:

A big issue with projectors is the amount of light they produce. This amount is measured in lumens, and depending on how big you want your projection to be, how far you want the projector to be from the screen, and how early you want to start watching your movie, the amount of lumens you will need can change. A good minimum for using a projector for an outdoor movie night would be 2,000 lumens, but you may want to go higher depending on any of the three things I mentioned above, or for other reasons.

One last thing, if you live in the city, before hosting your movie night invite your neighbors to attend, or at the very least let them know what you are doing. Movie nights can be a great way to build up your relationship with your neighbors.

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Easter came and went, which means that graduation is just around the corner. Even if you have your high school or college graduation party planned out, there is always room for improvement. One way you can improve your party is by getting a graduation party projector rental. Graduation parties signify a new phase in life and the end of another. Here are three projector-oriented tips which will help you ensure that your graduation party is a blast.   

1. Photo/Video Collage

Slideshows of photos from school-years provide a great way to reminisce with friends and family. This technique is especially effective if you are hosting a high school graduation, as your guests can see how the graduate grew as a person throughout the years. Make sure to include the most memorable pictures. Although we do not always capture our favorite moments in life on camera, we do have our own favorite pictures to choose from. If you decide to set up a picture slideshow, consider playing some accompanying music at a reasonable volume. You want your attendees to socialize and blaring music can make talking to others difficult.

Videos are also enjoyable to watch when put into montages. Of course, you have to have some good videos recorded beforehand for this method to work. If you do have some videos from the graduate’s school or college years, I would highly recommend including them, as videos can easily captivate an audience.

2. Movie Night

A graduation party is still a party, there should be some fun involved right? If a photo or video collage does not suite your party’s pace, or if you just want to use the projector for something else after awhile, watching movies is an entertaining alternative. Getting a movie projector rental allows you to watch movies both inside and outside, and can let more people watch movies more comfortably.

If you have a lot of people attending and you have nice weather for your party, you should definitely consider doing this outside so you don’t have a bunch of people crammed into one room, and you also have nature to take care of your party’s air conditioning. Stock up on popcorn and refreshments and you’ll be good to go.

3. Karaoke

It sounds like a horrible idea to use a projector for musical purposes doesn’t it? Well, you might actually be right depending on how good of a singer you are. Karaoke is often only really prevalent in clubs or bars, but a lot of projectors are compatible with karaoke machines. So, if you or any of your attendees aren’t embarrassed by their singing voices, cast some words onto a screen and start singing away!

Conclusion

Not all of these options will suit everyone’s party plans, and a lot of people already have their parties planned out, but hopefully you will be able to find some usefulness from these tips. And if you can’t implement any of these tips this time around, you can always get them next time!

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It is the beginning of February which means that Valentine’s Day is nigh upon us, and for those who are not in a relationship, discount chocolate day is just one more day of waiting. However, if you are in a relationship you’re probably currently experiencing the hardest part of Valentine’s Day: planning how to celebrate it. If you’re struggling to find some good ideas, here are three ideas for what you can do on Valentine’s Day by getting a Valentine’s Day Projector Rental.

1. Indoor/Outdoor Movie Night

The reason that this suggestion is both indoor and outdoor is because that it’s the middle of winter, and if you live in Ohio or any other more northern State, it’s not unrealistic to be putting up with 20° temperatures and snow on Valentine’s Day, and those aren’t pleasant conditions for an outdoor movie night.

Getting a movie night projector rental is a fun way to mix up a standard movie night, as it makes the experience more like watching a movie at a drive-in instead of just watching TV like normal, and it makes the experience much more memorable. If you decide to go this route, don’t forget to pick up your favorite popcorn and sodas!

2. Gaming/Dance Party

Typically when you see the word party, it’s referring to more than just two people, but not this time! If you and your partner are both into gaming, you can surprise them by hooking up a projector with a gaming device and having a good old fashioned game night. A lot of more modern games are diverting from their split-screen origins when it comes to multiplayer, but there are still a lot of good games out on the market that have this feature, and playing almost any game cooperatively adds a whole lot of fun.

Of course, if neither of you are that into gaming, you can pick up a dancing game, such as Dance Dance Revolution, and challenge each other to an ultimate dance off. If neither of these ideas float your boat you can always fall back to the movie night plan.

3. Experiment with Visuals

If you’re a huge fan of paintings, you may just want to turn your house into a living art piece. There are a lot of cool visual sites out on the internet, and with  a standard projector rental you can bring those sites to life in your living room. The great part is that there are both interactive and non-interactive sites that let you create and view amazing artwork, so if you want you can draw images to project with your partner, or you could both just enjoy a virtual art gallery brought to life in your home.

The best thing about these ideas is that they can all be reasonably executed on Valentine’s Day itself,  as all of these ideas can be a quick date night plan, that don’t require you to have an entire day without any schedule complications such as work. I hope these three ideas have helped you if you’ve been stuck in a planning rut.

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