portable PJ for Radiology conferences

[jostenmeat]

Help me once again BMX!

My younger brother is currently a chief resident in radiology at a major hospital (biggest ER center in the area, in fact), and he wants to convince his department to get a portable unit for use during educational conferences, ideally under the $1k mark. Not too large, in fact he says something like the footprint of a laptop would be ideal. He says they have two, one being decent, and the other being a POS.

I asked for particulars, and he says radiographic images include plain film, CT, MRI, and ultrasounds, all displayed through a computer. He did not know what the output rez is when I asked, but it's at the highest level they can, I think he was saying, he just doesn't know what that rez is.

It will likely be displayed on white walls, and ideally it could shoot an image of about 8 to 10 ft across.

I also made him send me some google images, because the first thing I worried about with biz class PJs are that the shadow detail may suffer, but I don't know if it matters so much with radiology. Maybe it does?

I gave him a couple of follow up questions, including if they will use it only in the dark, or with lights on, or both. I also asked him what the "decent" model they have was, so we know where we are coming from, but I don't know if it's "portable".

Here are images of various techs like plain film, MR, and CT, but I'm not exactly sure which are which, or if he listed those in order respective to the order of the photos, not that we need to know this perhaps.

 

[BMXTRIX]

This is a drill down discussion.

The $1,000 budget means that he isn't allowed to have expectations. It's not a real budget. It's like going to a car dealership and saying I want a killer new car - here is my $12,000.

You don't get choices in 'quality' at $1,000 - you get the mass produced stuff. Don't get me wrong, there are a ton of projectors under $1,000.

He will get a: 1024x768 resolution OR 1280x800 resolution projector most likely.
It will be: About 3,000 lumens
Contrast: Will not matter - unless you control the light in a room, you will have horrible contrast. Contrast, basically, does not matter for business.
Lamp prices: Will cause him issues if $1,000 is the budget.

Why laptop sized? Is this to be installed or is it supposed to be portable?

For portable, the Casio line of Laser/LED models is really exciting to me. Long life, no lamps, under $1,500, 1280x800 resolution available, decent specs.

For installed, put in a budget at Projector Central's "Search By Feature" section, and find one that maximizes specifications and is NOT made by BenQ or Vivitek. Preferably LCD. Plan on lamp changes annually and budget for it. Don't worry about size.

The Samsung LED projector is one of the most exciting out there I think, but can't go to large with any lights on.

I usually take a $1,000 budget and just throw a projector at it. Basically it's saying that they aren't really serious about wanting something better.

He also needs to know how to connect to a projector properly. Highest resolution possible = lousy results. You MATCH the projector's resolution only. If you go higher than the projector can actually display then you lose image quality. This is a common mistake and needs to be corrected.

 

[jostenmeat]

THANKS MAN! Yes, I know, pathetic budget. I told him that a couple of years ago you helped me find that $750 PJ gift that was only 768p, and that's after a sale. I know with HT PJs, the cheapest someone could find 1080p for a while is about 1k, so I didn't say anything. Yes, he did say reliability would be nice.

I think it needs to be portable. I will double check. I will see him at least by Thanksgiving, and can pick his brain more by then. He has responded to me, and has said:

Lights will be dimmed, but still on to get around.

He is afraid that they are going to buy another PJ, but like the last one, they will overpay for a POS, maybe SD, and at random. So he wants to find a better value for them, but he needs to present some sort of argument for it, because he knows nothing, and even said so much that he didn't even understand many of my questions!

I am pretty sure he is off on the larger size of 10 ft, but could possibly be right about being as large as 8 ft, because after I told him I could donate my old screen, he replied by saying that it wouldn't even fit on the wall they typically use, but anyways, I'll tell him to dial the size down. He doesn't want to push getting a screen, at a least a fixed one anyways, because he feels certain that the janitors will damage it.

He says the throw is about 15ft, and that the pixels are the size of pencils, and in his words, looks worse than Lite Brite.

I feel confident that I can make a compelling argument for them to up the budget by $500 for the Casio. I will look into that Samsung.

Thanks again.

 

[jostenmeat]

Update: It appears that they don't really want to buy one, as they have yet another PJ that my brother didn't know about. It's still only SD in rez he says, but still much better than the POS that he was hating. Thanks for your time BMX, it was still appreciated.