Projectors

Traditional digital projectors project an image on to a screen that has the same shape as a computer monitor – (4:3), and include the following resolutions: SVGA (lower resolution) XGA (the most common resolution), SXGA+ (extremely high resolution) and UXGA (top of the range resolution).

Today, many new projectors, especially those for home theater project an HDTV shaped image (16:9), and they are referred to as wide screen projectors.

Brightness:

1000 to 2000 lumens - this lumen range is suitable for normal business conference room and classroom use. Presentations should be done with the room lighting reduced.

2000 to 3000 lumens - products in this class are suitable for large conference rooms and classrooms and can illuminate a larger screen without much loss of image quality. The image will be bright enough that a reasonable amount of room light can be tolerated without any major effect to the image being display.

3000 lumens and up - these ultra-bright projectors are in several performance classes and actually range from 3000 up to 12000 lumens or more. Prices of these products also cover a wide range depending on other performance characteristics. They are perfect for a variety of large venue applications.

Contrast Ratio

Contrast is a measure of the difference between the black and white areas of an image.

All colors (other than pure black and white) have some amount of black or white in them, so the larger the contrast ratio, the greater the projector's ability to show subtle color details and tolerate ambient lighting.

Many people prefer to have some soft ambient lighting as it makes viewing easier on the eyes.