Pico Projectors

Optoma EP-PK-101 PICO Pocket Projector- 4 oz. is a projector about the size of an iPod.

Mention of pico projectors on Marketplace.

Any libraries trying these out yet? Any ideas of unique library functions that could be done with these?

(Graphic: Pico projector connected to a Wii)

February 22, 2009 by Uncategorized 8

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8 Responses

  1. StephenK says:
    February 22, 2009 at 7:44 am

    Impractical
    While the concept is neat, there are some problems with implementation. Abandonware is often a problem and I could see that happening with this device. Problems so far:

    1. The bulb in the pictured unit is rated for 20,000 hours. How do you replace it? Buy a new unit? The expanded tech specs say that the bulb is an LED so this would likely be throw-away technology.

    2. You’ve got to have a really dark room for these things to work. This won’t necessarily work in all settings as the bulb is just an LED. Average size projectors are using much larger light bulbs than an LED.

    3. Connection limitations. This device accepts only RCA phono input. There won’t be high-grade programming on this as the Blu-Ray spec shoots for HDMI cables between components. Hooking this up to a computer would be highly problematic unless you had an Averkey or a video card that supported composite output. Usually that is not standard issue as that was a $79 adapter for my MacBook back in 2006.

    It looks cute and seems like a great idea. There are still some engineering hurdles to be cleared before it is practical to spend budget allocations on.
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    Reply
  2. Anonymous says:
    February 22, 2009 at 5:19 pm

    20,000 hours
    >The bulb in the pictured unit is rated for 20,000 hours. How do you replace it? Buy a new unit?

    I don’t think you understand how long 20,000 hours is. There are 8760 hours in a year. You run the projector 24/7 for a year and you will be a 8760 hours. So the projector is good for 2.5 years of constant use.

    Let’s put a more reasonable usage on the device. It get used 5 hours per day 7 days per week. At that rate the bulb will run out in over ten years.

    Reply
    • StephenK says:
      February 22, 2009 at 8:53 pm

      Have you worked with teens?
      I do think you’re estimating that a bit low. Five hours per day? With the teenagers I have taught in the classroom, the duty cycle per day for tech like this would be quite a bit higher than that. I would more see such come out to 8 or more.

      Twenty thousands may be a lot of time but it is an LED. The bulb in a normal projector is normally rated for only 400 hours but is also quite a bit brighter. As we’ve seen with hardware longevity issues with older analog TVs, ten years really is not all that long of a time. These things would likely still be in use that long. At that point, then what?
      ________________________
      Stephen Michael Kellat, Host, LISTen
      PGP KeyID: 899C131F

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      • Bibliofuture says:
        February 22, 2009 at 10:18 pm

        Teens
        If they run it 24/7 the thing last more than 2 years. If they run it 12 hours a day it last 4 years. If the bulbs burnt out in six months there would be a problem but 20,000 is a very reasonable bulb life.

        Plus the entire projector is $400. I have projectors that have $400 bulbs and they last one year.

        Reply
    • mdoneil says:
      February 23, 2009 at 3:35 am

      I have one
      The battery runs out in about an hour and 20 minutes.

      The image is very dim, it works OK in a dark room, but a conference room in an office is not so good.

      It can only project something about the size of a manila envelope well. Anything larger is of poor quality. It is OK for a meeting of about 3 people, but if you want it to attempt to take the place of a regular projector you will be disappointed. If you want to use it with a laptop you have to get some monitor ->composite out contraption that was forty bucks.

      Anybody want the thing – three bills.

      Reply
  3. Bibliofuture says:
    February 22, 2009 at 5:58 pm

    Connecting to laptop
    The Samsung’s MBP200 Media Player Projector mentioned in the Marketplace piece connects to a laptop via a USB cable. So there is already a projector coming out that fixes that problem.

    More details about the Samsung’s MBP200 Media Player Projector here.

    Reply
    • Anonymous says:
      February 25, 2009 at 11:22 am

      Connecting to a laptop
      The 3M MPro110 Micro Projector connects to a laptop via VGA and it was out months before this projector. 3mmpro.com

      Reply
  4. Anonymous says:
    March 23, 2009 at 8:10 pm

    what it’s really for
    It is not a studio projector. It is a brilliant little piece of hardware that does exactly what it says it will.

    Reply

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