Calling a projector hire company will often get you confused as they ask:

• What lumens do you need? (Lumens is the brightness of the projector)
• What resolution do you need? (Resolution is the number of pixels at which the display device does not have to expand or compress the input signal)
• What type: install, desktop or portable? (Install projectors tend to be larger and heavier, desktop ones are small and light and portable are somewhere in between!)

What you should ask yourself are the following simple questions:

• How many people will need to see the projected image?

  A 1000 lumens projector will usually be sufficient for a smaller meeting – up to 20 people. 2000 lumens is better. A brighter projector will be needed for brighter rooms, bigger screens and larger audiences – some projectors go up to over 10,000 lumens but you shouldn’t need these for a simple presentation!

• What will you be showing on the projector?

  Both data (from a computer) and video can be used to input into the majority of projectors. Most computers are XGA resolution (1024x768 pixels), but some older models may be VGA. This is not a problem for SVGA projectors, which will generally automatically lower the resolution, however if you are projecting high resolution photos and want near photographic detail, then it will have to be an XGA. If the projector is only going to be used to project video from a DVD or video, then there is little advantage in using the higher resolution XGA since SVGA can already project an image consisting of over 800 lines which is more than the resolution of a video signal.

• How big is the room – do you need a PA system?

  Most projectors come with a small speaker that’s useless for anything practical. There’s nothing worse than being unable to make yourself heard! If you’ve got sound with your presentation or video, make sure you hire a separate PA system to let people hear it.

James Hunter works for Edric Audio Visual, one of the largest projector hire companies in the UK.

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