Cinema in your pocket.

You get less power, light and quality on the screen as their big brothers, still offer many advantages: Pico-projectors are cheap, durable, and tiny. You are projectors on the road. And apparently a trendy product, such as at the Cebit show.

 

Hanover - Projectors are expensive, but appealing: You bring your own pictures or the DVD movie at home as a projection on the wall. At the Cebit fair in Hanover is the first device of a new-generation projectors. They are much cheaper and can find space in the bag: LED projector is not receiving its light from gas, but by small LEDs.

AP
Pocket Cinema V10: As a potential buyer of such micro-projector, the industry, especially business people in mind. For the business everyday, but you have to make significant cutbacks: An almost complete Abdunkelung of the space is a prerequisite for a sufficiently good projection. Interestingly, the pocket projectors, which his films directly from the SD card takes, but also for users, the more entertainment in mind. The beamer "understands" MP3, JPEG, MPEG-4, AVI, ASF, and H.264 formats

"This is the start of a new device category," says Nicola Kippel of Taiwanese manufacturers Aiptek. The Pocket Cinema V10 is a tiny 150 grams of table with a tripod. The unit price of 349 euros has an integrated data storage with space for a gigabyte. This is the Powerpoint presentation, or any other content, and raises it to the wall - without any laptop or other device. Additional memory can be used with an SD card up to eight GB inserted.

The result, however, met no higher aspirations. The LED light has a brightness value of ten lumens - Beamer common transport their contents with a luminosity of at least 2,000 lumens. The space for the Pocket Cinema projection should be good to be darkened. Aiptek indicates that the projected area at a distance of 1.80 meters, 50 centimeters in diagonal measure - at VGA quality of 640 x 480 pixels. But the bigger the image on the screen becomes, the more blurred, it seems. Without power, the battery according to manufacturer's specifications for a presentation of 45 minutes.

The target group is producers of both business and private users. To accept the connections for VGA and video (AV) all suitably equipped devices - from digital camera on the notebook to the game or the iPhone. Also included is sound, there is a small stereo speakers. In the execution V10 Plus the unit also serves as a VCR, television pictures are in MPEG format on the SD card.

Elegant: Pico-projectors Toshiba already stated at the last Ifa before. The Toshiba design is about as big as a cell phone (10 x 4.5 x 1.7 cm), can associate with a smartphone, which then can deliver images and shows a more recreational use of this type: "Hey, check out my photos! " - And not on the phone display, but as a "major" projection. Medium term is likely to act as a mobile feature, by this type of pocket beamer then disappear in the mobile phone

The Pocket Camera can not and will not be a substitute for his beamer. But at the Cebit stand by Aiptek, there is already behind closed doors, the prototype for a successor, who in time for Christmas should appear. "We have big plans for the development," says company spokeswoman Kippel. "This is towards multi-functionality and luminous."

Pico in the Maxi version

A somewhat different path Acer has set. The "pico-projector" K10 brings it much on 100 lumens and a resolution of 800 by 600 pixels. The picture on the wall is 1.50 meters tall, with a device distance of one meter. The K10 is the idea of Beamer already closer, however, there are only in the darkened room at a satisfactory depth contrast.

The Acer projector weighs 550 grams, however, there is the added power - and the notebook, because there is no integrated data storage. He thought for mobile presentations of all kinds - or for incorporation into a presentation module for commercial use. Here comes the advantage of LED projectors to carry that heat generation is much lower than in conventional projectors. The non-binding target of the K10 is 599 euros, in trading on-line price is currently around 400 euros.

"I think that this is certainly a big hit," said Acer spokeswoman Alexandra Böckel man to sales expectations.

TMN
Acer K10: casual Beamer for home - the legacy of the slide projector. The K10 seems also for business applications suitable for more elegant than its small competitors: 100 lumens of light are still not much for a beamer, but ten times more than in the pockets of models

Probably the biggest advantage of LED projectors, the long lifetime of the lamps. For previous Beamer is usually an operating time of 4,000 hours, and the lamp replacement costs usually 200 to 600 euros. When asked about the cost of a replacement lamp for the K10 states on Acer's stand: "It is not worth it." When a manufacturer guaranteed lifetime of 20,000 hours is expected to take up void already quite different and more powerful devices will be, a replacement of the LED light is not even planned.

Apart from the light source, there are also differences in the beamer in the technical concept, as the light towards the wall is being processed. The K10 and most other devices use a "Digital Light Processing (DLP) technique described. Here, the light from light emitting diodes in the three basic colors red, green and blue on a chip run, for each pixel on the projection source is a tiny mirror. This directs the signals to either or to the side. To show the different shades to achieve a spinning color wheel used.

The Aiptek Pocket Cinema uses of the technique, however, LCOS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) and works with a white light emitting diode. The colors are similar to the LCD monitor with color filters produced.

The LED-Beamer - on the market, there is also the first offerings from Dell, LG, Samsung and other manufacturers - are at the beginning of their development. The projection of the quality shown at the Cebit device is not yet convincing. In one to two years already but could look quite different if the further development of Goethe's last words to heart: "More Light!"