Digital projectors are one of the most useful gifts of modern technology to man. They use a lens system to project digital image data directly onto a screen. Presentations and seminars today seem incomplete without a digital projector. Not only do the projectors make presentations more sophisticated and interesting, they also make them more digestible. With the evolution of science, there has been a constant improvement in the line of digital projectors, the newer versions boasting of more features than their older counterparts. Basically, there are four technologies that are used to make digital projectors today:

High intensity CRT

Texas Instruments’ DLP Technology

LCD projectors that use LCD light gates

Eidophor oil-film projectors

Out of the above four, the last one, i.e. ‘Eidophor oil-film projectors technology’ is obsolete now.

If you are looking forward to buying a digital projector, following are some of the parameters knowing about which will help you decide better on your purchase:

RESOLUTION
One of the major factors to consider before buying a digital projector is the resolution it can accept from the computer. Your projector should be capable of accepting resolutions of 1280×1024 or even more. A projector with higher resolution will output better color quality.

BRIGHTNESS RATING
To state it simply, more is the brightness rating of a projector, more will be the brightness of its projection. Home theatre models generally have the brightness ratings less than office models of projectors. The room size, light intensity, screen size and distance will also determine the lumen rating suitable for your needs. The digital projectors available on the market today have brightness ratings ranging from as low as 700 Lumens to as high as 15,000 lumens. It is always good to decide beforehand the minimum and maximum brightness you need for your requirements. Going for a higher intensity projector is always better than picking up one with a lower brightness.

DISTANCE OF SCREEN
The maximum permissible distance of the screen on which the projector can produce image without suffering on color or resolution is also a critical determinant of its performance. By a rule of thumb, the more this distance (also called as Throw Distance for a projector ), the more will be the size of the image produced by your digital projector. Just like it is in the case of the lumens rating, higher throw distances are required in case of office models as compared to home models of projectors. Most projectors available today have more than sufficient throw distances to suit the requirement of a home theatre, and you need to heed to this parameter only if you have greater requirements.