Thread: Halloween Projections

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its already pretty dark where i am i wont be able to do an "Actual" test. 150 bucks for a pico with 70 lumens is gonna be a tough find. 80 lumens is pretty much the brighest pico you can get right now. I go this one since I'm gonna use it for doing presentations and i need the 75 min battery life. For halloween decorations obviously 75 minutes wouldnt be long enough so i will have to have it plugged in. could you link me which optoma projector you were looking at?

there are other pico projectors like the 3m pro series, they are 15 lumens and go for $280ish. for $100 there is the aaxa p1jr, but that is also probably around 15 lumens and wont give you the results you looking for. thats the reason i went with aaxa's p4, 80 lumens for $339. I think 80 is just enough for me to do presentations with a bright enough image that i wont bore my audience.
once the sun starts going down this projector should be able to show up

"real" sunlight is really bright compared to say lightbulbs and can easily wash out any projector, but once that sun gets behind the mountains just a little the image really starts to shine.

Did you take a look at the AXXA M2? It's the same price, and does 110 lumens. It's 1024x768 native as well. The only bad thing I've read about the M2 is the fan is loud apparently.. so I didn't order it for that reason.. but for a display that's no big deal. What do you think?

This is the one I was talking about..its $650 not $500:
http://www.amazon.com/Optomas-ML500-...9842915&sr=8-5

It looks really good for the price and what it delivers. Just a bit too steep for me to consider for using as a prop. Mostly because it's so small I worry someone will step on it and break it, or like you said, snag it.

The other thing I was trying to aim for is a 3-LED lamp.. not sure if the ML500 is 3 leds.. but to shoot 500 lumens out, compared to 10 for most and about 80 for the one you got.. I am not quite sure I understand the difference. Is it like $200 for a 500lumen LED or something? Why do so many $150 or so pico projectors use 10 to 20 lumens of output if for around the same price, maybe a little more you can get a 75 to 110 lumen LED lamp in there? And how then do they make that ML 500 lumens with LED lights?

I've read a few 3-led for around $250 or so too.. they are RGB LEDs instead of 1 pure white one. Still not quite sure I understand why most use a single white led, while some will use 3 color LEDs.. I do understand the RGB colors and all that, but I don't quite get the internals of how 3 color LEDs or 1 white LED does the same thing. I think the white LEDs use a color wheel, and from what I've read most suffer from the screen door effect the larger the image size.

You know, for a simple cheap display that would work "ok" for a kids projector, that eyeclops was impressive. However, it's very dark so not sure it would come close to being good enough for pumpkin displays. It's too bad, but what is amazing is many people bought that thing for as little as $19 or so. That's a LED pico project.. for $19 or so.. that is crazy! Even if it's fairly dark, crappy resolution, that you can buy a relatively new piece of technology that can project movies for so little is unreal.

I hope in the next few years they really take off. Never having to worry about the lamp on a projector is a huge deal.

Last thing.. do you know about what lumen output of an LED compares to what light output of a normal light? From my understanding it's about 8 times difference.. meaning a 110 lumen LED projector is about the same as a 900 lumen regular light projector in terms of brightness. It's kind of deceiving..because there is no way a 110 lumen projected image would be bright enough to watch normally.. so I think the LED projector world doesn't make it clear that 110 lumens of LED is like 900 or so lumens of the previous generation of light projectors. So if that is the case, the ML500 at 500 lumens is a VERY bright projector, good enough for home theatre use.. and with using LED, you can leave the thing on all day/night for years without worry.

I actually did look at the M2 but i wanted something that would run off its own battery source. It's important for me to be able to have a presentation that i dont need to have plugged in. I sometimes take clients out to lunch and instead of having them look at my laptop, i want to be able to project onto a small screen so we dont have to crowd around the table. I tried looking into the m2 too. i found a lot of positive reviews on it. I doubt the fans are that loud, or they were fixed.

$650 is pretty steep just for a prop haha. If you have the cash and a new set up it may be worth getting. I'd probably do a window thing(you probably dont need that many lumens) so it doesn't get ruined or stolen though. but you can spend a lot less. The main brands i saw for these pico projectors were aaxa, optoma, microvision, and vivitek.
Well I'm gonna be busy need to set up everything. my phone keeps telling me im getting a forum response so i wanted to see what i could do to help you out.

just noticed your second post. i dont think the light output is 8 times the difference. theres no way an 110 lumen projector is the same as a 800 lumen regular light projector. Lumens are lumens, there should be no difference.

Some great links there I did not know about. Thanks for sharing! I totally hear you on the cost of the DVD against the cost to produce and the length of screentime you get for the money... quite the racket! But that should motivate one to go shoot their own material and save the bucks for their haunt props instead!

I saw one youtube projection that some guy shot video of his five kids singing that song.. forget the one now.. but he got them to lip sync to it then projected them on 5 pumpkins.

My idea for next year is to shoot video of my 4 kids, get 4 of those styrofoam heads, and using Adobe After Effects, do some twisted animations transforming them into something else.. then have them make up a story to their friends.. "Tonight we're revealing our true selves..." something like that. I thought it might be fun. As well, I'll do some of them singing too or something like that. It's a very neat effect.

Don't think this was mentioned yet in this thread but John Hyer has some projector effects videos. I have had my eye on the Spiders, Bats and Snake one for a few years now. Saw it the other night on sale at Halloween Asylum's site for 25% off I believe so decided to pick it up for next year. I'm doing a vampire castle theme on Halloween night and the bats would have come in handy for this year. Projector is on my list for next year, so far have borrowed one from DH's company. BTW the Spider, Bats one comes with an instruction DVD to help you get started using this effect in your haunt.

Originally Posted by deoblo

man i love the video were did you get bthe singing pumkins and what did you use as far as a projector ?

Thanks Deoblo, I have to use a fairly powerful computer (mainly the video card) on the Flying Skulls and Pumpkin screensaver or else it will studder, although I could probably capture 10 minutes of it and just play it on a DVD player so I wouldnt need a computer sitting in my living room but being in IT I have them in every other room of the house anyway
Projector Window Flying Skulls with Pumpkin = Infocus IN72
Projector 3 Pumpkins = Hitachi (Picked up on Craigslist $200 new)
Projection on Pumpkins $25 = http://singingpumpkins.bigcartel.com/
Projection on Windows $9.99 = Screensaver http://www.3planesoft.com/holidays-s...d-screensaver/

Four projectors is a good setup. I did that a few years back at my brother in laws house but wanted to do 5, except the breakers kept popping so had to stay with four, unfortunately.

http://backyardtheater.com/forums/index.php?topic=441.0

Remember to use white shower curtain material (I'm assuming you're doing all rear projection), not frosted or opaque- those cause hotspotting.

Victor

Originally Posted by Ghost of Spookie

Don't think this was mentioned yet in this thread but John Hyer has some projector effects videos. I have had my eye on the Spiders, Bats and Snake one for a few years now. Saw it the other night on sale at Halloween Asylum's site for 25% off I believe so decided to pick it up for next year. I'm doing a vampire castle theme on Halloween night and the bats would have come in handy for this year. Projector is on my list for next year, so far have borrowed one from DH's company. BTW the Spider, Bats one comes with an instruction DVD to help you get started using this effect in your haunt.

Good catch on the Jon Hyers Video link, I had that bookmarked and just forgot to add it to the first post here, it's there now!