LCD projectors are neat little devices. You can project
computer output on a large screen for either many people to see at once,
or just for your own personal pleasure in gunning down life-sized
critters. However, they're also quite expensive: a bare miniumum
projector will easily run you $1000. And the replacement bulbs can
easily cost $250.
An option is to buy technology that's a few years old. The
predecessor to today's LCD projectors is the LCD Projection Panel, which
was essentially an LCD monitor without a backlight that was placed on
top of an overhead projector (OHP, to save my typing skills). In
their day (mid-late 90's), these little buggers were even more
expensive than today's LCD Projectors: a base model was about
$3000, and an XGA model could set you back $14,000. I kid you not.
Now that the hardware industry has moved on to bigger and better
things, no salesman worth his spats would be caught dead making a
presentation on such Flintstonian hardware as a big bulky OHP and LCD
panel. Enter Ebay: you can pick up a decent basic panel for
less than $100. Decent XGA models usually go for about $300.
If you want to show video, you'll either have to find a panel with
S-Video or Composite inputs, or spring for a line doubler to convert
the video signal to VGA.
OHPs are a dime a dozen. I have bought 3 for about $20/ea.
But here's a couple of problems lurking:
(1) in order to have a decent projected image, it should be
at least 500 lumens (of course, 'decent' is a relative term. Here,
it means "easily visible in a darkened room"). Most low-level
OHPs put out about 2500 lumens. Almost all LCD projection panels
will only pass about 10-15% of the supplied light, so that boots your
2500 lumens down to 250 lumens at the screen: too dark for most
viewing.
(2) right at the point where an OHP begins to put out enough light to
make a good projected LCD image (4000-5000 lumens), you run into a
limitation of the halogen bulbs. The next step is to go to a
Metal-Halide driven OHP.
(3) the MH OHPs are quite powerful (575W, puts out 7000-8000 lumens),
but they're rare (=expensive, usually about $200), and the replacement
bulbs are costly (usually about $100).
So, the obvious solution is to figure out a way to upgrade a standard (=cheap) OHP with a
reasonably-priced MH bulb.