The brightness and clarity of the image seen on your ActivBoard is directly related to the quality of the projector. The more lumens a projector has, the brighter the image it casts. Having a bright, clear picture on the ActivBoard makes it easier for everyone in the classroom to see the lesson ... and also easier to hold the attention of your students. You should NOT have to dim the room lights in order to see a good image on the board. Darkening the room puts students to sleep and makes it difficult for them to see their desktop and take notes. The manufacturer (Promethean) recommends an XGA LCD digital projector with a minimum brightness of 1700 ANSI lumens.... 2000 ANSI lumens minimum is preferred for classrooms with uncontrolled lighting. In late 2005, we began to make a 2000 ANSI lumen XGA LCD projector standard in all of our pre-configured bundles.

Which one is better... XGA or SVGA?
SVGA projectors cost a little less, but there is a serious drawback. The resolution of an image viewed on the ActivBoard is 1024x768 for XGA projectors and 800x600 for SVGA projectors. You can see so much more landscape at the higher resolution. For that reason, we no longer recommend or sell SVGA projectors. Now that XGA projectors are popularly priced, there is no reason to downgrade to SVGA.

Which one is better... LCD or DLP?
There are two different kinds of digital projector technologies - LCD and DLP. Which one is better? The answer is simple. That depends on the setting and the purpose. For home theatre enthusiasts, who watch video in a darkened room, DLP is often preferred because it delivers excellent contrast in that environment. But in a classroom's uncontrolled lighting environment, LCD is a far better choice for a number of reasons...

LCD has better color saturation, which makes the picture appear rich and vibrant.

The accuracy of the color reproduction in LCD is superior... meaning the colors

look right, which is not the case with DLP in a lighted room. For example, you don't want your yellow to come out pea green, which happens frequently with DLP.

LCD also delivers a sharper image than DLP at any given resolution. The

difference is more relevant for lesson plan flipcharts with lots of text than it is for video.

LCD projectors typically produce significantly higher ANSI lumen outputs than do

DLPs with the same wattage lamp.

Bottomline... go with LCD in your ActivClassroom. Again, our bundles all contain an LCD XGA projector.

Selecting a Brand
Having installed more Promethean ActivBoard systems than any other company in the USA, we have found that not all brands of projectors are Promethean-friendly. Our engineers have tested and installed many brands and types of projectors with this system. Our lab tests demonstrate that a number of brands (even big brand names) do not always provide optimum results. For example, some projectors don't fill the image area on the ActivBoard from edge-to-edge. Others are not compatible with multimedia speaker systems, which is important to many school systems. Or, the bulb can't be replaced without disconnecting the projector from the ceiling mount.

The Projectors We Recommend
We recommend LCD XGA digital projectors from Sanyo or Eiki (which are both manufactured by Sanyo). We have found these projectors to be ideal in the ActivClassroom setting and the best value for such feature rich projectors. We offer both a 2000 ANSI lumen model (the Sanyo PLC-XW55 and the Eiki LC-XB23) and a 3000 lumen model (the Sanyo PLC-XU48). A 2000 lumen projector comes standard in all of our pre-configured bundles.