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Resolution and your Projector Lamp

For all those who don’t understand what they’re getting into when they read words like VGA, SVGA, XGA, and SXGA, we are going to explain them so that buying a projector is less technical.

Let’s begin by saying that, ultimately, all the terms we are going to talk about are referring to the resolution of the projector image, so when you hear an acronym like XGA, you’ll know what kind of resolution it offers. First of all, VGA stands for video graphics array. This is the lowest that any projector image will offer and it is even hard to find in older projector models.

VGA doles out a resolution of 640x480p which isn’t very useful for much. You might remember buying old computer monitors that displayed VGA and everyone was so amazed by the quality. If you managed to somehow get your hands on an old VGA projector and you decided to hook your personal computer to it, you would have to dumb down the resolution on the computer in order to clear up the fuzzy picture. All computers these days are at least SVGA quality picture and most of them do not even have the capability of lowering their resolution below 800x600p.

On a side note, if you are thinking about getting a projector with higher ANSI lumens instead of higher resolution in order to have the best of both worlds think again. Even though you may get a little bit more contrast out of a brighter image (due to less ambient light affecting your image), it is not that much to compensate for the loss between lets say an XGA image versus an SVGA image. Think about creating a room with less ambient light and getting a higher resolution output instead. Unless of course you have no choice and you must present in a room with lots of ambient light. For the average person, a more powerful projector lamp isn’t always the answer.

Now with being said, I guess I have to go on and explain what SVGA is and how it differs from XGA. SVGA offers a resolution of 800x600p, which is pretty darn good, but doesn’t nearly compare to the crispness of the XGA since it spits out 1024x768p.

The reason why most people haven’t jumped onto the XGA circuit is because the price for an XGA projector is typically hundreds of dollars more. Recently, XGA projectors have been coming down in price and are more accessible to the introductory buyer. Why some companies stay with the older SVGA models boggles my mind, but I suppose there must be some kind of separation in order for them to make money from all kinds of consumers.

After talking numbers, we need to make it clear that although SVGA isn’t so bad, the upgrade to an XGA will definitely clear up the obviously pixilated areas, making your viewing experience more enjoyable.

Finally, one of the latest additions to the image market is the introduction of SXGA and it’s stunning 1280x1024 resolution. The projectors that are using SXGA are quite expensive but it seems as if we are moving into resolution heaven.

That’s it for now but look here for more info about the emerging projector resolutions and projector lamp technology.

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