Options for a portable presentation setup?

[cybereality]

I am planning to do some 3D presentations in a few months and I am trying to figure out what some of my options are. They will probably be for a small group of people, lets say 10-15 people in a small room. I'd like some nice looking 3D, but it doesn't have to be cinema quality. Just good enough to share some photos and videos (no gaming).

A 3D laptop is one option, but it seems limiting. Most of them seem to be around 15.6", which is rather small for 10+ people to be huddled around. Not to mention the cost of 10+ Nvidia glasses. So that is probably out of the question.

The most obvious thing is to use a cheap pico projector and just use those paper anaglyph glasses I have a bunch of. That certainly won't be the best quality, but it is very reasonably priced and ultra-portable, so I may have to fall back on that if nothing else works out.

Then that got me thinking about dual projection. I could get a pico projector starting at $100, so two of them would be affordable. I bet I could even use those free RealD glasses you get at the theater to polarize them (I have a ton of them). So that is still reasonably priced. However, this silver screen is going to kill me. Not only the cost, but the portability. I need this solution to be mobile. So is there any way to do dual passive without using a silver screen (meaning just on a regular white wall)? Would dolby/infitec be a realistic solution for this setup? I could probably get the filters, but I think those glasses are expensive. Remember I need around 10 or more of them.

The other thing that has me intrigued is the possibility of a 3D pico projector. Vivtek is supposed to come out with a model in April/May which is native 720P 3D-DLP for only $500 ( http://www.geeknewscentral.com/2011/02/ ... l-package/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ). So that might be a nice solution, at least in terms of quality. However I would still need 10-15 DLP-Link glasses, which could cost me $600-$1000 and then I have to worry about them getting lost or broken. I would much rather have something that used paper glasses (either anaglyph or polarized).

The key aspect for me is I want something that can fit in a backpack and be portable. I also don't want to spend more than around $1200 on the whole setup, everything included (although realistically I don't even have that much money). So what are my options here? Anyone have any ideas?

[PalmerTech]

Are you trying to convince them how awesome 3D is, or is it just another addon that adds value to your presentation?

If it were me, I would go with anaglyph glasses and a laser based pico, since they have basically zero light loss on pure red and blue. None of the other options seem like they are cost effective at this point in time.

[Fredz]

I'd say the most cost effective solution would be a 800x600 or 1024x768 85Hz/120Hz DLP projector with active shutter glasses, I think they can be found relatively cheap now. Some weeks ago I found a Viewsonic PJD5112 (800x600@120Hz) for 100-150€ (can't remember the exact price) on a french site.

For example you can find the OPTOMA EP716 (800x600@85Hz) for $225 on ebay, but I guess you can find better deals :
http://cgi.ebay.com/OPTOMA-EP716-HD-TV- ... 0490849806" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You may have a look at the 3D projectors list to see what models of projectors you can look for :
http://www.3dmovielist.com/projectors.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

With eDimensional wireless shutter glasses ($24.95 on Berezin) a complete 3D projection solution for 10 persons would cost under $500. You'd still need a laptop or a PC installed with Windows XP to display images or videos (using the old NVIDIA stereo driver), but you can easily create a dedicated partition on your hard disk for this.

Even if 800x600 or 1024x768 is not that great a resolution, I think it's still a lot better than what you can get from anaglyphic solutions with their color loss/retinal rivalry.

Another solution that you may want to try would be to use a standard projector with 10 pairs of prism glasses. You could use KMQ glasses or adjustable prism glasses, but I'm not sure that would work well for 10 spectators. You'd also need to project the image above-and-below with the projector in portrait mode to have the best use of the projector resolution. Still interesting to try I'd say and better than anaglyph glasses from the reviews I saw here.

[Likay]

Try the dual picoprojector route with the da-lite virtual black backprojection (and polarizationpreserving) screen and build your own 30-40" passive backprojection 3d-tv depending on how bright the projectors are. Maybe appealing i don't know since the projectors at least must have keystone correction or lenseshift...

Edit: I just read the backpack thing so make the screen smaller. It'll probably be very bright as well.

[Dom]

You should try and make a parallax barrier for your projector. Just put it in front a bit with a glass panel holding it, kind of like how a polarized filter would be setup. I'm not sure if it would work but worth a try unless the viewing angle is not good and everyone had to sit lined up in a row.

Other than that I would use wired e-dims and a cheap 800x600 3d ready dlp projector. I guess you could use windows xp but you could also use windows 7 cause all you would have to do is activate the glasses manually and whos saying you need nvidia 3d vision drivers to watch movies in stereoscopic player or to view pictures. You could use iz3d in interlaced to view games anyways.

[cybereality]

@PalmerTech: No, this is going to be for people already fans of 3D. I started a 3D Meetup group and want to have this setup so people can share 3d pictures/videos and do presentations of their work. Although I may bring it to my job and try to convince some people there too.

@Fredz: Yeah, the DLP projector is looking like the best option. I see some for as low as $300, but getting 10-15 glasses will also cost a little bit. Still within my budget though, and no special screen required. I don't really care about resolution, 800x600 is good enough for this purpose. I just want the 3D to look good. Those prism glasses look interesting, I've never tried them before. I will probably pick up a pair, just to experiment with. However the cost wouldn't be much less than going the shutter glass route, so I'm not sure that would be worth it. Thanks for the tip, though.

@Likay: Well dual projection is the way I want to go, however it seems that the screen is the limiting factor. I want something that is somewhat portable, and that seems like a more involved setup. It would work great for my living room, but not if I want to take this to work, or do a presentation somewhere. I guess I could just get the material and roll it up into one of those art tubes ( http://www.amazon.com/Tube-Storage-Tube ... B000UU8O8U" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ). That could be portable. But back-projection is probably out of the question. I need to just put a pico-projector on a table and project on the wall. I don't think I will have the space for back projection. But thanks.

@Dom: Actually a parallax barrier projector could actually work, and would make for quite and impressive presentation. I have some ideas on how to do this, it would still require 2 projectors, but they could be cheap $100 picos. The barrier itself would be the difficult part to make, and it would require careful setup of the projectors. And the viewing angles probably wouldn't be good enough for 10-15 people. But it would be a fun experiment.

[mAchiNE]

Cyber did you find a soloution to this?
You could possibly use this screen for polarised projection:
http://cgi.ebay.com/NW-SONY-VPS-80DS-DY ... 961wt_1177" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It is a portable(ish) self standing pull up front projection screen 80" diagonal viewing area, it has a silver coating. It was designed for use with normal projectors to improve brightness and contrast in rooms with ambient light, and it might work for dual polarized projector setups. I actually have one of these screens and I did a quick test on mine using a LED light on my cell phone (I don't currently have a projector) and some RealD glasses, one eye could see the reflected light as normal (but slightly darker due to the polarized lens) and the other blocked out most of the light, however I could see some fragments of discolored light in the eye that should have seen nothing but I don't know if this is because of the screen or because of using the cheap glasses as a polarizing filter, seems like it could work but might have some minor ghosting issues.
I'm sure you you can find one of these screens secondhand cheaper than the link I gave you (I found mine on trademe for $50NZD and couldn't pass up the opportunity for a silver screen that could potentially be used for a polarized projector setup for such a good price!).
When folded down this screen would easily fit in most cars (including small hatchbacks) and you may even be able to carry it on foot short distance, but it would probably be slightly too long to get away with taking it on a bus.
Anyway if you think this might work for you I can test with a brighter light and take some photos of the left/right views so you can see how bad the light leakage is (maybe I can even take it to my friends house who has a projector and test it on that)

[cybereality]

I kind of put the project on hold for a moment. I am probably not going to be needing this until later this year or maybe early next year. The idea was to do presentations at the New York Stereoscopic Meetup (which I founded recently). However it has been slow getting members, so I am waiting until we have a good amount of people before I spend all this money for a presentation setup. At the moment I am looking at building a 3D home theater, using the Acer H5360 (unrelated to this portable setup). And I also have my DIY HMD I want to work on (which will use the same projectors as this presentation setup). Just been really busy lately, but I haven't abandoned it.