Digital Projection’s E-Vision 8K WUXGA Projector
by Brad Herring
I recently had the opportunity to use the Digital Projection (DPI) E-Vision 8K WUXGA projector. I volunteer with the A/V ministry team at my home church – River of Life, Church of God in Cumming, GA. We are a smaller church with an average service attendance around 150 people. We are contemporary worship focused, but on a more moderate level.
We had several aging systems and our video delivery was laughable. We knew we needed an update and when the financial resources became available we jumped at the chance to make some much needed improvements.
Our church had to have a rather simple system because our entire team is volunteer-based. I’m often on the road or in production, so it needed to operate with general ease. Our sanctuary is a rather traditional design; wood ceilings, high wood beam-arches, and a larger-than-life stained glass window on the opposite wall of the stage. Not only does this window allow for a large amount of ambient light, it color shifts most of that light to blue. This meant we needed projection with a good punch; however, while funds had become available, we still had a difficult budget to maintain.
Our ambitious video projection design was to use two projectors, edge blended, to create a 7’ tall by 24’ wide screen. Utilizing a medium throw lens, the two DPI E-Vision 8K projectors were edge blended to fill the screen, creating an overall final screen resolution that is 2560 pixels wide by 720 pixels high.
We knew at the beginning of the project we had to create a visual image with punch. The large screen was certainly going to be the center point of the stage design for our congregation. One of the biggest obstacles we had to overcome was the large stained glass window on the back wall of the church. Knowing that we were placing a large white custom Da-Lite screen opposite it, we needed projectors that were up to the task.
It’s worth mentioning that several well-meaning people in the church pointed to $1,000-$3,000 8K projectors they had found online, and wanted to know why they wouldn’t work just as well as the DPI Envision 8K that we were choosing.
However, we knew that all projectors are not created equal, and lumen count is not the only thing that matters. DPI has a great reputation and their projectors are very well made. Some of the major selling points for DPI include the better native resolution of their projectors, their ability to accept different lenses, horizontal AND vertical lens shift, edge blending built into the projector, control via Ethernet, dual lamp systems, and multiple HD inputs. It took some explaining to get the IT people to understand that projectors vary based off the task, and in this case – the DPI E-Vision 8K was our best option.
The E-Vision 8000 projectors created a very bright light source that easily overcame the ambient light in the room, including the color shift issue we were experiencing. One of the things that we love about this projector is that it supports edge-blending right out of the box. So we now have a projector that allows us to edge blend and works in cooperation with our edge blending projection software, allowing us to get a beautiful blend that is completely transparent to the audience.
Some of the features of this projector includes: a dual lamp design, swappable color wheels for high brightness and color critical applications, vertical and horizontal keystoning, motorized horizontal and vertical lens shift and many more.
Out of the box the projector supports a wide variety of inputs, including HDMI, 3G-SDI, DVI-D, VGA, Component, S-Video and Composite Video.
The projector offers a wide variety of ways of control, including a wireless remote control that communicates via IR directly to the projector. We can also connect that same remote control with a 1/8th inch connector, and have a hardwired connection to the projector with full control, or connect directly via Ethernet, using any web browser on a computer.
The image quality of these projectors is simply superb, the color consistency between the two projectors is seemingly perfect, and the contrast is amazing as well. The projectors more than exceed the high expectations we had for our install.
If you are looking for a quality 8000 lumen HD projector, you should give serious consideration to this projector. Now that the project is over, we could not be happier.
