Video Projectors and the Cold Northeast

[sasmuse]

Hello,  We live in a northwestern suburb of Philadelphia, PA. Temperatures in December can sometimes dip below freezing at night. I'm also adding video projection to this year's show. I have a short throw projector that will be housed in a locking enclosure that will be bolted to the ground. There will be the requisite air vents for the heat as well as a small fan to help with cooling inside the box.  Some concerns we're wondering about:

1.  Is it ok to leave the projector out overnight if we cover the box with a tarp after the show finishes each night? Or should it be brought in? 

2.  Is it ok to run the projector for 5 hours every night?  Even if the outside temperature dips below 40 degrees?

3.  Anyone have any other issues?  If so, what were they?

4.  Any other bits of advice/wisdom that you'd care to share?

Thanks, Sally Simpson

[canadianchristmas]

Hi,

First off I would recomend bringing the projector in at night for the possibility of the cold damaging the bulb and moisture. I think you will be fine for the temperature as 40 below does not seem too bad. Were I am we can get -20 celsius (Im not sure what that is in fahrenheit). 

If you choose to leave the projector out at night I recommend locking the enclosure down with a steal cable and putting sand bags, cinder blocks, or large containers of water in the bottem to weigh it down, against strong winds and vandalism.

I would also recomend a bigger fan because projectors get HOT! Your projector could get damaged or the bulb could break or burn out from the heat. Remember the heat it produces can be just as bad as the cold. I would recomend a fan like THIS then run a pice of dryer hose/duct with mesh or netting on the end to keep bugs out, Also the duct will help keep snow and rain out of the enclosure. Remember to also keep the duct slightly off the ground if you do this.

Another tip is to keep your projector enclosure heated if you leave the projector outside over night I would recommend keeping it at 10 degrees C. To heat your enclosure wire a simple thermostat to a small space heater or baseboard heater. I recomend using a small baseboard heater and thermostat. Or if you really wanted to go cheap a reptile heat lamp and a thermostat to turn the lamp on and off, however I prefer a small oil heater (like the baseboard heater) the most. And the very last and important thing to mention with heating and cooling the projector is to shut the heater off when the projector is running and to shut the fan off an hour or two after the projector has been turned off just to let any excess heat out. 

One more thing that is VERY important is to find a non-reflective piece of plexiglass for the window in your enclosure. The window is what the projector will project through and if it reflects you won't get very much brightness out of your projector. So find a good piece of non-reflective plexiglass!

 

Hopefully all this info helps, I use flat screen tv's and projectors in my show so a lot of this info is off my own experiences.

My final suggestion is to take a look at my show in my signature! 

Good luck!!!

Edited November 10, 2016 by canadianchristmas
spelling

[sasmuse]

8 hours ago, canadianchristmas said:

Hi,

First off I would recomend bringing the projector in at night for the possibility of the cold damaging the bulb and moisture. I think you will be fine for the temperature as 40 below does not seem too bad. Were I am we can get -20 celsius (Im not sure what that is in fahrenheit). 

If you choose to leave the projector out at night I recommend locking the enclosure down with a steal cable and putting sand bags, cinder blocks, or large containers of water in the bottem to weigh it down, against strong winds and vandalism.

I would also recomend a bigger fan because projectors get HOT! Your projector could get damaged or the bulb could break or burn out from the heat. Remember the heat it produces can be just as bad as the cold. I would recomend a fan like THIS then run a pice of dryer hose/duct with mesh or netting on the end to keep bugs out, Also the duct will help keep snow and rain out of the enclosure. Remember to also keep the duct slightly off the ground if you do this.

Another tip is to keep your projector enclosure heated if you leave the projector outside over night I would recommend keeping it at 10 degrees C. To heat your enclosure wire a simple thermostat to a small space heater or baseboard heater. I recomend using a small baseboard heater and thermostat. Or if you really wanted to go cheap a reptile heat lamp and a thermostat to turn the lamp on and off, however I prefer a small oil heater (like the baseboard heater) the most. And the very last and important thing to mention with heating and cooling the projector is to shut the heater off when the projector is running and to shut the fan off an hour or two after the projector has been turned off just to let any excess heat out. 

One more thing that is VERY important is to find a non-reflective piece of plexiglass for the window in your enclosure. The window is what the projector will project through and if it reflects you won't get very much brightness out of your projector. So find a good piece of non-reflective plexiglass!

 

Hopefully all this info helps, I use flat screen tv's and projectors in my show so a lot of this info is off my own experiences.

My final suggestion is to take a look at my show in my signature! 

Good luck!!!

Thanks so much for the useful information.  And congrats on your display!  It looked awesome!  BTW, what video editing software did you use?

 

[canadianchristmas]

1 minute ago, sasmuse said:

Thanks so much for the useful information.  And congrats on your display!  It looked awesome!  BTW, what video editing software did you use?

 

Wow on the forum at the same time!

I used final cut pro X

[EmmienLightFan]

If you want some cheap video editing software, look at Sony Vegas.

 

The best thing is the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere Pro)

 

The bulb can break or explode if the temperature is changing a lot. The glass can warp as they get very hot when on, and will get very cold when turned off. I would bring it in if you want it to last a while.

[bobschm]

2 hours ago, EmmienLightFan said:

If you want some cheap video editing software, look at Sony Vegas.

 

I thought Sony Vegas was like $400? I use Cyberlink PowerDirector 14 for like under a hundred bucks. I haven't seen anything it couldn't do unless you're making a feature film for international release.

[EmmienLightFan]

9 minutes ago, bobschm said:

I thought Sony Vegas was like $400? I use Cyberlink PowerDirector 14 for like under a hundred bucks. I haven't seen anything it couldn't do unless you're making a feature film for international release.

Vegas Movie Studio is about $30. Vegas Pro is about $400.

Movie Studio, I would say, is far superior to PowerDirector, but both are rubbish compared to Adobe CS6, which is worth the monthly subscription or the $600.

[Jefffrompawpaw]

1 hour ago, EmmienLightFan said:

Vegas Movie Studio is about $30. Vegas Pro is about $400.

Movie Studio, I would say, is far superior to PowerDirector, but both are rubbish compared to Adobe CS6, which is worth the monthly subscription or the $600.

What's the learning curve like on the The Sony Vegas Movie studio.   I'm not a complete novice on computer programs , but have never edited video before. 

[EmmienLightFan]

27 minutes ago, Jefffrompawpaw said:

What's the learning curve like on the The Sony Vegas Movie studio.   I'm not a complete novice on computer programs , but have never edited video before. 

For putting clips together, it is easy.

You get a timeline, with several audio tracks and several video tracks. You can drag and drop video/audio/images/effects/transitions on, press S to split and video, and drag the ends to trim. That is basically all I needed to know to work out the rest.

Moving and resizing video and images is weird at first. It uses a strange interface for that, but once you get the hang of it is easy, and you can have things flying all over the place.

 

Things get more complicated using video masks and chroma key.

Edited November 12, 2016 by EmmienLightFan

[Greg Young]

While I agree with the advice given above, I have a different take in part based on my personal experience. 

Background: I live a little South of Buffalo (I think most know it gets COLD here) and have been using video projection in our display for a long while.

I use 2 Epson's. One is in the home, projecting to a screen outside, so that unit is not exposed to temperature/moisture extremes. It projects the videos, most of which are sync'd to the display's music. 

The second unit however is in the outside environment. It is exposed to temperatures that get well below freezing, and although enclosed still gets exposed to moisture. It would be a pain to have to bring it in. Bottom line I never have.

Both units project the entire time the display operates (4 hours), and both bulbs and mechanics are just fine. I get around 2,000 hours on the bulbs, which is good, as they are not inexpensive!

One point, make sure if you use automated timers/controls to turn things on/off, that you allow the fans to function as designed, to allow cool down of the bulbs before turning your projector off, or you will dramatically shorten bulb life.

The alternative to halogen projection bulbs is to go the newer LED route.

I made a decision to not go that route yet, as I am still not satisfied with the output (brightness) of the LED projectors at this point in time (unless you get the very high end ones, which makes little sense for most displays). Some of the current ones in the consumer market can work OK for a simple window projection, depending on the the amount of display lighting around/near the window.

For video editing etc I use for both consumer and commercial products - Edius (Canopus) software for professional projects; Sony Vegas for general holiday and family videos (for uploading to Vimeo, etc.).

Anyway, those are my 2 cents.

Greg