Projectors VS LED/Video walls

[StrictlyandLowdown]

what are peoples opinions on these two?

advantages/disadvantages

[evomedia]

Well LED video walls are the only real option for vjing in daylight, they are very very very expensive though, even to hire, they are very heavy and need specialist installation. And generally the resolution is still quite low, so only work with a bit distance between the crowd and the screens, but are very bright.

The other type of video walls and just projectors in a box so although they link together nice and easily the still have most of the same issues as standard projectors. The main expense however is not the cubes but the video wall control software.

Beamers are very cheap, you can easily play around with screen configurations for multiscreen setups, you can display much clearer images as res can be very high, and you can afford to buy you own! So you can have your own mini home cinema

[PilotX]

Led walls = bright but low resolution (unless you are going to spend serious, serious amounts of money on a large wall - the bbc are, so I'm told, upgrading their big screen in birmingham and it will be HD!)
Good when you are on a stage with lots of lights/smoke as it easily cuts through, and bright enough led walls can be used as much as a lighting effect as a video.
colours are much more vivid, black is black. some led walls struggle with greys but they are getting alot better.
difficult/expensive to get very large screens

projectors = high resolution, easy to get very big screens, but no use in sunlight, unless you are going to hook a pair of 20k beamers together, at which point you are probably spending as much as you would on an led wall.
colours are not as vivid as led walls, and you can't get a true black without using gobos to cover the lens.

one other advantage of LED walls over projectors is that you only have one hanging point rather than two so you don't have to worry about throw distances.

at a festival or large night/concert I would want to use LEDs, at small clubs projectors.

[deepvisual]

Originally Posted by PilotX

one other advantage of LED walls over projectors is that you only have one hanging point rather than two .....

well, yes and no.

you can't hang a very heavy screen off one point.
they usually need a truss with at least 2 points or ground support.

but sure you don't need to have the projector in another position...

[PilotX]

yeah fair point gary, I didn't really mean that you can hang a half-ton or more screen from a single point, I'd expect to use 2 or 4 to do it.. I meant as you also said that you only need one place for the screen, not one for the screen and one for the projector.
need to watch my terminology more thanks

[many2]

There is also an image finish difference : it is possible to achieve a diffuse look with projections but when using LED walls you get a very "in your face" image - it is very hard to make subtle things look subtle using an LED wall. Even with low contrast, low brightness and a lot of blur, the result still looks pretty much "techno". It is not impossible to create a subtle diffuse look with LED walls, it is just not easy.

[movebandit]

So why is everybody on LED ?? Oldschool,Baby. Ive got now around 50 old Barco Monitors with a 5x5 Split.........thats style....LED tssssss
ok but carrying and setting up.......always gettin a little sweaty..;-)

[vjrei]

Originally Posted by PilotX

...unless you are going to hook a pair of 20k beamers together...

I haven't seen something bigger than a 10K lumens in my life.

I rather use proyectors and leds only during day time or if I am going to cover a huge space but I barely have seen that case.

The light bean of a proyector has more spirt than a led wall. I mean, you move the bean and you change everything, there are thousand of things you can do with a proyector itself. A led wall is just that.

With a proyector you can proyect on top of different surfaces, trees, floors, on top of a building, etc.

The cons of the proyectors:
The power of it depends on the lighting in environment.
You need to calculate a distance behing the surface depending on the size of your proyection.
Ambient smoke is your enemy as well.

Still, I rather proyectors big time.

[StrictlyandLowdown]

yes, answers sound familiar. good to get a backup on my thoughts.

Originally Posted by many2

There is also an image finish difference : it is possible to achieve a diffuse look with projections but when using LED walls you get a very "in your face" image - it is very hard to make subtle things look subtle using an LED wall. Even with low contrast, low brightness and a lot of blur, the result still looks pretty much "techno". It is not impossible to create a subtle diffuse look with LED walls, it is just not easy.

this is my exact problem. I'm doing a show for a big band. huge venues. manager wants LED for the obvious reasons - most discussed above...band want subtle, cinematic type images that in my opinion can only be provided by projectors. I'm torn inbetween the two, but being used as a pawn by manager to sell LED idea to band. i'm gonna just have to show them images of the two side by side i guess, show them the pros&cons.. hard to get them to make a decision when i'm undecided as well.

[AndyJ]

If this helps, I have used some quite large walls that needed to be softened, so in one instance hung a sharks tooth gauze infront of the LED, (just used baby arms from the suport truss to get the points) This gave a very easy on the eye image.
On another show although we were using LED the client wanted a projection look. my solution was to fly a RP screen infront of the LED. Looked spot on, even had people looking round for the projectors!!

Andy