The most cost effective way to achieve those large images is still by using projectors and screens. Projection is very sensitive to ambient light. The brighter the room lighting, the more washed out the image appears.
The reason the image appears washed out is because the room lighting limits the darkest black that can be represented on the screen (projectors can only add light to the screen; they can’t take it away).
The quality of the image (either vibrant or washed out) is measured by what we refer to as contrast ratio.
This is different than the contrast ratio you see cited on projectors which is typically useless manufacturer marketing BS.
With these concepts in mind, let’s look at the 5 keys to proper lighting for higher education presentation spaces:
Provide a minimum of 3 lighting zones
The image at the top of this post is taken from the InfoComm AV/IT Infrastructure Guidelines for Higher Education document, an excellent basic reference on education space design. While this document doesn’t get into the specifics of technology or space design (it covers everything you can fit into 143 pages), it does an excellent job of covering all of the questions that you should ask during the design process.
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