# Windows Network Projectors? Anyone used them, or know of a good one?



## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

At our business there is interest in getting a 720P projector, that is capable of taking a 1680x1050 resolution from a laptop, but that can work with hard ethernet cables or maybe even 802.11N..

IE: the goal is to be able to plug in any laptop to an ethernet cable, which can then connect to the network projector. In most cases they all have Vista, which as the network projector connection icon as well, there may be one rare case of XP, but if the network projector doesnt support XP that wouldnt be bad.

Ideally it could work via wireless.. wireless N, i'm assuming, for best support of streaming videos being displayed.

Most of the things displayed would be power point presentations, but there could be a rare video here or there.. i would think N would be fine for that as well.

I havent found many that would be able to do this..

Can anyone point me to a few windows network projector models that may work like this? Or can you take a standard projector and add on the wireless or network adapter to make them work like this?

Thanks in advance


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## blackbox_ns (Nov 19, 2008)

There are many wireless video products that will allow your laptop to use its wireless Ethernet adapter to send video to a projector. I haven't seen any that can run the resolution you want because of the bandwidth, yes you are running a wireless Ethernet connection but you can't look at video in the same perspective as data traffic. There are certainly cheaper products as well depending on your needs. The link I have provided is an adapter that will also act as a wireless access point so that you can have access to your corporate network and get access to the Internet or other devices on the local network as well which the cheaper adapters typically won't do. Another thing to keep in mind is motion video, usually the cheaper products can't do motion video, they are all fine for static Power Point presentations, or Excel spreadsheets.

http://www.blackbox.com/Store/Results.aspx/search-AC1130A^^^/p-0


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## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

blackbox_ns said:


> There are many wireless video products that will allow your laptop to use its wireless Ethernet adapter to send video to a projector. I haven't seen any that can run the resolution you want because of the bandwidth, yes you are running a wireless Ethernet connection but you can't look at video in the same perspective as data traffic. There are certainly cheaper products as well depending on your needs. The link I have provided is an adapter that will also act as a wireless access point so that you can have access to your corporate network and get access to the Internet or other devices on the local network as well which the cheaper adapters typically won't do. Another thing to keep in mind is motion video, usually the cheaper products can't do motion video, they are all fine for static Power Point presentations, or Excel spreadsheets.
> 
> http://www.blackbox.com/Store/Results.aspx/search-AC1130A^^^/p-0



Thanks for the info..

This blackbox device appears to be only 802.11G, which probably wouldnt be fast enough for motion video, i'm guessing, even at 1024x768?

A generic search for the same title didnt really reveal any of these that are 802.11N..

Are there any out there that are n based that i might have missed?

And.. with these, you could, in vista, do the connect to network projector icon in the start menu and connect in this manner, i'm assuming..

Thanks again


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## blackbox_ns (Nov 19, 2008)

Attached (hopefully) is a comparison we did of Cables To Go, Aten, and ViewSonic/AddLogix products with the AC1130A from Black Box. 

I have not been able to locate a product that supports 802.11N, everything I find is 802.11b/g like the Black Box AC1130A.

I have seen the Black Box unit in action and running motion video wasn't any problem, I haven't seen any gaming run through the unit so I won't state how the unit will work for that


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## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

blackbox_ns said:


> Attached (hopefully) is a comparison we did of Cables To Go, Aten, and ViewSonic/AddLogix products with the AC1130A from Black Box.
> 
> I have not been able to locate a product that supports 802.11N, everything I find is 802.11b/g like the Black Box AC1130A.
> 
> I have seen the Black Box unit in action and running motion video wasn't any problem, I haven't seen any gaming run through the unit so I won't state how the unit will work for that


Ah very nice comparison..

So basically, given an existing Projector of any variety, i just would plug the black box device into the projector.. and associate it with a Wireless Access Point, though it appears i'd go with a separate access point, as the one we have now is 802.11n, but with WPA, it appears only wep would work...

Would the end user then simply goto start.. all programs, via vista and do the "connect to network projector" option?

As long as standard full motion video worked, this would probably be fine.

The projector we were going with was this one.. :
http://www.keenzo.com/showproduct.asp?M=OPTOMA-TECHNOLOGY&ID=733524&ref=GB
Optoma HD 72;



It was able to "accept" a 1680x1050 signal, but the output is 720p..


**I guess something like the NEC NP901W wouldnt work like this though? (IE: it doesnt stream from the laptop to projector?): 
http://www.onsale.com/shop/detail.aspx?dpno=7530419&store=onsale&source=bwbfroogle


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## blackbox_ns (Nov 19, 2008)

After looking at the projector link you provided it looks like VGA is not an option unless you are purchasing the European version. The European version appears to be the only version you can use a DVI to VGA adapter, the Black Box unit is only VGA and it looks like the US version of the HD72 projector doesn't support VGA, only HDMI, DVI, S-Video, Component, etc.. I could be wrong but that is the impression I get from Optoma's web site looking at the HD72 manual. The Black Box AC1130A is VGA only.

On your question about starting the unit in Vista, first you connect the AC1130A to your projector and turn it on, the AC1130A will produce a logo screen through the projector, there will be some information you need such as IP and login code.

On my laptop task bar I put my pointer over my network connection Icon and clicked on Connect to wireless network.

Since we had other wireless access points running all I had to do was look for the name WPS (this is also shown through the projector so you know the network name). Users can download the user utility, admin can download the admin utility and through the admin functions you can configure security and other IP settings, the admin also controls who has control (there can be up to 254 users sharing the projector).

Installation is easy, the user when it is all said and done will have a little control panel showing that allows them to switch between presentation mode (typical mode for presenting what you have on your desktop such as PowerPoint) and video mode (this is the mode for running video files).


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## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

blackbox_ns said:


> After looking at the projector link you provided it looks like VGA is not an option unless you are purchasing the European version. The European version appears to be the only version you can use a DVI to VGA adapter, the Black Box unit is only VGA and it looks like the US version of the HD72 projector doesn't support VGA, only HDMI, DVI, S-Video, Component, etc.. I could be wrong but that is the impression I get from Optoma's web site looking at the HD72 manual. The Black Box AC1130A is VGA only.
> 
> On your question about starting the unit in Vista, first you connect the AC1130A to your projector and turn it on, the AC1130A will produce a logo screen through the projector, there will be some information you need such as IP and login code.
> 
> ...



Its not clear on the optoma hd72 link i sent you , if the dvi port is DVI-I or not.. i'm guessing if it were DVI-I, then a VGA would work as well.. as I supports both (?).. (further searching does show it is DVI-I, actually)

When using the Blackbox adapter, your notes said it would work on existing wireless access points correct? IE: if i have the laptop connect to that access point, I'm assuming it would still be able to connect to the rest of the LAN...

I posted the link to that NEC Windows projector before.. but after calling them directly, they state that NO projector is capable of streaming full motion video currently due to bandwidth issues..

I'm assuming the blackbox unit gets around that somehow, since your doc claims its optimized for video ?

Thanks again


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## blackbox_ns (Nov 19, 2008)

If the video interface is DVI-I then you can use a DVI to VGA adapter, I don't care if the display device is a projector or a monitor. As far as NEC claiming that you can't run streaming video through any projector, depends on the video you are streaming, high resolution DVD movies will show some hickups but then again Black Box is not targeting the home user trying to play Worlds Of Warcraft. Black Box produced some videos for marketing product technologies and I used those for my testing (www.blackbox.com) and the image was flawless.

On your question about networking, the AC1130A besides acting as an access point also has a wired network connection, when you connect the wired port to your internal Ethernet network you now have access to that network just like you would with any other wireless access point.


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