What to Know About Daylight Projectors

PowerPoint presentations, movie night, gaming, and picture slideshows are no longer contained to the darkness and you may find yourself needing a projector built for daylight viewing. To help you decide on the best projector for daylight viewing check out our tips of the top considerations when looking for projectors for daylight viewing.

First, accept that if you want to use a projector outdoors, you need better quality all-round. Which comes with a higher price tag. You want the highest brightness, a high resolution and contrast ratio to boost your chances of a great picture, you’ll need a good screen or surface, and a sound system. A good outdoor projector will work well indoors too.

Contrast Ratio

Contrast ratio is white image ratio compared to a black image, or light vs. darkness. A low contrast ration, 1:1 or 2:1, will result in something unwatchable. Even in a dark theater, the contrast ratio should be at least 1500:1.

For daylight viewing, your projector needs to have a strong contrast ratio. At minimum, you should look for 3000:1. The higher the contrast ratio the better your unit would do outdoors

Whether you’re inside or outside, projectors with high-lumen capacity will be able to provide a better image quality because of their boosted brightness. Therefore, even if you don’t plan on using your projector screen outside, you should opt for a projector powerful enough for daylight anyway — just in case you ever need it.

Lumens

Even more important for outdoor daylight viewing is a projector’s lumens. Lumens is how much light is coming from the projector, ranging from the low hundreds to higher values in the thousands as you move up in price.

For daylight viewing a projector needs a minimum of 3000 lumens, but you should go brighter if you want to have a better image. Ideally, for daylight viewing, you should target between 6000 and 8000 lumens.

Screen

Simply put. black screens are the best screens for outdoor activities. Black screens absorb light, so sunlight or bright ambient light will not affect the deepness or contrast of images. This makes black screens the best choice for an outdoor cinematic experience. They also make a better display for darker shades, even in bright environments.

White screens will have trouble displaying in a bright environment, unless the projector is extremely bright, with over 6500 lumens. Gray projector screens will work better than white projector screens outdoors, but they may produce tainted images or images with a grayish hue.

The bottom line 

If you want to project images during the daytime, you know it’s hard to find a projector that’s portable enough to be used in brightly lit places and powerful enough to overcome the bright environment. Most projectors simply aren’t strong enough to handle most outdoor and daylight needs.