Digital Projectors

[htid]

Right so the thing is this: My dad is a member of a camera club and they are thinking of getting a digital projector. The thing is ones such as this from Dell has, as you see "Native SVGA (800 x 600) resolution", but my dad wants to know then, is this:

If someone takes a picture at say 11megapixels (around 4064 x 2704) is it a waste of time since they projector only does 800x600 anyway? Will a 3mp 2048 x 1536 be the same as the 11mp since the projector cant even project above 800x600 anyway?

This guy seems to think its a myth, but i guess he's talking about printing rather than about projecting.

Anyway does anyone know anything much about this subject to give me some insight?

TIA
Chris.

[Funkstar]

no you are right. it is simple if you keep everything in the digital domain, then a pixel is a pixel.

The PC will be scaling everything down to 800x600, so it is really how well that is done that is going to make the differnce. What are you going to use, software wise, to display on the projector?

It might be worth scaling them down in something like Photoshop first so that windows (or whatever) doesn't add any jaggies when it does a bad job of displaying it at 800x600.

EDIT: Actually there is a possible benefit from the 11MP camera. If it is generally a better camera, you may well be getting better and more accurate colours from it compaired with the 3MP camera (for example if the 3MP camera was a £100 compact and the 11MP was a DSLR). HOWEVER, if the 3MP camera is old but very good and the 11MP camera is new but a no name cheap pile of junk, iæd use the 3MP one instead

[htid]

Thanks funkstar. Well the camera isn't actually 11mp i just used that as an example. Real world it was about comparing a generic 3mp camera to the 8mp canon 30D. I'll just have to tell all the people at the club to scale them down to 800x600 on photoshop.

Cheers again

[Funkstar]

I would definitely use the 30D then

Another thing. Make sure that if the projectors maximum native resolution is 800x600 thats what the PC is giving it. A lot of projectors will take a higher resolution signal and scale it down to its native resolution, and do a very bod job of it in the process.