Customer Reviews

Aiptek PJV11X PocketCinema V10 Portable Projector (Silver)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The whole concept of PICO projectors is very new. I did a bit of research before deciding to buy a PICO projector and the following conclusions made me ultimately purchase this product:

-I'm an early adopter
-I'm tech savy
-I'm mobile
-I love gadgets
-I like to be the first to try something out

There are many applications for this product, but before I go into my uses and thoughts I should point out that this device does take a certain knowledge concepts like JPEG, MPEG, MP3 and file conversion. You don't have to be a tech genius to work this device at all, but it helps to have a basic understanding.

Overall, this product delivers on the concept of having a reliable, portable, multi-format projector in an extremely compact size. It's about the size of your average digital camera or a little bigger than an Ipod but for what it is capable of, I find it to be extremely small. You can truly fit the device in your pocket.

It uses multiple methods of attaining images to project. You can use an SD card (which I found easiest) or you can load files onto the device. You can also use AV cables with the included adapter. Some AV devices do have a direct connection cable that would work but I'm not sure what the size or standard for that would be. For example. I was able to connect my Wii directly to the device with the AV cables and Video and sound were both functioning.

Depending on how close you are to the projection destination (I use a white wall) your image can actually be quite bright. Is it the crispest image ever? No . But it is pretty remarkable for the size. Color saturation is also decent. I didn't notice any lag when playing video files on the device.

Battery life was pretty good, I get about an hour depending on what I am doing but you can also keep the device plugged in.

I was able to do a complete power point presentation with the device by converting the files to JPEG (right in PPT). My audience was very impressed that I had the whole presentation, including projection in my pocket.

I was able to project the image from the device all the way across my room. Im complete darkness it worked fine but you may want to be closer to your receiving source (e.g. the wall) if you aren't able to have complete darkness.

Overall, if you are looking for a cool gadget that does what it says, then I would recommend this product. Keep in mind that this is a balance between projection, price and portability. If you find yourself matching one of my criteria then you will certainly enjoy this product.

I have owned this thing for about 2 weeks, and I have had a chance to put it through it's paces. Here are my findings:

Don't buy it for the built-in player. It leaves a lot to be desired. It only supports 3 codec/bitrates: MP4 @ 512kb / 24fps with PCM (!) audio,(at either 640x480, or 320x240) or the even more grim motion jpg, which is so inefficient I wont even spec it here. Even worse - there is NO FAST FORWARD OR BACK through the files. This bites, because if you are wanting to watch anything feature-length, and the battery goes dead, you can't pop in another battery and FF to where you left off. While the prorietary encodes at 640x480 are watchable, it's not by much. I'd give an encode from a reasonable quality source a 4 or 5 out of 10. I never bothered trying 320x240, knowing it would be too poor. Bottom line: plan on using an external video source.
You could get away with a few 10 minute cartoons in a pinch, though!

That said, this is where it shines: Plug it into a video capable ipod, and prepare to have your socks blown clean off! When the brilliant little 640x480 display is not busy rendering blocky artifacts with the internal player, and shown a proper clean video signal, the performance is stellar! I have not tried a DVD player, but I expect it would look great, too. While not true HD by any stretch, It is certainly on par with a Standard Def TV, and it's the size of a remote control for crying out loud!! Note: many "video capable" media players output only 320x240. You will get much better resluts from one that outputs 640x480, like an ipod.

Next thing: How to get longer run time. The unit includes a USB power adaptor that pumps out 5v at 2a (!) That is how much juice it takes to run the unit while plugged in to AC power. Yes, it will charge (slowly) from most any common USB port, it will not fire up and run without 2000mh behind it. It detects low powered USB connections, and goes into 'flash disk / slow charge mode', thinking it's hooked up to a computer for loading stuff to it's internal memory. So - what to do? I have tried to find a USB Car adaptor that can handle output at 2 amps, but after buying one so-called high-powered usb adaptor here on Amazon, I had no success. I have another one on order, so I'll post how that one goes. I gave it 4 stars because of the poor battery life (about 50 minutes) I would give 5 stars if it had a 2500 - 3800 mah battery (are you listening, Aiptek?)

I then removed the battery, which is an NP-120, 3.7v 1700 mah. A little Google-fu taught me that the batteries are the same as Fuji digital cameras, and are a dime a dozen! WOO HOO! so I bought 3 extra batteries here on amazon, as well as an AC & 12v rapid-charger. Now I have over 4 hours of run time, and still very little to carry!
(search amazon for 'Fuji NP-120 Battery')

So - now when we are out backpacking or camping, and it gets dark early and we are not tired, instead of squinting at my teeny ipod screen, we can sit back and enjoy a BIG screen. I have also used it with rear projection screen fabric, and it is simply magic ! Just cut a nice piece about 32" x 24" and viola!

The last thing I have yet to try is connecting to my laptop. Mine does not have a composite tv out, so I will need to buy an adaptor. There are nice-looking units that will convert a VGA signal to composite tv out that is powered by a USB port (google SW-4262) I will pick one up as soon as I have the extra cash and try it, too.

Final word: The little thing has only 10 lumens. Be reasonable in your expectations when there is alot of ambient light. The darker, the better.

If you are anything of a lifehacker / geeko like me, how can you say no to something so cool?

Sure, I am a gadget fiend and snapped this up, thinking it would be great to watch a movie or two during long winter nights. Well, I did get to watch a little bit but here are the issues:

1. Dark output. As other users have pointed out, this baby need big time darkness. Turn off all the lights, blow out the candles and don't think about taking out that shiny ipod/laptop screen. Even with all that, the video is dark.

2. Weak battery. Like not enough to watch a 1-1/2 hour movie. So if you want to check out anythign longer than an hour episode of Dexer, foh-ghet-it. And, as far as I could see, you can't run this while connecting to a power outlet.

3. Run the movies off your ipod or a laptop (which must have an s-video or perhaps composite outlets). The projector, as others have already mentioned, is way finicky about its video files. And the converter that comes with it creates these multi giga monstrosities that you'll need huge memory cards for.

4. Runs Bahama hot. Don't touch.

On the positive end, this is fun to play around with, but not worth anywhere near this price tag...

This is a great projector all the way arround. you do have to convert your videos to the special formant. the softwear that come with it does not do a good job but i so far recomend (Cool All Video Converter Platinum) I was able to use it and get the movies small engouf to fit over 8 movies on a 2 gb sd card. and it still looks great on the wall.
the max sd card it will take is 8gb, I am going to order one. bet i can fit 20 of 30 movies on it.

also it says up to 40 or 50" screen but with the lights off i can get it to take up the whole wall. over 100" but of course the bigger it is the dimmer the picture is. but i can turn all lights on it the room and still see a bright image between 20" and 25" you can see bigger with all lights on but start to get dim.



the one i got had a burnt pixel or stuck mirror however it operates. sent a email to amazon. they are overnighting me a new one. and i will ship the other one back when i receive the new one. all shipping is paid by them both ways. they are great. I would buy from them before anywhere elese. you know you will get a great working product, and if have a problem they will fix it.

This is my first review hope it was helpfull please overlook my spelling.

Bought this for my college aged son. Both of us are tech savvy and it took us all day Christmas to understand how limited this projector is. It will only play MPEG4 video. Nothing it seems in the world is MPEG4 and every video file needs to be converted. To convert a 2 min video short it took 15 minutes to move files around and use the converter to convert from DVIX to MPEG4. I am sure this may be great for .jpg photo shows but dont buy this if you want to do anything with Video. A full length movies is taking hours to convert. Cant watch Utube or any "real time" stuff off the internet or laptop.

I idea is great. It falls short in a couple areas. First the movie conversion software is very limited. I find it doesn't really work for me.
The second problem is the heat. You can't touch the unit after 15 minutes. The remote won't turn the unit on.

I'd have to say look for a better projector.

I used this projector and was happy with the results. It doesn't have the strongest projection ability and it isn't the brightest, but it works well. I plugged it into my DVD player and it isn't too bad. Didn't know that I couldn't use it while it was plugged into my computer. I agree with some of the other users that you need to have a dark room or the picture wont be that clear. But I believe that it's only 10 Lumens. What do you expect right? Can buy a Ford Fiesta and expect it to do 0-60 in 5 seconds. Decent but might be disappointing if you're expecting to put on a New Years Eve show in your living room with a strobe light and fog machine. I would recommend this product if you are interested in something that is simple and mobile that fits a budget. Also would be good for small presentations.

This product seemed very cool and looked very cool, and that is why I purchased it. It is not very user friendly and I have had to purchase many addition cables and add ons. The image is very dark and the brightness scale is only -4 to +4. The picture is not quality. The tripod is too light and the projector is very top heavy especially when hooked up to anything from the av port. The casing is very cheaply made, and I had to use a compound to make it better. The room has to be pitch black for the image to even look just decent on the screen. The remote control was so tiny that I have already lost it. I would not recommend this product to anyone.

This projector can't really do much, I try to do a presentation once with the projector, any letter on the slides were not recognizable. When it comes to movies, I don't really care about resolution, but for me my presentation can't just have pictures, I have to show people numbers and words.

The projector can be connected to a computer capable of S-video output, I bought a S-video/RCA cable and discovered that once connected, you can barely see the details, for example you can hardly find your cursor.

I believe, this product is pretty much designed for those who does not like action movies. If you have a blue ray DVD, you probably would not want to get this product because you will be surprise how many details you can be left out with watching a movie at such a bad resolution.

I believe if you are really curious about this technology like I did, you should probably wait, there are many companies right now developing new ones with much better resolutions. So if you can wait, please do.

love it absolutely. works amazing when u hook it up with ipod/itouch/iphone with help of apple composite av cable. real portable and the resolution is decent. dont expect it to be HD or extremely bright or crystal clear picture. the picture is close to standard television. u can project fairly upto like 60-70 inches. i wish the colors were a little deeper though. i wouldnt recommend using the internal 1gb memory since the video conversion software is horribile. i mostly use it to play games from my iphone 3G/ and videos from my ipod 5G. it also comes with a velvet pouch that protects your prjoector from dust etc. im fairly disappointed with the battery since it only lasts 1 hr altho im sure there are a few alternatives to this problem.