Customer Reviews

InFocus LiteShowII Wireless Presentation Adaptor

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

 

 

I purchased the InFocus LiteShowII Wireless Presentation Adaptor in hopes that I would not have to run an additional cable to the projector. Installation and usage was easy, the problem is with the software you have to install on the presenter's laptop. The software uses a lot of CPU which caused the laptop to become sluggish. At times it took 5 seconds for a slide to change. The laptop was a 1.2Ghz Pentium M with 2GB RAM, Windows XP Pro. The problem is when visitors come with their own laptop that may not be the latest and greatest or they have a lot of junk installed, the InFocus software is unusable.

Thankfully I ordered it from Amazon and my return of the product was painless!

I am a teacher and also hold responsibility for technology purchases in the science department. Last spring we started using tablet pc's and so we could be wireless we went with the Plextor product. It was a huge disappointment as they were never truthful about when the Vista version would come out and when it did, the lag between writing on the tablet and it appearing on the screen was totally distracting for the students.

Three weeks ago, I changed out the adapters to the Liteshow 2's and what a difference. Some key points include:

The setup is a breeze even when configured as an accesspoint (Never did get the Plexto to work properly in this configuration).

The connection software that resides on the computer is very user friendly and you can arrive in a classroom and be projecting with no hassles within seconds. In fact, the software actually is a lot easier than the process I had to go through to set up a wired VGA connection.

The software is free. (Plextor only give you 3 licenses and is extremely user unfriendly)

There is a tiny lag between writing and it appearing on the screen but nothing that would ever distract the students.

I have several set up and if we switch classrooms, it takes no time at all to log onto another one.

I am extremely pleased with this product, InFocus really knew what they were doing on this one.

We are using it in our sanctuary and it works perfect for power point.
There is about 1 sec. delay but we are not using it for movies and we have a wire connection for dvd to our projector. But for power point it is great! The person using a lap top for powerpoint can sit anywhere in the santuary. We use it for songs and scriptures.

I was in the market for converting my projector wireless and InFocus LiteShowII Wireless Presentation Adapter is exactly what you need. As mentioned by other reviewers i did see some lag but it was not perceptible to the audience at all. Here are some numbers :
Distance between the laptop and projector - 40 feet
Laptop - Win Vista 1 GB ram and manufacturer is Acer.

I would recommend this device to everybody if they wish to save money by not buying a $1000-2000 wireless projector.

InFocus says there's no signal delay. YES THERE IS!!! I actually like the unit. Well, I LIKED the unit (past tense). There is a minimal signal delay, and over time, I lost all connectivity. It kept dropping the signal from my laptops. Not one laptop, but two. I liked it while it lasted. Stay wired. Wireless isn't quite the way to go yet.

This is not that great.

first off, it is only 802.11G, and it is a serious bandwidth hog. if you try to surf while projecting, your projected image suffers. the only way i could make it work, when it decided to work was to run a regular LAN cable to my laptop for the surfing, and dedicate my WiFi card to the projection. even then it didnt work well half the time.

Video? forget it. it looked like i was streaming the video over dial up. it was pretty sad.

here is one that you should all know about this, and this one is pretty serious in my oppinion. THIS WILL NOT WORK WITH SKYPE OR OOVOO video chats!!! most video chat systems use hardware video acceleration and it will not display on the LS2. i have talked to InFocus and both video chat companies and no one has found a work around aside from taking the LS2 out of the loop which completly defeats the purpose of having it. hesitant to try the LS3 for that reason.

I wanted to jump on here and address the Win 7 support.

Two things:
1) First install the Visual C++ redistributable download(link on LiteShow install screen). Go directly to Microsoft for the x64 install. Get the one to match the OS you have.
2) If you get an error installing LiteShow in Win 7, here's the fix... right click the "liteshow_setup.exe" file and choose "troubleshoot compatibility" then choose "worked in previous version" and then tell it to use "Vista SP2". That's the only way I could get it to install. However... i did have a few Win 7 laptops that installed this without any trouble. Not sure what that's all about. I also always have a driver in my device manager that fails to install. That worries me although it doens't seem to cause any trouble.

I am very disappointed that the current version of the JRE is not supported. There are no firmware updates. We need to replace all the hardware just to display any application using Java.

I would gladly pay for a firmware update but to toss away working hardware bothers me.

I bought this about a year ago for my classroom(I'm a high school teacher who has a tablet PC running Windows 7), but I got to frustrated with trying to set it up initially, so it's been sitting in a box until I've had time to troubleshoot it (a year later...) After working for a few hours to figure things out, I finally got it. Surprisingly you CAN get it working on Windows 7 (although many claim you cannot) and it does work well to a certain extent.

Pros:
- Great for powerpoint and taking notes with tablet PC
- Can also be used as a wireless router for any computer in the room (cool)
- Wireless security can be setup (up to WPA2)
- Any wireless computer can connect to the projector as long as they have the software
- Supposedly sound can be casted wireless too (I didn't get that working though...)
Cons:
- NOT great for videos (tends to lag and become a little choppy)
- Delay in signal
- Some report making computer very slow (but I didn't notice - my PC is pretty quick)

BOTTOM LINE:
All in all, I guess it does its job.... But why do you think you need to be wireless? Can't you just run a long VGA cable to your computer? You're probably using it only in one place. And if you want to run videos, you'll want to be hardwired anyway. In my opinion, while it sounds cool to be wirelessly projecting, it isn't worth the money for this techy device. You can get a decent VGA cable for dirt cheap in comparison to this guy, and the quality of projection will be far better.

Windows 7 Instructions
1. Download and install the latest software/firmware of LiteShow II (see below)
2. Plug in power cord of LiteShow
3. Identify the wireless network from LiteShow II in wireless connections(IFS-CDC232 or something like that) and connect to it(should be unsecured - if not, then reset LiteShow on the front of the device)
4. Open LiteShow Manager on your computer
5. Connect to Projector: the odd thing with Windows 7 is that the projector doesn't actually show up in the list, so click on "Other projector not listed here" then click "Connect"
6. Choose to connect by IP address
7. Enter the IP address (should be 10.0.0.1 unless you changed it) and click "Connect"
8. Alright! Now you can change settings on LiteShow II and hook up a projector or monitor to "VGA IN" and Start Projecting
Note: I have Windows 7 professional - I'm not sure if that makes a difference, but it ran just fine in Windows 7 - without using XP mode.

Downloading the latest LiteShow Manager
1. Go to [...]
2. Click on the [+] for Accessories
3. Arrow over to wireless (with picture of LiteShow II) and click on it
4. Click on Part Number:INLITESHOW2
5. There you can not only get the latest software, but also the latest firmware
Alternatively, you can get the software directly from LiteShow II by going to 10.0.0.1 in a internet browser when you are connected to the wireless from LiteShow II. It may not be the latest software and firmware however (The latest firmware allows security for WPA2) and I'm not sure how the previous versions work with Windows 7.

Most modern WiFi enabled devices support configuration via a web browser so as to support multiple computing platforms (i.e. Windows and OS 10). This device does not. It is a Windows only device. To operate the configuration utility to setup the LiteShow II, the Windows only client software has to be installed on the host computer and it further requires that software in order to support a video/audio interface between the computer and the projector. Accordingly, the LiteShow II will only work with a Windows computer and will only work on a computer on which the InFocus software client is installed. If you only have a single computer operating Windows, the LiteShow II might be useful for your application. Else, look elsewhere for a WiFi adapter that is engineered with flexibility and ease-of-use in mind so your guest don't show up with a presentation and no way to present unless he/she goes through the rigamarole to install the InFocus software. And if that guess has a Mac?, Fergetaboutit!