Hello everyone,

I manage a golf course and we have a large (16'w x 10'h) scoreboard that we use for tournament scoring. It is currently painted a dark hunter green. The face of the scoreboard is shaded by an overhanging roofline.

My question is:

Is there a front projection method that would allow me to display tournament scoring on a scoreboard, digitally during the day?

Thanks for your input!

You're going to have a real problem competing with daylight. Before you invest a dime, figure out your budget, and then see if someone has the brightest projector in that price range that you can borrow for a test. I really think you're in for a disappointment.

Large outdoor sporting facilities, i.e., racetracks, don't try front projection. They use giant LED flat screens. Pricey, but that's what it takes to work.

Remember, you can always stack projectors for the extra lumen output... but its then the lamp cost you have to keep watch of.
But if you mean full day light, it is doubtful unless you have a nice budget to work with. Though you can do things that will help, i.e. keep light from hitting the scoreboard as much as possible, anything that would cast a shadow over the scoreboard would help.

Hello everyone,

I manage a golf course and we have a large (16'w x 10'h) scoreboard that we use for tournament scoring. It is currently painted a dark hunter green. The face of the scoreboard is shaded by an overhanging roofline.

My question is:

Is there a front projection method that would allow me to display tournament scoring on a scoreboard, digitally during the day?

Thanks for your input!

If you want to project an image that is 18' diagonal, I think you are out of luck... or for that matter, just about any image size readable from a distance in a sunny environment. Two things going on against you: 1) reflected light hitting the screen and 2) peoples' eyesight adjusting to brighter conditions. Unlike indoors, when you have alot of control over reflected light hitting the screen (very little primary reflection indoors for the most part), outdoors there are many sources of very bright reflected light. Even the sky itself is a source of light whether cloudy or clear. light colored buildings outside are worse than light walls inside, as many/most are hit by direct sunlight, which puts off quite a bit of light. you get the point. second, our eyes adjust to this, and where 12 foot-lamberts can seem very bright to your eyes in a dark room, it is almost background noise outdoors during the day... not enough to notice. Have you ever been to an outdoor/amphitheater concert that starts in the early evening when it is still light out? If so, those big projection screens are pretty useless until it is fairly dark, and they most likely have a bigger budget than you.

The only way to overcome these is to make the entire area where the scoreboard would be viewed as dark as possible (e.g. a grove of large trees, a large tent, etc... basically make it indoors!), and/or make as much of the surrounding area as dark as possible (paint the entire building a dark color) so that dark colors constitute the majority of the filed of vision, to make peoples' pupils open (and this is even a stretch, as people would still have to shade their eyes from the sky to get them to adjust. Hope you can find something that works, but it is definitely a tall order for front projection.

Is there a front projection method that would allow me to display tournament scoring on a scoreboard, digitally during the day?I think it's quite safe for me to say: Absolutely no way! No way a front projector will work outdoors, during the day. Reason is that a front projector requires a screen that is designed to reflect-back the light that is projected upon it, and that screen cannot distinguish between the light coming from the pj and the ambient light. You could, I suppose, install side panels to help shade it, but I don't think that would work, even IF the resulting viewing angle would be acceptable.

You might consider rear projection if you're willing to cut-out the scoreboard and install a translucent panel, then shade the backside of the thing to help-out the pj, but I doubt that would be worth doing. I don't know where Edwards is, but if you can find your way to Colorado Mills on the west side of Denver, they have hanging screens and projectors and lots of skylights as I recall (in the main corridors of the shopping mall) and might give you some better perspective on the problem, or some further ideas!

you know what they say: you can't project black. look at your target wall and the color you see is the blackest black you can expect. then think of the lighter colors you will project, and you should realize the difficulty of daytime projecting. you need to put it under a serious blackout awning or tent or ?

I have no hope of using my pj in my living room in the day, as I have clerestory windows. I want to paint them black, but I'm rarely able to sit down during the day and watch anything.