Shrinking the image on a fixed lens pj?

This may sound nutty, but is it possible to add some kind of lens or adaptor to the lense of an LED projector that has no zoom, to shrink the image?

I'm a fan of LED pjs sine my first little 20 lumen Optoma PT100 which still works well. I bought a well maintained but used Panasonic AX100u but very quickly it went down and now it has to be sent to Heartland for repair which I don't have the money for currently (tax season + self employed = yikes! lol)

I would be perfectly content with current LED pjs except that I only have room for a 70" image currently in my office over my computer/desk where I've been using the PT100 for over a year. Most of these LED pjs have a lens/ratio that is around 85-95" at my throw distance of 10 feet exactly, with the pj sitting on the top of a small book case.

Is there any trick or product that would let me shrink an image from 90" to 70" or no?? I just thought I'd ask because I'm happy with the picture size and office setup and would love to use a modern 720p pj if I could get the image size reduced somehow.

Thanks guys!!

Well after more searching I found some old threads I missed before, saying an long throw lens would diminish light output quite a bit and is a crude way to fix a problem.

I would try to ceiling mount the pj closer to the screen to get a smaller image but my office has a 4' commercial style light fixture right where the pj would mount.

I have considered some kind of removable 'strap' mount that I could attach around the fixture to hang the pj from it but I would have to get pretty creative.

I may just have to wait to repair the Panny and use the 20 lumen Optoma for a bit....ugh
Jeremy
Edited by niceguy88 - 3/3/13 at 12:11pm

Thanks guys, I didn't think of software solutions. Yes, the pj is connected to a computer I built a few years ago and I've been running VLC player which allows me to stretch the image some without noticeable effect. However, I'll check out those suggestions and the other media player as well.

Re the no zoom, most budget led pjs don't have zoom capability but it's usually not a big deal since most folks have room for a 90"+ image. Right now over my desk, I'm limited to 70" or so which is still not bad from 8 feet away....IMO lol.

Thanks again

Jeremy

OK, well to keep from starting a new thread, I have another different but similar question:

Looking at the LG PB60g as an example using the ProjectorCentral Calculator, at native 16:10 resolution and using my fixed distance (around 9'8") to screen, the screen height would be 48" high and 77" wide, around 91" diagonally. I can only fit a max screen size of around 33" high and 77" wide over my desk.

According to Draper's Custom Screen Size Calculator, 33" high by 77" wide (84" diagonally) is a perfect 2:35 CinemaScope aspect ratio and the same image dimensions that the LG PB60g produces at my needed projector to screen distance (9'8").

So, could I possibly get by with using this LG pj by using VLC player to play all movies in 2:35 aspect ratio?? Am I completely wrong in all of this?? It would be awesome if this would work!!

Jeremy

Hi, yeah I'm talking solely about watching movies through my PC.

The example I was referring to, the LG PB60G is a native 16:10 LED pj. I was just thinking out loud that when playing with ProjectorCentral Calculator, selecting the 2:35 aspect ratio option at my current required throw distance would work with my space.

I guess I didn't think about movies looking really squished and distorted though. I guess since most movies from the last couple of decades are in 16:9 or 2:35/2:39 format, I kindof thought that playing movies through VLC,etc at 2:35 wouldn't really look bad.

So that's not the case?

Hey I'll check that out, thanks! And I wouldn't have a problem buying another card if need be, the only thing is that my setup is getting old so it might be hard to find.

I'm still running an Intel C2D E7500@ 3.8ghz with a basic EVGA (nvidia) 9500GT 512mb video card so not sure what I could find nowadays....

Thanks again
Edited by niceguy88 - 3/15/13 at 11:12pm

Yeah I checked my Invidia card and no such option unfortunately that I could discern. The only advanced options I had were for timings....

I may actually try to find a compatible ATI card that supports underscanning...

The EVGA Geforce 9500GT, 512mb card.....It's about 4 years old maybe? I built a C2D E7500 based system and Gigabyte G31m-ES2L MB and used this particular EVGA card before I even thought of using an LED projector with it.

EDIT: Now I wanted to mention that I can create/input custom resolution settings but I use that to simply get the native resolution of my oddball 858x480 pj. I assume that's not used to underscan an image though, or am I wrong?

When using the custom resolution slider, you're changing resolution so it seems like using this to shrink the image would defeat the purpose of getting a higher resolution pj but I'm open to re education lol...
Edited by niceguy88 - 3/19/13 at 1:11pm