The World Cup project (or)

Here are two new projectors that are ideal for viewing the World Cup matches on the big screen

My friend called the other day. And as usual, after a few minutes of chit-chat, our conversation veered towards the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup. While we were debating the chances of India retaining the trophy, my friend mentioned an existential question he was facing - to move or not to move?

A cricket fanatic, my friend is a finance professional based in Mumbai. He works with a foreign bank and apparently is doing well enough to think of buying a 65-inch 4K television, which he simply can't accommodate in his Bandra flat. He wasn't getting a bigger place in Bandra, and he really didn't want to shift - his wife's office was nearby and his child had just started school. But then a World Cup comes every four years.

Well, I suggested, how about dropping your plans for a big TV and look at a short-throw projector instead? Yes, it's a kind of a compromise as I couldn't suggest any 4K projector, but there were a few I had on hand to review, and suggested my friend should wait till I was done.

First up was the Benq W1080ST+ (Rs 1,25,000). Setting it up was fairly easy. The projector comes with a plethora of connectivity options. I connected my TATASkyHD+ to the HDMI port and started off with the second match, India vs Australia, in the recently concluded tri-series Down Under. Did I mention, I placed the projector about 2 metres from the wall and was enjoying an image equivalent to that on a 70-inch TV?

I felt I was right there. India had won the toss and was batting first. By the time I joined, India had lost a few early wickets but Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina were busy building a partnership, getting through the middle overs. Sharma seemed in fine nick, pushing for the singles and driving the ball for boundaries. Whenever he spotted a chance, he lofted one for a six. Both were quick between the wickets and often stole threes instead of two. Sharma had already reached his half-century and soon Raina crossed the milestone.

Just when I thought India's great batting line-up would surely notch up a 300+ score, disaster struck. Raina mistimed a hit off Mitchell Starc over the in-field and Glenn Maxwell took a comfortable catch at mid-on. In came Captain Cool MS Dhoni. He smashes a few to the boundary and the Indian crowd goes ecstatic.

I should mention that I connected external speakers to the projector to get the atmospherics right. While the in-built audio does suffice, it wasn't loud enough to convey the excitement of the crowd. One must mention watching a match on a big-screen TV offers a lot of depth, which seemed to be missing on the projected image. But that in no way takes away the excitement of watching the match on the big screen.

Next I switched on the curious-looking and compact Ricoh PJWX4141Ni (Rs 1,08,000). This ultra short throw projector projects the image vertically, which took some time for me to get used to. And from a distance of about half a foot, I was able to project an image equivalent to that of a 70-inch TV. I must mention that this is the maximum size of the image I could project because the wall could accommodate only that big an image. The projector can connect wirelessly as well as through a LAN cable to the network, along with the usual other connections. Again I connected external speakers.

I switched on during the course of the third match of the series - India vs England. Axar Patel had just come in and was taking guard as Steven Finn came in to bowl. The score read, horror of horrors, 137/6. Make that 137/7. Displaying absolutely no footwork, Patel was castled. It was painful to watch on the big screen to boot the great Indian batting line-up fail in so vivid detail on a big screen. I switched to some saner stuff, such as pulling videos off my home media server and watching them - ah the joys of wireless communication. Next, I plugged in a pen drive with some pictures of office and watched them on the big screen.

I then found an interactive presentation pen in the package. When switched on and connected wirelessly, the screen became a virtual whiteboard for presentations. And if the projector was connected to a computer, the whiteboard could be saved as well!

My friend is a happy man. He doesn't have to shift and is instead driving his wife mad by dragging her to showrooms for projector demos.