Mexico. The use of laser-LED projection technology is increasingly common in museums and art galleries, since, due to their operating characteristics for long periods of time, assembly versatility and low maintenance, they are ideal for video art applications, museography and dissemination of culture.
In Mexico, the Colegio de San Ildefonso is an example of taking advantage of the benefits of these new audiovisual tools. For a few years now, those responsible for museography have replaced the old mercury lamp projectors with Panasonic laser-LED equipment for use in the different needs of this prestigious cultural institution.
Regarding the recent incorporation of a new projector for its Cinema Room, the Museography Coordinator, Ernesto Bejarano shared his opinion regarding laser-LED technology and the performance of Panasonic equipment.
According to Ernesto, around 2016, he and his team decided to look for new alternatives to leave behind the projectors with mercury lamp that until then were used for the different activities and exhibitions of the Old College of San Ildefonso (ACSI). "Our projection needs are very demanding, both for the number of hours that the projectors must remain on daily during a temporary exhibition, and for the assembly conditions," explains Ernesto.
"With mercury lamp projectors we had to be aware of the overheating of the equipment, filter changes, maintenance to fans, replacement of lamps and the irremediable replacement of the projector when the lamp model was discontinued or its price was raised by the scarcity of the piece, "adds the museographer when recalling the different occasions in which the projectors stopped working in the middle of exhibition hours or the degradation of the brightness and colors as the lamps reached the end of their useful life.
"In 2016, prior to the exhibition "China is not as they paint", which presented more than 150 masterpieces of the National Museum of Art of China, we did an exhaustive review of the technological options and brands offered by the new mercury lampless projectors and found that Panasonic had one of the most attractive offers for museums", Ernesto remembers. And when the museography team received an invitation from the integrator Arcoustix to visit the Panasonic demo room in Mexico and learn about the brand's line of projectors, the decision was very simple.
The ACSI acquired its first laser-LED projectors from Panasonic and the results were practically immediate, as they can remain on for hours and hours without fear of being turned off due to overheating, which represented a great relief for those responsible for museography, since they stopped receiving complaints about interrupted projections in the rooms full of visitors.
"These projectors are not only more reliable, powerful or friendly to the environment, they are very versatile audiovisual tools that give us more assembly possibilities," says Ernesto. Functions such as image adjustment with a "joystick" or the playback of image or video files by means of SD cards or USB sticks, without the need for cables, are widely used in exhibitions or events organized by the ACSI.
This year, the ACSI decided to improve the experience it offers visitors to its Cinema Room, a space for 40 people that already had a Crestron automation system for lighting control, content reproduction and on-off of the room, but that lacked a good projector that responded to their needs.
"Our Cinema Room is more of a dynamic audiovisual room," Ernesto describes. "The objective is to use it to exhibit film cycles related to exhibitions, documentary films, distance concerts or present new books. For this reason we decided to trust Panasonic again and look for a projector that would meet the requirements of this venue, "adds the Museography Coordinator.
The solution was a compact DLP projector with laser-LED technology, 3,500 lumens of brightness, contrast ratio of 20,000 to 1 and Full HD resolution, from Panasonic's PT-RZ family. The projector, installed at the end of January 2020, is compatible with the DIGITAL LINK function that allows the transmission of video, audio and control signals through a single LAN cable, which facilitated its connectivity with the automated control system available in the room.
The renovated Cinema Hall had its first function during the Night of Museums on January 29, with the screening of the film "The Revolution and the Artists", directed by Gabriel Retes.
