Just finished working on a very cool graphics demo. It looks pretty amazing on LCD screen.

Hopefully, this demo will be presented on some industry events. We had a dry-run just now, using a basic conference room projector - and the visual quality sucked.

I know that projectors aren't as good as LCDs, and I do expect some degradation, but not as much as we experienced today. Visiting SIGGRAPH and GDC - they use projectors there, and the visual quality looks pretty good.

Is it just a matter of a far better projector? Any advice on how to prepare a demo for such setup?

What was wrong with the picture specifically?

Make sure the room is dark (and/or turn the projector lamp brightness up to max), the projector is focussed, and you're not trying to display at a resolution higher than the projector can handle (and you're rendering at that resolution).

If you're not going to be exhibiting in a dark room, I'd avoid the projector and get a big TV instead.

What was wrong with the picture specifically?

Contrast issues - a lot of fine details are missing. Basically, everything I've don't in the past 3 weeks is not noticeable, and the image looks bland.

This demo if for CES - might be part of our company's keynote. I have no control on the lighting setup or the projector, and I'll probably won't have time to tweak things before the presentation.

check proper resolution

make sure it's dark

focus properly

get a good projector.

i have a 1080p projector and stuff looks gorgeous on it (when it's dark).

but yes, the work projectors we have at work look terrible. so find a good one.

As a home cinema hobbyist, I recommend making sure the canvas you're projecting onto is placed away from any reflective surfaces, such as white walls, white floor, white roof, reflective table surface, etc. The light from the projector will otherwise bounce around the room after it hits the canvas, and "re-hit" the canvas, resulting in a degradation of potential contrast.

If the walls and roof do have this property, you can cover them up with some simple cloth and pins.

I don't have any control on the light setup, projector, canvas. If fact, I won't even know what the exact conditions will be until maybe a day before the presentation, though it's CES, so I guess they will have close to optimal setup.

The only control I really have is of my demo - I can make some changes to make it more projector friendly, if there is such a thing.

call ahead any ask?

If you can implement some form of contrast adjustment into your demo so that you can crank it up if necessary for a low contrast projector, that will probably provide the greatest chance of a successful demonstration. If that's not an option, maybe two versions of the demo, one higher contrast, then see which looks best right before the presentation. Hopefully you'll have at least some setup time to make adjustments prior to the actual demonstration. I would also expect that CES would at least have an ok projector setup, if not completely optimal.