Hello folks! found this site wile browsing the web. I am a digital media student at a University in michigan. We are looking to buy a projector for out lab - which consists mostly of Mac's. The older one was an Epson Powerlite 5350. The projector worked well for a while, but now the colors are seperated and the image looks grotty. The bulbs were replaced and this didn't seem to help. Also the department decidded to get a newer one, one with better features.

The department is willing to spend upto 3,500$. Here are a few of the things that are in place (things i gathered from other posts) -

1. The projector is not going to be moved around.
2. The image is going to be projected onto a wall.
3. We can control both interior light and exterior light.
4. The distance from the wall to the projector is about 14-17 feet( projector can be moved around a bit)
5. Weight does not matter - as long as the image is of top quality.

The two projectors that we have in mind are the Mitsubishi HD4000U and the Dell 5100MP. Since it is all digital media stuff - we would like to get somehting that projects a real good image - and i am quite unsure of how to interpret the zoom ratio's and the other things - hence my post here. Am guessing we need something with a brightness of 3000 or more atleast??? is this too much??
and above all what brand would you people recommend??

Hope to hear from you guys soon - please let me know if you need any info and i will post it on here.

THanks