Recommendation dependent things: 1. What's the program source? Laptop? Blu-ray player? Dedicated media player e.g. Micca Spec? Camcorder?
2. What's the program format? Resolution? (SD? 1080p? 4K?) Aspect ratio? I had to regularly screen classic films from video sources, including experimental film shot on 16mm, that were in 4:3. And given that the screen in the auditorium was square, I insisted on a projector with native 4:3 because it didn't make the 16:9 narrower (it letterboxed) but a 16:9 native would have made the 4:3 smaller (pillarboxing). 3. What's the program material? Is it cinema, that is moving image works projected on a 'large' screen for an audience in a darkened room expected to focus on the work from beginning to end? Or is it more installation, where there's enough light for viewers to see the environment, they can wander in and out, and there's no hard beginning and end (even works that were made that way but shown here on a loop). Notes from my own experiences traveling with stuff to show around a dozen years back. • Hosts will tell you, "Oh, we have everything you need." "You can use our projection system" or "You can plug your audio into our sound system." But you can't trust that sight unseen and untested. So I always wanted to be self contained (except for maybe the screen), which meant -- as you already are thinking -- your own audio. The problems I ran into: 1. Most program sources assume newer TVs and may only have HDMI outs, but the projector doesn't feed stereo line out and only has a teeny mono speaker. 2. I wanted to pack the whole kit into a bag I could carry, and that limited the size and weight of the sound. My solution: I found an old pair of JBL computer speakers in a thrift shop that had surprising good sound, especially in terms of being loud enough for a medium size screening room, each speaker being around 1.5 liter in size. I used either an older Mac laptop with an analog headphone jack out, or an older Blu-ray player with RCA outs, and just got a long stereo audio patch cable (they have these at places that sell car stereos) so I could put the speakers in the front of the room and run that cable feeding them back to wherever I put the projector and the source device. Now though, if I was using a laptop (or tablet?) source, I'd use Blu-tooth to get the sound to the front of the room. If you don't care about stereo separation, there are any number of good portable compact one-piece BT speakers available that could fill a room. I like having stereo, so I'd probably just get a little Blu-tooth receiver to drive the same sort of computer speakers. A way to find computer speakers that can handle the sound requirements is see what models are favored by gamers. I'm not up on the latest projector tech, so the following notes could all be outdated. I also was working with a much smaller budget. Video projectors use different technologies to create images, which have different plusses and minuses. The most basic is single chip LCD, which typically has pretty good brightness but poor contrast ratio (losing detail near the blacks more often than blowing out on the whites) pretty good color saturation but not so hot color fidelity. These are basically designed for public display of computer desktops, where black detail and color accuracy aren't big deals. That said some makes and models of these handle the problems better, and in the more affordable ranges Epson is among the best. That's what I wound up with, a single chip LCD Epson for under $500, and I'd rate it's picture as 'good enough' for what I was doing and nobody ever complained. A supposedly superior technology in terms of contrast and color fidelity is DLP. The more affordable of these use a single chip with a 'color wheel'. I do not like these at all. The brightness and saturation tend to be weak, and the image absolutely flickers or moires. Some folks apparently don't see it, but I do and it drives me nuts. With a $5K budget, I'd hope you could get some kind of 3 chip projector - separate imagers for RG&B. Those should have really good saturation, contrast and accuracy, and the better ones are plenty bright as well. When my school bought one, close to 20 years ago now, Panasonic was the best, and the one we got was awesome. The films showed with it looked just like they're supposed to. But the thing was nowhere near portable. I'd guess with the way tech goes they make smaller and lighter ones now, but I'm long out of the game so I really don't know. It fell to me to make choose the make and model when that projector purchase for our little auditorium got approved, but I found it was almost impossible to see high end projectors in person. They were carried by AV box houses who either didn't have showrooms or weren't going to keep stock of such expensive items and put them on display. They were all used to institutional buyers just flipping through specs and saying 'OK, I guess we'll take one of those.' Which is why the projector in that auditorium before we got the Pana absolutely stunk despite having a healthy price tag. So I wasn't going to commit what was a big layout of the school's money, and only one chance to get it right, without seeing it in person showing footage I was familiar with, comparing a few competing models, albeit not at the same time. Which took MONTHS, full days on the road and several hundreds of miles on the odometer of my car to complete. Again, I'd hope things are better now. But if your artists care about the image as artists are wont to do, I'd say don't buy anything you haven't actually seen, and sat with for awhile, because eye fatigue can be a thing, and some things (good or bad) may not be apparent immediately. Finally, for a screen, I just got a basic matte white pull down wall screen about 6' wide from Fry's electronics (sadly now defunct) screwed little brackets to each end then used two lightweight light stands to hang it from. Worked fine, and seemed more stable than a screen with it's own unfolding tripod floor stand. I'd guess you can get similar stuff on Amazon, or from B+H or Adorama. (Adorama has good cheap aluminum light stands.) Good luck. dave t.
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