Well, our Business Unit president came to me today asking about mounting our portable Toshiba projector on the ceiling. We have one of those screens that drops from the ceiling but the projector is a portable unit and sits on the table. We called the electrician that works in our building and he said he could mount the unit (assuming we have a bracket) wire it up to the AC for $800 or so. We asked him about running a cable from the VGA input on the projector down to the wall or something so it's easy to attach to a PC.
Why they come to me I have no idea. However, I pointed out some possible pitfalls of mounting the current one and why we should just get a new one. 1) The unit has no remote. To, turn it on, you would have stand on the table. 2) A 50 foot VGA extension wire would be needed and the signal may look like shit after it went 50 feet. 3) The projector is really old and murphys law says that 3 months after you mount it, you will have to buy a new one and possibly a new mount. 4) It's the only portable one we have.
Well, I spent some time and found a nice unit, that has a remote control, that takes a component video input, and a converterbox/signal amplifier that takes a VGA signal, boosts it, and converts it to component video, and 50 feet of component video wire. This is the exact thing you need to push a video signal 50 feet. The total cost was like $2400. Add in the $800 for the electrician and the total is $3200.
They decided not to do that and to go with mounting the original unit that is 5 years old. This out to be fun to watch. The best part will be when someone breaks their leg falling off the table they will need to stand on to turn the unit on.
In the electricains quote, he was not including the cost to wire in a separate switch and circuit for the projector. That would probbaly cost another $600 to $800 and when you add in the $400 or so they will charge for the bracket, the cost savings is not $2400, but more like $1200. Add in having to buy another projector for portable use, and you just used up that $1200.
What can I say?