Help With Planning Your Event

To help you choose the right equipment, we will start off with a few questions. Knowing the answers to these questions will help you focus in on the products that will fit your needs. Many of our customers have reported that copying this questionnaire and circulating it to participants has been extremely beneficial in defining their needs and making an intelligent product choice.

Please remember that we will be pleased to discuss these issues with you.

Will you be traveling with your system?

• How often?

• By airplane?

• If you are traveling by plane, is a meeting planner available to make arrangements (for screens, etc.)?

• If you are using the system for trade shows, conferences and the like, will it be carried with you or freighted ahead?

• If not traveling, will this projector be in a permanent installation, such as a conference room etc., or will it be moved from room to room?

• Will you place it on an A/V cart or something comparable (to determine size and weight)?
• Will it the system be moved from building to building, such as a corporate campus or school?

Typical audience size, screen size and/or room size?

• How often will the largest (most challenging) environments be used?

• When presenting to small or medium audiences (75+ people), is a “lights on” environment preferable to “lights off” (a typical slide presentation)?

Note: Some of today’s portables can handle a room with a couple-hundred people with minimal but sufficient lighting for note taking.

• What type of presentations will be staged: Typical PowerPoint, Freelance, Persuasion Presentation software? Productivity software like Excel, Word Processing, and Desktop Publishing? Specialty software such as Engineering, Scientific, Training, Multimedia? Your own proprietary software?

• Will the computer presentation incorporate photos?

• How about video clips and sound?

• Will you also need to run video from a VCR, Videodisc player, DVD, video camera, etc?

• Will this projector be shared between several users, or is there primarily one user? If more than one user, how many?

• What native screen resolution do you need (640×480 was standard, but most new laptops support SVGA 800×600).

• If you have a requirement for high resolution, like working with workstations, is 1024 x 768 resolution sufficient?

• If you need even higher resolution (1280 x 1024 or 1152 x 900) will compressed resolutions be sufficient, or perhaps 1024 x 768 (XGA) with the ability to pan or scroll around larger pages?

• What resolution is the display of your laptop? If multiple users will share this system, what displays do they have? (Desktop systems can generally support all major resolutions.)

• For medium to large rooms you need to fill the room with sound. Will you need capability to support external speakers? Will you require audience response or audience participation on stationary or roving microphones?

Time Frame

• How soon do you expect to purchase?

• How quickly will you need to be up and running?

• Are you expecting to purchase additional units within the next six months?

What is your budget for equipment?

• Will you purchase or have you considered leasing? Leasing is a viable option. You can select a lease custom fit for your company.

As you consider the possible answers, keep in mind that Strong Communications’ knowledgeable staff is available to help you select the right equipment for your particular job.