Bring The Drive-In Experience Home! Testing Out the Venkyo Projector Outdoors on the Nintendo Switch
42In this video, we tet out the Venkyo C100 Projector on my garage using my Nintendo Switch for a video source!
In 2012, I found out that there was a drive-in locally, and one of the coolest things to me was the fact that they played 1st-run movies. This theater is called the Harvest Moon Twin Drive-In, and it is absolutely amazing. I instantly fell in love with going to the drive-in, it was such a fun experience and, quite honestly, less expensive than going to the multiplex! From 2012 to 2015 I went to the drive-in probably at least once a month because I enjoyed it so much.
It's always been a desire to bring that experience home, I've also wondered what it would be like to play video games on a screen as large as you could a drive-in. That's where the projector from Vankyo comes into play. The C100 gives me the opportunity to play on and up to 200-inch display, provides multiple inputs, and promises a fun experience
The C100 comes packaged in a really nice carry case. This kind of reinforces the desire to allow you to transport this and use it portably. There's storage in the case for all of your cables, the remote control, the user guide, and the manual. It's not too thickly padded, so it won't protect against drops, but it will protect against being scratched up as you transport it. Included in with the C100 is your remote control, obviously, an HDMI cable, a VGA cable, and your power cable.
On the back of the C100, there are multiple inputs and outputs. There is an SD card slot, two USB ports, two HDMI ports, a VGA output, an audio in, and audio out. I like the fact that it does have an audio out that promises that I can connect the C100 to an external speaker, amplifier, or soundbar. Speaking of the speakers, that sounded redundant, the C100 does have two built-in stereo speakers for decent sound. The C100 can also be mounted to a tripod, or upside down to a ceiling mount if so desired. You can even use the C100 as a rear projector or a front projector, in a budget-friendly projector it's actually really nice feature to have!
My first test were with the Sega Genesis Mini, and upon powering up it indicated that the resolution was at 720P, exactly what the output of the system is. I played several games on the Genesis Mini, didn't feel much of any leg even though there was not a game mode like what you would find on a flat-panel TV. From here I switched to my Switch, playing some Luigi's Mansion, some Super NES games, and even some NES games. My results were exactly the same, little if any lag, and an overall fun time.
I wish the camera could properly capture what I was seeing, admittedly the displays look faint and dark in how I shot. That actually was not the case in what I was seeing, the colors were vibrant, the picture was bright, overall I had very little if any complaints about how the projected image looked. And I wasn't even using a screen, I was just projecting it on a lightly gray tinted wall.
My final test was to have some video input coming into it, so I connected my 2019 Nvidia Shield TV Pro to the second HDMI input. I actually used the C100 for my initial setup and it worked flawlessly. The picture looks crisp, the images were great, especially watching my Bears get destroyed by the Rams on Sunday Night football. My 8-month old and I even watched the original Toy Story on it, and it looked good and the projector output the native 1080p resolution.
Why it RoX:
- very budget-friendly
- 1080p output
- multiple inputs including USB and SD card
- except composite imports with included adapter
- can be mounted upside down on a ceiling
- 4000 lumen brightness
- built-in stereo speakers
- included carrying case
- standard power cord
What could be improved?
- fans are pretty loud
- no 4K output
- while stereo, the speakers could have better audio output, but that's pretty typical for something of this size
Should you buy one?
I don't know that I would recommend using this as a primary source for video, but for a secondary room, a kid's room, a bedroom, a man cave, this could be pretty decent for you! I'm excited at the opportunity to possibly take this with me to conventions to be able to play games in a booth with fans. I'm also looking forward to having Drive-In night in my driveway. For a little bit over $100 this provides a super fun experience. The opportunity to mount the projector to a tripod also ensures that I have a sturdy foundation if I want to take it portably. I had a lot of fun with the c100 from Vanko, and I'm looking forward to having even more fun in the future.
The footage used in this review are used under the Fair Use laws, referenced below:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107
#Vankyo #C100 #VideoProjector