My local magic club is looking for a setup for projecting magic performances. We don't own the space where we meet, so everything needs to be portable. Wifi is spotty. I'm thinking:

• Portable screen to hang on wall
  
• Short-throw projector to get a large image at a short distance
  
• Bluetooth dongle to connect camera to projector
  
• Phone used as camera
  

Any technical folk have advice, recommendations or cautions?

What screen size? How many inches. Too many products to list.

Which phone Android or IPhone? A few solutions for each.

Forget about the Bluetooth dongle.

We're planning to use a portable screen that we hand on the wall -- probably 100"

I'd like something that can work with both Android and IOS.

As for the Bluetooth dongle, I'd really like to avoid running a cable from camera to projector, and the existing WiFi is just too slow and unreliable. I wonder if an alternative might be a projector or an attachment that created its own ad hoc wireless network. That way the house WiFi doesn't matter. I figure camera and projector will be within 30 feet of each other, so ad hoc WiFi might do the job.

I really should have been more clear with my question. And once I know the technology to choose I feel comfortable with product selection. Here's what I'm really wondering:

1. Do any of you have experience sending to a projector wirelessly?
2. Do any of you have experience doing it without WiFi?
3. If you answered "yes" to #1 or #2, can you tell me what's working for you?

Https://www.airserver.com/

Airserver (PC or Mac), buy a portable wifi router, connect a laptop to wifi and phone to wifi.

Laptop video signal HDMI out to projector.

projector screen can just be white lycra.


Another solution is a large TV, with a Amazon FireStick hdmi, wifi router and buy a mirroring app thru Amazon app store.

Thanks for these helpful ideas. Keep 'em coming people!

Forgot to add:

https://www.stretchshapes.net/product-ca......screens/

With some PVC pipes

The stretch shapes thing is very cool. Thanks for sharing that.

Airserver looks cool, but it looks like we'd need to run server software on a PC or Mac, and I'm hoping for a laptop-free solution.

I think I have a workable solution, but I’ll appreciate any additional advice, warnings or suggested substitutions.

Screen: Owlenz 100-inch Projection Screen 16:9 HD Foldable Anti-crease Portable Projector Screen. It costs $31. It weighs two pounds. We can stick it on a wall with thumbtacks. Handles rear projection as well as front.

Projector: BenQ MW632ST 3,200 ANSI Lumen Colorific MHL DLP Projector. Short-throw lens so it doesn’t have to be far from the screen. Nice and bright (for price range) so it will stand up to some ambient light. You can plug a lot of different stuff into it. Includes a powered USB port.

Projector accessory: Actiontec ScreenBeam Mini2 Wireless Display Receiver. This adds more wireless capacity to the projector. Can be powered by the projector. Doesn’t need WiFi – it creates its own ad hoc WiFi hotspot devices can connect to.

Camera: Don’t need one. Just need pretty much any Android device with video capability.

Thoughts?

Doug,

Actiontec ScreenBeam Mini2 looks like it would work. Similar to the Amazon Stick I mentioned above but with WIFI built.

However HDMI has many specifications and versions, so your projector and the ActionTec should have similar or backwards compatible HDMI ports.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

Also the range of the Wifi will be limited in the Actiontec with the internal antenna. Which is why I suggested a wifi router with large antenna's and possible custom firmware like dd-wrt to maximize performance.

Very helpful. Thanks.

You will need some way to stabilize the camera. A tripod designed for overhead video capturing with a mounting bracket for a smartphone might do the trick, or a gymbal (sp?) For a smartphone if the performers have an assistant to take the video.

I think I found a better dongle. It's the It’s the Innens 2.4G / 5G WiFi Display Dongle. It's $20 more than the one I was looking at, but it will let us connect both Android phones and iPhones. The one mentioned above didn't support iPhones.