Toshiba’s Well-Armed TDP-SC35U Projector

Toshiba's new TDP-SC35U conference room projector comes with an extra appendage: an arm with a detachable camera enabling presenters to show photos, documents, and objects.

Conference room projectors aren’t usually the stuff of techno-envy, but every now and again they serve up a new innovation which seems like such a good idea you wonder why it hasn’t been a de facto standard for years. Such is the case withToshba’s new TDP-SC35U conference room projector, which features an extensible arm with a detachable camera so that, in addition to traditional slides and presentation material from a video source like a laptop, presenters can swing out the arm and incorporate photo samples, images of documents, and even images of a 3D object.

The Toshiba TDP-SC35U Projector beams images at SVGA (800 by 600 pixel) resolution, offering 2000 ANSI lumens of brightness. The unit sports two D-sub dual-component 15-pin video inputs, an S-Video port, and composite input; there’s also a stereo mini-jack, and RCA audio input. The unit can handle NTSC, PAL, and SECAM input, and HDTV/DTV input from 480p all the way to 1080i; there’s also a tiny 1-watt internal speaker: might work for a laugh in a small room, but for many presentations you’ll want more audio oomph. The whole unit weights 8.6 pounds (comes with a carrying case) and claims to pump out just 36db of fan noise; a remote control lets you do some roaming while you make your points. The document camera will probably be outperformed by any cell phone picture-taker (it offers 648 by 486 resolution and manual focus modes for near and far objects) but it should get the job done for a presentation. Plus: extensible arm. What more need be said

Toshiba is pricing the TDP-SC35U at $899 and is taking orders now; it should start shipping in early February.