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Small but Mighty: Kodak Luma 450 HD Video Projector
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May 29, 2025
You don't have to go camping to appreciate the brightness and clarity of the Kodak Luma 450 HD Video Projector, but it'll work great in a tent if you do. Tech expert Dave Taylor checks out the latest from Kodak, sporting a bright 200 lumen projection system in full, native 1080p HD. It even includes a remote control and a tripod stand, so you're ready to go. This review focuses (pun intended!) on the built-in streaming capabilities, but it also supports HDMI input and wireless mirroring, as well as playback from USB flashdrives or external Roku sticks or similar. Check it out at: https://amzn.to/4266aUf Visit Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ 0:00 Introduction 1:48 Specs and Tech Details 2:37 Tour of the Device 4:10 Remote Control and Kodak Luma App 4:47 Demo: Settings 6:48 Demo: Home Screen and Netflix 7:49 Demo: YouTube 8:41 Demo: Tubi 10:42 Demo: Disney+ 12:55 Thoughts and Commentary 17:18 Price and Conclusions #kodak #kodakluma #hdprojector #videoprojector #askdavetaylor
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0:00
an HD video projector that's smaller
0:02
than your favorite paperback let's check
0:04
it
0:05
[Music]
0:11
out Dave Taylor here and if you're like
0:14
me you have a couple of really nice big
0:17
screen TVs in your house and they're
0:20
beautiful but they're super not portable
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so when you're moving around if you're
0:26
sick and you want to watch something in
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bed or if you're traveling or even
0:30
camping and you might want to watch a
0:32
movie or let the kids watch their
0:34
favorite cartoon or something you're
0:36
kind of stuck those TV screens aren't
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going to do much good for you enter this
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this is the Kodak Luma 450 HD video
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projector and I want to say right off
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the bat that this projects native 1920 x
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1080p so it is a full HD projector there
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are a lot of projectors out there that
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say their HD compatible but they're
1:01
actually typically projecting in
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720p or even 584 or something like that
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so they actually have less dots than you
1:11
think but they can take a higher
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resolution image this is projecting an
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HD image which makes it pretty darn cool
1:19
it's also 200 lumens brightness and I
1:22
have a big demo we're going to get to in
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just a minute and you'll see it did a
1:27
great job I spent last night I spent
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good amount of time last night having
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this projecting on a wall in my kitchen
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and just going through all the different
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features and capabilities and it looked
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fantastic I mean like startlingly good
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particularly since the wall isn't
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actually white it's the same color as
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what's behind me and it still did a
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really nice job so 200 lumens 3500 to1
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contrast ratio
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16x9 aspect ratio so that is a standard
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movie aspect ratio and IT projects 16.7
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million colors and I know one of the
2:07
first questions people have about these
2:08
devices is well tell me about the lamp
2:12
life and these don't really use lamps
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they actually use a different sort of
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projection system but this has 30,000
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hours rated so if you're watching a
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2hour movie every night that is a lot of
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years that this is going to run I don't
2:28
know what the number is in head but you
2:30
can ma do the math so supports Wi-Fi
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Bluetooth HDMI USB in fact let's start
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with a tour on the front you can see
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that there is the projector and there is
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a vent I think that's for both Cooling
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and the speaker and then on the left
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side there's a focus wheel I will tell
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you I never touched it I don't find that
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I needed to do it but I think that gives
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you that fine resolution if you want it
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to be just perfect where all the ports
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are are that are interesting are on the
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back so you can see there's a 3.5 mm
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audio out so you can plug in better
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speakers if you want there's USBC for
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charging if you want usba HDMI and
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there's DC power in on the right hand
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side there's a power button and on the
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bottom there's really not much there
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other than that 1/ qu in screw so that
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you can
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use the included tripod and you're
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looking at this and saying that is the
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world's smallest tripod but you know
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what it's exactly what I used for the
3:36
demo and it worked really well so it
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features two one watt speakers so you're
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thinking one watt come on dude my watch
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does more than that but as you'll see in
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the demo which we're so close to then it
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actually did perfectly fine for a
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smaller room like a hotel room or
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something this would do just fine but of
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course you can always bring an external
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speaker and plug it in 3.5 mm headphone
4:00
it runs Android 9 which is actually
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pretty modern for a a video or TV
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streaming device so many of them are on
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Android 7 I don't know why um has a
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remote control so check this out it
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actually has a remote so you can use
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this very conveniently but the remote is
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duplicated by the app and you really
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want the app so let me show this to you
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just super quick just a screenshot it's
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the Kodak Luma app
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and if we get into the demo and you know
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what let's just jump into that demo so
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this is going to be a pretty long demo
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because I'm going to show you a bunch of
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stuff but my interest was really on how
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does this do as a standalone streaming
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device so with that in mind let's check
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this out as you can see I just have it
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projecting on a wall in my kitchen and
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there's nothing particularly special
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going on but let me turn off the kitchen
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light so you can see how bright it is in
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full
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Darkness it is entirely watchable and
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now let me zoom in a little bit with the
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camera so I'm going to use the remote as
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I can and then I can switch to the app
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as needed but let's start by looking at
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settings you can see there quite a
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variety of settings and let's go to zoom
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for a minute because actually zoomed in
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a little bit so that it only projects
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onto the flat wall surface but I can
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make it bigger and then you can see we
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would need to adjust it so it would be
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centered but then it would be projected
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on the picture and on the various
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outlets on the wall so let's go back to
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where we were and that's the perfect
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size I can use the back button I can go
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to brightness and check this out this is
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just normal brightness if I go to eco
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mode it's little less bright and if I go
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to High then that's the maximum
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brightness this is perfect for if you're
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using it while it's plugged in if you're
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using it on battery I would definitely
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use normal and I would try eco mode so
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we'll leave it on high just for better
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effects here and then we get to system
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and you can see you can check for
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updates you can do a factory reset you
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can change language all the basics
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nothing super exciting so let's go back
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to home but before we do that here are
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the three input sources that you can
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choose in addition to the Android 9
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system that's actually built in to the
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Kodak Luma so I'm going to just use the
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built-in features so I'm going to go to
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Netflix for example and just choose
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it and here's Netflix and let's just
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play this and see what it looks like and
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what it sounds
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like oops let's see I'm on the wrong
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remote I have to go to the app so
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Netflix wants you to be able to use the
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little touchpad so when I do that
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suddenly I have a mouse and I can move
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it down and we can press play
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[Music]
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and this is pretty darn
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impressive the volume is entirely
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acceptable for a smaller space and that
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picture is really nice and bright now of
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course I don't have the rights to show
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you this show on Netflix so I'm going to
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back up but that's Netflix I'm going to
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choose the home button and now let's
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try going to YouTube
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and YouTube wants me to do something
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different so now I'm on YouTube and this
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is pretty much your basic YouTube
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experience here and we can go here just
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for a second or two it's almost
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impossible to try and cover all of the
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wonderful sci-fi films of the 1950s but
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this is watchable let me go back again
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and what I really like about this is
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that it's really pretty Snappy now I
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admit I have a very good internet
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connection but I don't think it's really
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leaning on that too heavily so let's now
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go and try tuby one of my other favorite
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channels and what's nice about tuby is
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you don't need a subscription you don't
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need to sign in you can just go straight
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to some of their thousands and thousands
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of Fairly
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random shows so let's try secret life of
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pets 2
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let's see what else we got here I think
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I did that last time so Happy
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Gilmore mop that was fairly funny let's
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try iRobot because who doesn't like Will
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Smith so I'm going to just not play and
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you can see it looks pretty dark but
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that's because there's not really much
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going on right now so let's give it a
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second for the movie to actually start
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and you're seeing that it did take a
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little bit of time to load but now I'll
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be quiet just for a second oh we got
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some buffering
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here so one of the things I found is if
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you do have a device that has buffering
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sometimes pausing for like 30 seconds
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before you start gives you enough of a
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sort
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of look ahead that you don't have to
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worry about the buffering anymore but
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this looks like we've gotten over that I
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think 2 be caliber Ates based on your
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network connection
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so give this a couple more
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seconds I did think this was a good
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movie and it's worth pointing out that
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this is being projected onto a light
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brown wall so it's not a white wall it's
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not perfectly smooth it is a textured
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wall and yet I would say that looks
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pretty darn good so again that's about
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as far as I'm going to go there we can
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go back back to our home screen we now
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I'm just stepping backwards and notice
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that one had espanol in fact you can set
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whatever language you prefer and a lot
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of streaming services now have multiple
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languages so now that I'm looking at
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other apps here are the other ones I can
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choose so I can go into movie player or
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music or view TV or I can just choose
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Disney plus let's do that I don't have a
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Disney Plus account so
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I think it's going to just prompt me to
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sign in and then I won't be able to oh
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but looks like there's an update so cool
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let's let's do that update so you can
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see how that process
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works and let's see Disney
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update and again I have a reasonably
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Speedy internet
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connection but these apps shouldn't be
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very
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large and I want to reiterate I don't
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have anything plugged into the projector
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it's just everything we've seen is on
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board smarts so it really is a
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standalone unit let's see where are we
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here we want to do the
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install so it's installing and now you
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can get a little better sense of how the
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walls a bit textured app not installed
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all right then we will just try to run
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it and see if it
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works new version
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available uh to continue streaming all
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right we'll try it again
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let's see if we can update it this
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time so this happens unfortunately so it
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is also the case that as you saw on the
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ports on the back you could plug in
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something like a Roku stick or an Apple
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TV device or something so if you prefer
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that interface you could do that instead
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of this but generally if I can get away
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with what's just on board with one of
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these projectors it's obviously the
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easiest way to do it with the least
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amount um things to fiddle with but it
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looks like we're not having any luck
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with Disney plus here that's too bad so
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I'll just let's see press the home
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button and that's really everything I
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wanted to show you oops it definitely
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looks like I'm on the wrong time zone
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right now it is not 11:23 p.m. but
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that's my demo let me jump back on
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camera I have to say I was pretty
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impressed I'm not sure what's going on
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with that Disney Plus update loop I
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think that's something that's just going
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to be fixed magically with a little tiny
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increment or change on their end but
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that is if that's the channel you want
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you might think about watching it on
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your computer or your phone and then
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using this just as a projector or
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remember since this has usba on the back
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you could easily plug in something like
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an on or a Roku stick there's a lot of
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companies that are making these little
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tiny USB sticks that actually offer full
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streaming and you could do that and use
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this as a projector no harm no foul work
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perfectly well so it
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includes the projector and this is just
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a nice light unit and the tripod
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which folds up to some extent and it
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includes a universal power so I have the
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two-prong for USA but it also includes
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the two other major power outlet styles
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for around the world so this is also
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something you could use on your
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international travels it has the remote
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we already looked at that and it also
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has an HDMI to HDMI cable so you could
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plug this into for example your PC if
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your PC is HDMI out I know mine does my
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Mac does I have a lot of devices that
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can push out an HDMI signal you're going
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to hook it up to a Blu-ray player if you
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really wanted to but H that'd be a
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little strange but you could do it so
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that's everything in the Box it does
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have battery power so what they say and
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I mentioned this in the demo is that it
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can run for 3 hours in eco mode which is
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the least bright of the options so if
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you want it on maximum brightness
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running off the battery you're probably
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going to be able to do about a 1our TV
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episode or cartoons or something but my
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experience is that if you have a power
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source and you can plug it in you're
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going to get better results because you
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can leave it on the highest brightness
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and get the most sort of crisp and
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bright image that's going to be more
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viewable so it does have battery power
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if you need it it's not going to last
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super long time but if they wanted it to
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last longer then they would be pushing
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it out a couple of inches to get more
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battery in and it would weigh a lot more
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so I understand their trade-off here
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talking of Dimensions let me just show
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you again it is 4.9 in by 4.9 in by 1.3
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in and it's about 1 lb it does not come
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with a carrying case it would be easy
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enough to find a carrying case and I do
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want to show you one thing is that if I
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turn it on then the top actually has
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redundant controls so that's great if
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you lose the remote and your phone's
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dead you can still use that and just if
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you're curious it is actually projecting
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an image it says Kodak and now it's on
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the home screen I can see that on the
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wall but you can't see that cuz if I
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project that into your eyes as it were
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then it ain't going to work well so I'm
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going to just turn that back off and
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that's what I got I think this is a
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really nice incremental update I've
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looked at other Kodak video projectors
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and they were on their way to creating
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really good devices and I think this is
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one of their first really great
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projectors it's super versatile it's
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easy to work with as you saw for things
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like Netflix or YouTube and YouTube's
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one of the most common places people
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watch TV shows now you know so it's just
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a really convenient way to just take
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this with and be able to have it where
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you're in a hotel room the kids can
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watch their cartoon sitting behind the
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bed on projected on the wall right by
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them and then you and your spouse or
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partner can watch TV or something so it
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gives you just so much flexibility easy
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to work with the remote control it's a
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little confusing where you're trying to
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figure out can I use this or do I have
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to use the touchpad on the app but
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that's something you figure out in a
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couple of seconds so not a big deal
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that's everything I got this is
17:17
definitely one worth checking out I am
17:19
going to invite you to subscribe to my
17:21
channel click or tap on that subscribe
17:23
button hit that Bell icon for
17:25
notifications of my new content and give
17:28
me a thumb thumbs up if you found this a
17:30
value really appreciate that excellent
17:33
this let's hold it this way just to be
17:35
different this is the Kodak Luma 450 HD
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video projector and it is $
17:44
54999 at amazon.com so it is as
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expensive as a small HD or 4K TV screen
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but it is vastly more flexible and
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portable obviously and I should mention
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that you can feed it a 4K signal and it
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will downsample it to HD and then
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project it with the best possible image
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it can so it can handle a lot of
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different input resolutions and it'll
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still give you the best picture that's
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possible given the circuitry and given
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what you're giving it so that's
18:17
everything I got I will hope to catch
18:19
you in my next video
18:23
[Music]
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