Aurzen Zip Pico Projector : Wires > Wireless
Give me ten minutes with any product and I’ll be able to tell you exactly what’s wrong with it. It might take me half an hour to show you though.
In other news, due to popular request, a rather large box has just arrived from Mathmos. More to follow.
In other, other news, this week’s delay has been brought to you by a gum infection. A tooth will probably have to be removed as it’s likely got a ‘micro fracture’. It’s been another fun week. I do sometimes wonder who keeps prodding my Voodoo doll. The only reason that I mention this is that it might account for some tetchiness.
Anyway, I hope you’re all well, take care and have a good week.
UPDATE: Uploaded a new edit where in the section around when I mention the USB-C socket was only for charging, I’ve now added an overlay stating that it’s also not a headphone output.
UPDATE 2: Added another overlay.
UPDATE 3: Snipped out 5 seconds that had mistakenly been left in from an earlier cut.
Comments (60)
For anyone interested, an update about my "Accsoon CineView Nano": It does a fine job of streaming HDMI (output from a BluRay/DVD player) direct to my cellphone, at 1080p. It did need addition of an HDMI splitter to satisfy the HDCP handshake (otherwise I got a black screen). It connects by wi-fi directly between the device and cellphone and the range is decent; not sure yet if it can do the same through a home wireless network. A side benefit is that the Accsoon app can record whatever is being viewed as an MP4 (1920x1080) onto my phone.
Hi Mat, Can you choose to output the audio via Bluetooth connected to your phone or to Airpods rather than connected to the Bluetooth of the projector? Maybe I misunderstood the Bluetooth business and that was connected to the phone rather than protector. I recall you saying you used some Airpods connected to an Apple TV. In regards to mirroring the display, was the any delay between your phone screen and what was projected? A really interesting video and I do look forward to you comparing this to that coke can projector.
That’s the most popular question under the video too. Probably getting on for a hundred people have asked ‘can you’ unfortunately I’ve yet to see a ‘you can’. I couldn’t see a way of doing it, but I’m all ears.
The Apple TV (4th gen+) can do audio output to bluetooth devices. When you enable it, I believe the menu options will have a slight audio delay, but during video playback, the Apple TV automatically delays the video to keep it synced with the audio. You can see it if you press pause, the video/audio will continue playing for a moment. Not sure if it uses the remote microphone or something to sync or just uses the typical delay for the codec in use. So it's possible to automatically compensate within the software. They just didn't bother.
The Aurzen Castplay HDMI thingy seemed coincidental as earlier this week I'd been looking for a way to stream HDMI from a device (like a DVD player ) TO my phone. Nothing much out there that can do that, to my surprise. I ended up ordering an "Accsoon CineView Nano" which is really designed for people creating content (e.g. to provide a bigger screen for digital cameras).
"This is an example of what happens when I get carried away with an idea". 😄 I've certainly been there, many times over!!
“Hey look at this thing guys, hey guys, what’s up thumbs up like and subscribe, hit the bell hit me in the face, look how great this thing is, that’s the end of the video woohoo… no” …ahhh man you kill me 😂
Hahaaaa the delay looked like a 70s 80s Hong Kong martial arts movie 😂
Your life is just excitement upon excitement, innit? I'll apologise in advance if this is a repetition of an earlier observations or YouTube comments (I've only just seen the notification) and I'm sure you're already well aware of this . . . see if any of your speakers have an ultra low latency - sometimes labelled as 'gaming' - mode. It tends to be very poorly (or not at all) explained in instruction manuals and isn't enabled by default because it uses more power than the standard Bluetooth settings but essentially it reduces the lag in audio synch. It's on several sets of Bluetooth IEMs I own and makes situations like yours somewhat more bearable . . . Cheers
Hi Matt. Found your video about the video projector quite interesting, not for me, but nevertheless interesting. I just wanted to say one thing about the vid. You mentioned something about laser speckle whilst you were talking, and as i was wondering about what that was you went straight into actually filming yourself with the speckling happening and i then understood. I just thought " what a great way to show what that was without going into a lengthy dialogue trying ro explain it. Excellent teaching method made the point i stantly. You do have a way of explaining things that i enjoy. Just wanted to mention that and say thanks. Andrew .
I presume what I captured here was the laser speckle that I hear mentioned so often in laser projector and screen reviews. It’s possible though that they’ve been referring to something else. Therefore I cheated a bit in just showing my screen so that viewers can make their own mind up about it.
Very good video, enjoyed the little rant at the end. Ty for telling it how it is and not following the crowd of "everything is always amazing, like and subscribe"
I absolutely love this sort of video. It’s a situation we’ve all been down countless time. It’s part of the fun of being into tech - the countless rabbit holes we dig ourselves into
Again. You chose poorly and now I don't have to! Thanks! :)
I cannot fathom why a device with only Bluetooth output wouldn't have a built in audio delay function. The moment you said it outputted to Bluetooth I thought "oh maybe the delay is variable so you can't really set it and forget it and that's why he's coming back to it." I did not in a million years think it would be possible for this to not have an audio delay function. It was literally the first thing I thought about.
I've always wanted a projector but have no idea what I'd use it for. Collecting dust, presumably
It's one way to throw your colleagues against a wall in a meeting that won't get you in trouble.
Nicely done edits. Here's a joke I just thought of - really. It's so bad you'll believe it. Three men walked into a pub. The first man said, "Phew, it's so cold out there I have a red nose." The second man said, "This is a terrible winter for my green thumb because I love gardening." The third man appeared to be talking to someone else on the phone. He turned around, pointed to his ear, and said, "I have a Bluetooth."
Here’s the best joke I came up with recently, however it needs to be said in a Scottish accent. How can you tell if Mickey Mouse is piloting your plane to Glasgow. It Disneyland.
This feels like an allegory for the modern age.
As always, I like watching your videos, this one included! Noticed an issue at 19:03. "Okay, let's just delay talking anymore about audio delay for a moment. We'll come back to that." And we didn't come back to that...
That’s a good spot, I shuffled scenes around and didn’t catch this. Another re-edit coming soon.
We learn so much from the occasional debacle.
I liked the Bluetooth delay, it reminded me of Heidi. Oh crap I've now got the theme tune stuck in my head.
I'm missing the world of "just plug this in here and it'll work". Was playing some tapes earlier, from an early nineties Sony player, just plugged into the aux socket of a Roberts radio speaker. And it worked. No pairing. No passwords. No confirmation codes. Just sound. I recently had to unsubscribe from a channel due to their constant "Don't forget to like and subscribe, and hit that notification bell!" spiel literally every few minutes throughout a video lasting well over twenty. We know how channels work, and you don't ram that nonsense down viewers throats (sorry, that's probably a trigger for your recent procedure!) Good luck with the tooth. Had one out six years ago, and although done at the hospital, it took barely ten minutes.
Entertaining as your rants are (though I actually think rant is rather unfair, these are legitimate gripes relayed in a measured and considered fashion, but that's an awful lot more letters than "rant"), I imagine I'm not alone in wishing that you had, instead, managed to find a quality product that did exactly what you needed and it promised. Alas that this seems truly awful, though - sound like a 1970s Type I cassette, the delay and connectivity issues, the unforgivable aspect ratio problem, the eschewing of cables for wireless connectivity and the seemingly obligatory purchase of additional hardware to overcome the problem they created by not having ports in the first place... It seems genuinely worthless to me, especially when you factor in the dreadful picture quality - that decade older Sony projector had a substantially more pleasing image. (I know that it could be somewhat misleading due to being off-axis, but if the discrepancy in colour accuracy between the yellow Thunderbolts poster on your phone, and that poster being displayed by the projector as bright green at 20:48 in the video is in any way indicative of its performance then, I'm certain I'd simply rather not watch anything at all if that was my only option.) Sorry to hear about the sore tooth - had some dental problems myself, lately, so you have my sympathy - they do make you feel generally crappy all-round and are not to be recommended. Hope the antibiotics clear things up for you, and thank you for the video.
it does the beg the question: did anyone working at Aurzen really put this thing through its paces before releasing it?
Seems like they use the same QA team as Philips.
Even though the user experience of the device leaves something to be desired, I find it fascinating what can be packed into such a small form factor. The manufacturer has probably made a lot of compromises here. I suspect that the audio delays are mainly down to the technology used. Due to the way Bluetooth works, delays are mostly inevitable. In general, devices with wireless technology use a whole range of tricks to prevent crosstalk. These include slightly randomized idle times (interframe spacing), allowing devices to take turns, as well as frequency hopping, which classic Bluetooth performs 1600 times per second (resulting in a slight synchronisation effort between master and slave). On top come things like packet retransmission, powersaving strategies and all those audio codecs which add even greater latencies (even though aptX does its best to reduce them). Video player software has to compensate for this with an offset in the video stream, but this doesn't help with real-time applications such as games.
Just Another Excellent Video, good sir.
New tagline for Techmoan: "I bought this shit thing so you don't have to" :-)
The brochure picture for the optional stand (at 4:40-ish) is superb comedy. Nothing in the image is remotely plausible - even the tide, which is dangerously close to the van upon which someone has hard-mounted a projection screen. Don't show it to your wife, Mat, she'll get ideas for your next holiday. Imagine transposing that setup to Whitley Bay. BTW - your crankiness at the end is entirely justified and also very refreshing. You should get cranky more often, except at me.
Mat, was RedBox a thing in the UK? It was an automated DVD/Blu-ray rental kiosk that they would post outside supermarkets. When my kids were younger, we would do movie nights in the backyard, and the best way around the streaming content restrictions was to just rent the movie on Blu-ray from RedBox, rip it to an MKV, and then play it straight from my iPad to a projector via HDMI (with audio via an old boombox). Sadly RedBox went bankrupt a couple of years back, so no longer an option.
RedBox as far as I know didn’t make it to the UK, but of course I am aware of them. I think there might have been another movie vending concern here in some more populous areas, possibly something to do with Love Film, but I never encountered one out here in the middle of nowhere. I’ve never been a renter though - spent way too much money buying stuff that I only watched once.
James Brown: The hardest working man in show business. Techmoan: The unluckiest man in tech.
When I was working in an office job I was disliked by charlatans because I’d immediately see through their BS and deconstruct their badly thought out ideas. I feel I might have accidentally brought this same energy to tech reviews.
I basically solved this problem by using some xreal AR glasses. I know, its a solitary experience and you are forced into wearing some glasses and cant share the screen. But i found it works well in planes trains and automobiles as well as in a hotel room. And i don’t need a bag full of bits n bobs to make it work properly.
In an alternative universe you’d have a different sponsor of each video … which just happens to be the product you’re showing each time. “Thank you for X, for sponsoring this video” and then you’d reassure us that X had “no input as to what you said” etc etc. “Thanks, guys, like and subscribe, if really does help” And we’d all go happily home.
"...which brings us onto today's sponsor, Grey Sludge Health Gunk. 11 o'clock isn't my Diet Coke break anymore, it's now my Grey Sludge Health Gunk break. Nutritious with the consistency of wallpaper paste, it comes in three flavours... Disappointment, Misery and Vomit. Order now for a subscription box of 300 bottles for just £95 a month..."
I was seriously thinking about getting one. Thank you
I hope you feel better soon. Tooth pain is in a class of torture all of its own.
Fortunately the antibiotics have calmed things down considerably. It was a big relief.
Nice video! Have you tried plugging in wired USB-C headphones? I don't think it would work, but who knows.
See 05:04 for more about what the USB C port is for. However due to the number of people already asking whether it will work as a headphone socket - (No it is just for charging) - I’ll need to add an overlay on the screen re-iterating that the USB port is not a headphone out, as well as it not being a video-in or anything else that might be useful.
A great idea on paper, and yet again ruined by trying to be far too clever and failing miserably at the basic thing it's tasked to do. I just lug around a 16" 1080p display when I'm traveling, it's about the size of a full size laptop, but it has a HDMI input and relatively decent speakers so I can do video on the go and use it as a second screen. When I'm home, it's my second monitor. I paid less than $70 (US) for it too, convert that to your favorite currency. Also it's 2026 as I'm writing this. I've been fighting audio delay issues with Bluetooth for almost 20 years now. It's a simple thing to fix, why isn't it fixed yet!
Oh boy, another video with Mat whingeing on about how horrible this new product is. Hang on a minute, isn't that exactly why we love Mat's videos so much? Oh yeah, classic Mat stuff, wouldn't have it any other way!❤️👍 Looking forward to seeing the Coke can projector now--hoping that video goes as well as this one, but for Mat's sake, actually should be hoping it all works out and he finds a mini projector that does just what he wants it to. Hope you'll have a better outcome with your tooth problems than you did with this projector. Going in tomorrow myself for a tooth implant procedure to replace one they removed last year. I'm sure there's no worries.😟
If we’d have timed things better you could have had my old tooth.
It would actually be easier to log around a 32 inch tv and a complete surround system in your luggage than deal with that.
A CRT.
Mat's clear and direct honesty, that's what I like about this channel! More people should do that! Wish you well with the tooth problems.
• Teeth removal, ugh 😣 That reminds me of one of your prior videos that included a tape about tooth removal: https://youtu.be/rU-iSTj2cTY&t=9m6s I haven't seen a dentist for 4 years because the dentist I had for 24 years doesn't accept Medicaid. And I'm too obstinate to find one that does. 😐 • Not only do companies no longer test products, they don't even do flimsy R&D. It's Retroactively Evolved Technology. • This screen mirroring debacle reminds me of when you needed to update a file in order to change the time and date on an action cam or dashcam. • You are clever to always have that measuring tape with you. 😉 • Piece of garbage audio delay, phone add-ons, and aspect ratio. Oh, and the garbage battery. This is an early birthday present to me - by one day Yay. I'm 48 years old, single, friendless and bankrupt; but I can still enjoy a Techmoan video. Life is good. 😂 Take care 🤍
Yes it’s been a long time since I had to update something with a .bin file - but then to add in the fact that it didn’t do anything worthwhile really takes the biscuit. The problem with teeth is that you only get one set for adulthood -and mine are gradually disappearing. Never mind we’ll probably all just use AI teeth in the future. I’ll be sure to wish you a Happy Birthday tomorrow.
The reason I'm still here is your ability to tell it like it is. That thing is adorable-looking, and there is some part of me tempted at having a projector in something the size of a gba sp. Thank you for informing us properly.
Anyone else do this, running further down a rabbit hole on a lost cause? 🙋♂️ Absolutely brilliant YouTube rant at the end. Putting the Moan back into Techmoan 👏
Looking forward to this and to see what,s in the Mathmos box ( hopefully the big one), I have to say I've been watching your videos for about four years now, they bring me alot of joy to watch.
Gah, tooth infections are bloody horrible. Last one I had required a CT scan on my tooth (something I didn’t know you could do), which cost e £110, produced a 3D image of my tooth and proved it was cracked and still had to come out. 🦷 😖
These devices cost a fortune. They will happily scan your shadow as long as you pay for it.
Just heading to church… and this dropped… and pico projectors are a favorite of mine. You tempter! Watched 10 minutes, so far me like.
Ooh, excited already! For both videos. It'll have to wait till the evening, though, as I'm at work. btw, Mat, I'm revisiting all of your MiniDisc content. I've made a few decisions you wouldn't approve of (namely buying two MZ-RH1 units). Any chance you can make a regrettable decision yourself, and make a 3rd installment of Mat Opens Up Well Over a Hundred MiniDiscs from Japan? Those videos are pure meditation material for me. And I'm sure I'm not alone in that.
I think all those bundles might have gone long ago, I haven’t checked in a few years but I think it was a moment in time.