While we fight over CR in still another generation of relatively dim projectors, flat screens with tons of brightness and decent CR just get bigger and bigger. At what point will they eliminate most of the market for FP?

I say 96", price under 5K and CR of 2000.

Flame away gang! :D

"the plasma look like a projector up on the wall"

i personally cant afford the 103" plasma

When they come in native 2.35 ratio and are available in 12-14 foot widths for me. Then I'll think about it. :)

I think that will be a long time coming. Besides cost of large flat panels, there is other issues like weight, physical size limitations of getting units into a room, etc.... I have seen it with the Vutec Silverstar which comes fully assembled. Many want it but simply cannot get it into their room. Now take a 100" plasma that weighes 300lbs+ and is way, way more fragile, and it could prove a big challenge.

not to mention the energy bills those would rack up. a 90+ inch plasma would cost you hundreds of dollars in energy every month.

Good point. :)

I think the more likely scenario is front projection will get much better and cheaper, and screen technology will advance to the point where it can be used in more environments.

I fear that when plasma and LCDs get to sizes comparable to FP, the radiation emitted will permanently burn an outline of me on the sofa :D

Those guys who can't get the Vutec silverstar into their rooms, should thank their rooms.

Dan. That is how you start a flame war.

How's the garage coming?

:)

Plasmas will be gone in six years or less. New flat screen technologies are coming and will dominate. Big and light.

I think big flat panels will indeed challange projectors for surpremacy.

The plasma is probably going to be a bit more ambient-light-friendly than the pj, but maybe high-contrast light-cannon projectors are just around the corner, and they'll have a light source that lasts forever.

60,000 hours on the plasma is worth about 30 or so lamps on a pj. At even $200 a pop, you're looking at another $6K on top of the price of the projector. But maybe the projector will keep going forever, so as long as the lamps are still available, maybe in the long run it will be cheaper to operate than the plasma.

I think the most significant deciding factor is the number of people watching at the same time.

When either my wife or I are on our treadmill, we run about one screen diagonal from a 37" Viewsonic LCD TV that I've installed at eye level. We definitely get the big-screen experience! So if you rarely have more than two or 3 people viewing, they can get a big-screen experience by sitting 5 feet from a high-quality 65" plasma - maybe one of those new ultra-high-contrast Pioneer plasmas hitting the market this summer.

When you don't need the big-screen experience, you just back off to where a crowd can enjoy it.

Big flat panels will kill FP in 5 years. I am planning my HT with this in mind. I am setting up my wiring and front LCR speakers to be able to make the switch as soon as it happens. It will be an LCD with LED backlight. It will be 100-110" and less than $20,000. Energy usage will be greatly reduced and so will heat production. Resolution will be at least 1080P and contrast ratio will be greater than 50,000. Color space will be 108% of NTSC. There will be no banding, ghosting, macroblocking, screen glare, intolerance to ambient lighting, rainbows, motion blur etc. It will happen sooner rather than later. The writing is on the wall.

Weight is a non issue. Most large furniture weighs far more than 300lbs. Ever lift a piano or a pool table? As long as you can get it into a standard front entry door and make turns, no problem.

Rapid, progressive, projector bulb dimming will eventually kill the projector for HT. Who wants 50% of the light output available from a bulb in 100 hours? Who wants to mess with screen choices, screen mounting, projector mounting, long throw/short throw issues, lens issues, panel alignment, blacked out rooms, etc. Give me a 110" panel and pop it right where the screen was, and that's it. provided, of course, that the wiring is there and you don't have a AT screen set up with an identical center channel. Those who want bigger are few and far between.

The day may be coming , but there is still something about a FP that makes it an experience, more special , more theater like, an event, whatever.

I have a 55" Fujitsu that I think I paid about $10k for and it delivers a knock out plasma experience, (also a 37" Panny plasma) but I would much rather lower the screen and turn on the FP and watch a movie. My wife loves movies and I simply cannot stand going to public theaters given the cell phones, people talking back to the screen, and the general lack of decorum in our Jerry Springer society (on my high horse now)

I am old enough to remember B&W TVs with rabbit ears and men who made a living out of coming to your house and repairing them (with their box of tubes)

But PJs were always special whether it be at the neighborhood theater or at school--it was an event that could not be dupicated by watching something on a TV and I think the same is true today no matter how great the TV or picture--it is simply a different experience. Call me old fashioned....... :D

I agree. I hope front projection never dies. I'd miss it. I even enjoy all of the work that goes into it. It's part of the love of the hobby for me.

Perhaps there's room for both. A huge flat screen TV would be sensational but for me a little too easy. I need to measure and plan for a projector mount and play with a lens shift and experiment with screen material etc...

Wayne

Gentlemen, get beyond the dark ages.

The future display will be big and roll up not unlike a traditional screen. It will be energy efficient and employ OLED technology in the beginning, requiring no backlight. Future designs will employ increasing levels of nanotechnology. CR will be at least 100,000:1 and can be used for day or evening viewing. They will also support billions of colors and <1 ms response times.

Think I'm kidding?

Before I die you will pic up your screen at L/HD (they will merge). They will be stocked on the shelf in large tubes.

When you get home you simply unroll 1/8 inch thick screen and attach to the wall and connect to the drive unit (separate box made by various vendors).

You then have the option of picking the standby color, art, or camera feed. A special feature allows the screen to mimic the surrounding wall color, texture and sheen rendering the screen for all practical purposes invisible.

A lot of homes will employ many such units as substitutes for windows when large areas of glass become unpopular as the cooling costs for homes skyrocket in step with global warming and $300/barrel for oil.

A bevy of new content providers will have emerged for subscribers who desire access to art feeds, or stationary camera feeds. Images of the few remaining snow capped mountains will be in the top 10 most requested feeds.

CMRA and BIGmouthinDC both are headed in the right direction. Though I think BIGm missed it a bit by having the screen/wallpaper plug into anything other than power (and even that may be wireless if those MIT guys get their stuff working http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=194300318 ). In the future wirers are going to be going the way of rotary telephones.

I think the future screen wil be the whole wall and it will be like paint or a laminate that you will be able to unroll and just stick to the wall... I like the chameleon feature... very clever. Once this technology becomes cheap... then home theaters will take on a whole new level where the room will be round and the whole surface of the room will be covered in this stuff for total immersion.

The final technology after that will be the neural interface... but ahh... not sure if I want to be an early adopter on that one (heh... who am I kidding... I mean my great grandkids ;^)

Now if I just get get Astro to quit peeing on my display...

Big flat panels will kill FP in 5 years. I am planning my HT with this in mind. I am setting up my wiring and front LCR speakers to be able to make the switch as soon as it happens. It will be an LCD with LED backlight. It will be 100-110" and less than $20,000. Energy usage will be greatly reduced and so will heat production. Resolution will be at least 1080P and contrast ratio will be greater than 50,000. Color space will be 108% of NTSC. There will be no banding, ghosting, macroblocking, screen glare, intolerance to ambient lighting, rainbows, motion blur etc. It will happen sooner rather than later. The writing is on the wall.

Weight is a non issue. Most large furniture weighs far more than 300lbs. Ever lift a piano or a pool table? As long as you can get it into a standard front entry door and make turns, no problem.

Rapid, progressive, projector bulb dimming will eventually kill the projector for HT. Who wants 50% of the light output available from a bulb in 100 hours? Who wants to mess with screen choices, screen mounting, projector mounting, long throw/short throw issues, lens issues, panel alignment, blacked out rooms, etc. Give me a 110" panel and pop it right where the screen was, and that's it. provided, of course, that the wiring is there and you don't have a AT screen set up with an identical center channel. Those who want bigger are few and far between.

I'd take that bet. Considering the average projector owner buys a unit costing under $2,000, how is an under $20,000 device going to kill that when it costs 10x as much? The image may be brighter and even better, but not by a factor of 10. Not to mention how awesome $2000 projectors will be in 5 years, considering how far they've come in the last 5.

Big flat panels will kill FP in 5 years.

Dream on. They'll come out with LED bulbs for PJ before that happens.

Weight is a non issue. Most large furniture weighs far more than 300lbs. Ever lift a piano or a pool table? As long as you can get it into a standard front entry door and make turns, no problem.

I've never seen a piano mounted on a wall.

Who wants to mess with screen choices, screen mounting, projector mounting,

I'd rather mess with that than trying to hang a 250lb panel.

The best home theater experience can only take place with a large screen in a light controlled, dedicated room. A FP screen is already a byatch to sell. RPTVs are hard to sell. Imagine a fixed 6'x10' panel? Once you buy it, it's yours forever. There ain't no upgrading cuz it would be damn near impossible to get rid of. And there ain't no relegating it to a bedroom system, unless your house is a castle.

And retail stores and shipping companies will charge no more for 300 lb 4X8 packages taking up sales floor/delivery truck space than they do for projectors at 5% of the size/weight. So really no contest.

BB

Don't think flat panels will ever replace projectors in the business market for presentations, so manufactures will still make niche products for home theater which are based on the business projectors, but with higher margin.

Bigger question is if LCD mfrs and TI continue to make products geared to home theater down the road. On a cost of goods sold basis I would think that front projectors should be more profitable than flat panels if the volume is there to support it. The industry could help itself by standardizing lamps to drive the cost of replacement down.

One advantage FP has is being able to do a disappearing act in your room. Screens roll up, and you don't notice the small plastic box on the ceiling. Wives love that and generally hate large hulking electronics in the room (unless you're relegtated to the basement). And you'd better be praying if you ever have to move that monstrosity to another house. So form factor will always be an advantage at least until the rollup displays come around.

But as much as we all love our projectors, as soon as another technology is clearly superior we all know we'll be the first ones clamoring for it.

I think that will be a long time coming. Besides cost of large flat panels, there is other issues like weight, physical size limitations of getting units into a room, etc.... I have seen it with the Vutec Silverstar which comes fully assembled. Many want it but simply cannot get it into their room. Now take a 100" plasma that weighes 300lbs+ and is way, way more fragile, and it could prove a big challenge.

Thank you for saying the things that I've said myself.

Now, if we could get OLED in monster sizes that doesn't weigh tons I'd say maybe that would do the trick. But as you point out, these monster plasmas and LCDs are very heavy not to mention nearly impossible to do anything but a ground floor install with.

And you can spend 1/6th that amount and end up with a better viewing experience IMO.

Cheers,

I think FP will be replaced by some other technology but not in five years ( if we mean big) For me 9' wide to say 15' wide screens for dedicated theaters will be the province of some type of projection for a while yet IMO.

Art

I would put money that FP will be replaced with something like electronic paper. Just wallpaper a wall with the stuff and presto, big screen TV. Now this might take 20-50 years but it will happen.

Hummm, has the CD meant the death of vinyl?

Let me just interject that for the near future, with wireless capabilities and pj's getting so bright and cheap, it may mean the end of BIG flat screens.

Regardless of how cheap and how good projectors become, you still have the problem of severe light loss with time, heat production, and fan noise, and set up issues. This is the achilles heal of today's projectors.

Just roll that giant panel over here and plug it in, boys. I'll be sitting back with a beer and the remote. The super bowl is on in 10 minutes and we don't want to miss a thing. By the way, leave the lights on when you leave.

Regardless of how cheap and how good projectors become, you still have the problem of severe light loss with time, heat production, and fan noise, and set up issues. This is the achilles heal of today's projectors.

Just roll that giant panel over here and plug it in, boys. I'll be sitting back with a beer and the remote. The super bowl is on in 10 minutes and we don't want to miss a thing. By the way, leave the lights on when you leave.

I imagine that you think the newer flat panels will be cooler and more efficient than the current flat panels? You don't think that newer projectors would be cooler and more efficient too?

Whenever I walk by a plasma display I can feel the heat several feet away. A whole wall of that would be quite a heater.

I think that pj's are going to be much more common.

Best Regards,
Doug

Sometime after I die, a guy gets done putting in his standard 4 hour work day and grabs his beer and his immersion headset. It weighs less than four ounces and fits comfortably over his shaven head. He presses a button on the base unit and immediately he sees in his mind the welcome and menu screen. Simply by thinking of his choices the electrical pulses hit the mark in his brain and immediately he is immersed in the environment of choice. He sees, and smells (no touch, that's only available on the black market due to health risk hazards) the world of his choice and begins to witness the events unfold......

Dan:

Are you disappointed by not getting flamed too badly? ;)

Cheers,

Lots of laughs up to this point, but if I may pull us back to the near future, I think it is plain what will happen in the next five years:

FP tech will evolve to a very light, very thin, very big screen using LEDs. This will kill PJ screen sales below 100". I would imagine 100" displays weighing less than 75 lbs.

PJs will use the same light tech to effectively close the light output gap as much as possible. PJs will also increase resolution to the point that .5 screen width seating will be possible (although maybe not desireable), which will lead to larger home screens. PJs will also focus more and more on 2.35-2.40 formats, eliminating the need for anamorphic lenses.

This is where the markets will settle for years thereafter. OK, I am on record. :)

The day will come we will have an active matte ( screen like material ) you roll out on your wall with wires attached leading back to a switch box in your rack. No projector needed yet it will still give that theater experience. You can roll it up and take it with you.

A little bit OT.

Considering that the panels on these new pj's are so small, and so high-rez, I'm surprised that there has not been at least some resurgence of those "goggle" or "glasses" devices - similar to these:
http://www.tekgear.ca/index.cfm?pageID=90&prodid=462&section=83&nodelist=1,83

Of course each person needs to have a device to wear, so things could end up being pretty expensive if you want to have a football party, but a device like this may be the cat's meow for a single viewer. For example, the device might be able to give the user a much-more-immersive experience, with a much higher contrast ratio, than pjs or flat panels - maybe even approacing at least a "one-eye" reality.

The down side would be having to wear the bloody thing for two hours or more, but if they could be made light enough, it might not be so bad. (Like portable audio devices, maybe one could carry at least part of the device on the hip and then a wire would go up to the glasses part of it.)

I have said it before, and I will say it again. :)

All of our ansestors who could not tell the difference between a large object far away and a small one close up were eaten by small predators that were close up. We, the descendants of the survivors, can tell. :)

Best Regards,
Doug

All of our ansestors who could not tell the difference between a large object far away and a small one close up were eaten by small predators that were close up. We, the descendants of the survivors, can tell.
Well, since I'm still alive, and I can sometimes not tell the difference, I guess some did indeed survive. My ancestors and I must have somehow side-stepped that normal course of evolution, and I'm glad we did.

As I said earlier, as I'm running on our treadmill about one screen diagonal from our recently-acquired 37" lcd flat panel, once I'm engrossed in a movie, unless I move my eyes around to look at objects outside of the actual image area for clues, I cannot appreciate a difference between this set up and any other one-screen-diagonal set-up. Especially after having sat one screen diagonal from our NEC 9PG+'s 100" 4x3 screen on many occasions for almost four years, this discovery really surprised me. I think the angle of view (the orientation of the head with respect to the rest of the body) is an important factor in this preception.

I've never worn one of those on-the-head devices, but I have spoken to people who have, and they say that after having them in place for a few minutes, the experience is very immersive and one does not realize that the devices producing the image are so close to the eye.

The last time my wife and I went to Disney World, we sat in a theater and observed "objects" that we would have sworn were right in front of our face (we ducked!), when they were in fact images on a screen quite a distance away. A lot of other folks did the same thing, so there must be other distance-deficient human specimens out there.

I think the tube is going to make a comeback

Until we can get a roll up oled screen with billions of colors and 1,000,000:1 contrast for $3k, the FP industry should be safe.

I bet that if your life depended on it, you would be able to realize the difference between a display and reality. I also bet that you would be able to tell the difference between a small display near you and a larger one farther away that occupied the same angle of your vision as the smaller one close up.

When I grew up, we all got totally involved in our black and white TV. I think it was somewhere around 20 inches. We would be frightened by things on the screen. We would be right there in the scene with the characters, enjoying ourselves. There was no talking to us or trying to distract us. We were totally absorbed into the story. Also, I often saw the image in color. The horses were not shades of gray. They were brown and black and reddish too. The cowboys were wearing colored shirts, and the trees had green leaves. The ponds...

We got into the show. It is a good thing. It is good to be able to enjoy a movie. It is easier to do on some screens than others. It can be done with a book as well.

It is a totally different thing to say that one cannot tell the difference between a screen and reality. We can tell when there is a small object close up and a larger object farther away. Our brain knows the focal distance we are using.

When viewing movie screens, the larger one farther away is more appealing to most.

We can tell the difference. We can enjoy a small screen closer up. We can get absorbed into a smaller screen closer up.

I (and I believe most others) prefer a larger screen farther away. Our brains can tell how near or far we are focusing. It may be that it is just easier to focus farther away, I don't know.

BTW, you might not want to go to any safari's :)

Best Regards,
Doug

Interesting discussion. I think it's safe to say all the predictions in this thread will come true, it's just a question of 5 years or 50 years. RCA said large flat panel TVs that were dirt cheap were only 5 years away back in the 70s. We still don't have them, at least dirt cheap.

I've been saying for years that the free TV Elroy gets on the back of a box of cereal in one episode of the Jetsons will happen within our lifetime, just still seems years away.

Then we have the 1GB+ flash drive for $19. If someone had told us something that small and cheap would hold that much when I was selling 5MB Corvis hard drives in a case that was the size of a large desktop PC today for $5000, we'd have looked at them and you know what we'd have said?... "What in the world would you ever do with 1GB of data?" :D

Front Projection will be replaced by .... OLED not LCD or Plasma.

I think the discussion would be less obtuse if you limited it, as I did, to five years from now. 10-20 years down the road and all bets are off. Practically speaking, 5 year plans are the way to go. In fact, I think the American presidency should be limited to one term of five years duration.

If there was an affordable OLED solution, it might replace projection. It has to be affordable, light weight, and large. Of course, PJs will continue to evolve, getting better and cheaper, while we're waiting for the roll-up OLED solution. The target will move, so we're talking decades, not years. I won't be around that long. I'm stuck on the PJ upgrade karmic wheel while I wait for Narvana. ;)

.. like the 5.1 audio system, similarly use multiple projectors to surround your vision
maybe 180 degrees forming a semi-circle around you.
Imagine playing Doom or some scary movie in that environment.
Immersive enough?

The future I see is that local actors will become increasingly encouraged as home theaters become common. Eventually there will be bands of these actors going from home theater to home theater. 'On Demand' performances will be very popular where one can select from a list of 15 plays that the troupe knows. The big hit in home theaters will be when Shakespeare gets off his duff and produces Star Wars "Episode VII: An Even Newer Beginning".

Err... it will be a long time before anything actually replaces big screen Front Projection.

The future I see is that local actors will become increasingly encouraged as home theaters become common. Eventually there will be bands of these actors going from home theater to home theater. 'On Demand' performances will be very popular where one can select from a list of 15 plays that the troupe knows. The big hit in home theaters will be when Shakespeare gets off his duff and produces Star Wars "Episode VII: An Even Newer Beginning".

Err... it will be a long time before anything actually replaces big screen Front Projection.
Hyrax, don't you think the 103-inch Panasonic will trickle down to
our budget level in a few years? What then, will people still be thrilled with
100-inch projected image? Newer technology will also make future flat panels lighter,
just like the OLED, which is already wafer thin. I think projection entertainment need to evolve,
while it still has price advantage over 100-inch direct-viewing screens.

Rapid, progressive, projector bulb dimming will eventually kill the projector for HT. Who wants 50% of the light output available from a bulb in 100 hours? Who wants to mess with screen choices, screen mounting, projector mounting, long throw/short throw issues, lens issues, panel alignment, blacked out rooms, etc. Give me a 110" panel and pop it right where the screen was, and that's it. provided, of course, that the wiring is there and you don't have a AT screen set up with an identical center channel. Those who want bigger are few and far between.

POTD !!! I agree 1000% !!

POTD !!! I agree 1000% !!


Think LCD stuck pixels are bad now? Imagine 110"'s worth just waiting to get stuck blue or red for your amusement. Especially on a panel as large as 110" in a frame built to replace a screen of a projector-based system. Just imagine how "flexible" that huge LCD display would be as it bent to and fro while you got it onto the wall.

Strange that if you can see a future where all the common problems of LCD are gone and replaced by the magically perfect 110" LCD screen that you can't also see that projectors will soon be gifted with superior bulb options that might well move beyond current bulb dimming limitations. Moreover, I suspect projectors will eventually move to a point where they are not only smaller, but also brighter and less obvious. Imagine a small triangle being in the middle of your ceiling. Perhaps disguise it as a light. Then on command it shoots out its signal upon a nearby wall using special paint developed to enhance the image without looking like screen paint.

And everyone keeps mentioning "wires" when connecting these mythical screens to connector boxes, but I suspect by then wireless video standards will have become commonplace. I think wires will be on the way out in much the same way as component is on the way out in favor of HDMI atm.

Imagine a fully wireless system. A small projector that is recessed in the ceiling can be remote-controlled to lower on demand. Your wall becomes your screen. It connects wirelessly to a receiver-like device capable of wirelessly sending signal to sound projection systems consisting of lots of smaller speakers to build sound from bits and pieces recombined by the receiver wireless device into a fully active, fully adaptable surround that is on the fly based on the sound the disc is trying to create (not pre-made) and the available options in your specific system. Subwoofers will be embedded into walls.

Meanwhile, the computer system that makes it all possible--Skynet--will begin to learn at a geometric rate.

the sony version will have millions of tiny clouds in them

the pioneers will be the most expensive costing as much as a home mortgage,

panasonics will have better blacks

some manufacturers will add a very thin flexible glass on the fabric to appease former plasma owners

some manufaturers will make them brighter in direct viewing/narrow viewing cone and off axis viewing will turn many off.

sports fanatics will complain about tiny stuttering seen on edges of thier sports teams.

dead pixels galore!

hd-dvd/bluray players will be dead and gone, replaced by streaming technology but service providers will wage all out war to get your business but will be plagued by network outages, no telephone support etc. etc. etc.

good times ;)

I saw the 103" Panasonic last weekend.

VERY impressive !!

The best home theater experience can only take place with a large screen in a light controlled, dedicated room. A FP screen is already a byatch to sell. RPTVs are hard to sell. Imagine a fixed 6'x10' panel? Once you buy it, it's yours forever. There ain't no upgrading cuz it would be damn near impossible to get rid of. And there ain't no relegating it to a bedroom system, unless your house is a castle.
A dedicated room? That is only half of the equation. How about a dedicated viewer? That fact is most people will not sit still at home for that long.

A dedicated large home theater room increases in the property taxes, mortgage, insurance and utilities. When you sell the house how will potential buyers value this dedicated room? Will they even want one? (probably not). The best solution is a dual use or convertible room.

The latest 52" and 65" panels have caused rear projector prices to plummet.
Front projectors have a place in my heart but there use has to be tempered by the higher costs.

I'd never get a large flat panel. First, my HT is in my basement and while I got my already assembled 106" screen down there no problem (no silly bends in the staircase) it is light. I wouldn't want to move a 250+ lb object with the same dimensions down there.

I like the how easy front PJs are to move around and upgrade from.:)

Rapid, progressive, projector bulb dimming will eventually kill the projector for HT. Who wants 50% of the light output available from a bulb in 100 hours?
Where's Ohlson when you need him? Solid state light sources like lasers or LEDs will replace that rapidly dimming lamp soon.

Introducing the 205-inch Technovision Luxio LCD HDTV: Big Enough to Park Two Mini Coopers On!

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/introducing-the-205+inch-technovision-luxio-lcd-hdtv-big-enough-to-park-two-mini-coopers-on-244877.php

this panel is 115" x 364"

Regardless of how cheap and how good projectors become, you still have the problem of severe light loss with time, heat production, and fan noise, and set up issues. This is the achilles heal of today's projectors.

.

It will be a lot longer than 5 years before you can have a large front projection sized flat panel that doesn't have issues with heat production, fan noise and set up issues.

That fact is most people will not sit still at home for that long.

Then those people are not looking for the best home theater experience. They're looking for background noise.

I understand your point about the inflexibility of dedicated HT. IMO, they're in the same ballpark as below-ground pools. If the HT is on the main floor, it gonna affect the design of the house. I can see that adding to sq footage, and thus insurance, mortgage, taxes, etc.
A basement HT is more flexible. Most work with existing layouts and could be teared down by new owners.

me? I just built a new house in which my basement HT influenced the design of the house. I have a 16x26x9 room with no annoying teleposts, or HVAC ducts overhead. I plan to stay in this house for a very long time, so the costs are worth every penny. But I'm few and far between.

the day will come when you will wear some type of contact lenses and you will be able to see any size screen you want in front of your eyes. It will also do full 3-D. However, due to the miniture color wheel that it employs, I will still be seeing those damn rainbows:)

For me the biggest downside to a panel technology is the sound equation.
I have an AT screen with 3 identical L\C\R speakers and I could never go back to the above\below the screen horizontal speaker configuration. Ever.

Plus the way PJs have plummetted in price over the last year it gets even better.
Now I want LED or Laser or some other non-bulb light source.
THAT will be when PJs really come into their own.

Bing, you're a lucky guy.
I look at my dedicated HT\Music room as a sanctuary from the outside world.
Some may view it as a liability, I view it as an asset and a necessary luxury.

Very interesting thread. I think it would be a mistake to rule out very large flat screens on the basis of either plasma or LCD. Plasma in particular IMO is living on borrowed time. I'm not convinced that LCD can't evolve fairly quickly to provide up to 96" or there abouts at reasonable cost and with reasonable power consumption. Beyond that, it will have to be Alan's roll down active screen. Now THAT would be cool.

Bear in mind that I've been a projector owner for some years now. The disadvantages to those of us (I believe the majority of the planet) who don't have the space or the required cave to really optimize FP just won't go away. I will say that if the lamp problem could be solved, it would give FP a new lease on life. And they'll always be needed for business use as was pointed out above.

Alas, I am moving from the house with the huge wall that was intended for the monster flat screen that didn't come along soon enough. However, I've figured out how to do the coolest outdoor theater in Mexico. Stay tuned.

I have to confess that I was very tempted in buying one of those 70'' TV sets when I replaced my CRT front projector. Prices on those sets are unbelievable right now! Had they have an 80'' maybe I would have gone for one but I already have a 61'' and 70'' was not big enough of a difference. I do think that a different technology will replace rear projection TV when they get over 80'' in size. I am getting an RS1 and my new screen is 96'' long, 110 diagonal.

Here is a Sharp 108" LCD flat panel:
http://74.52.174.180/content/view/31230/97/

I don't know about "replace", but LCD panels are become quite competitive as day time viewing options. Sharp has currently available LCDs with 15,000:1 dynamic contrast, 3000:1 native on/off, > 1000:1 ANSI, very good color tracking after calibration. And it looks good during the day. For non-dedicated rooms with daylight issues, a 2 display option probably results in the least compromise.