I've been planning to move my 57" Hitachi mammoth to my bedroom and then replace it with a 65" Mitsubishi 833 or 65HM167 but then stopped by my friends' house today to check out his new home theater setup, consisting of the Costco Panny Projector+Toshiba HD-A2+5.1 Surrounds and a fixed 92" screen.

He played LotR-Twin Towers (SD upscaled by the A2) and all I could say was .......Daaaaayyyyyuuuuuummmmmm:eek:

He simply converted his upstairs bonus room into a dedicated home theater....the only thing extra he's done is put up some black curtains to kill the lighting and bought a $200 audio rack that hosts his projector, AV, DVD player. He's still using his existing sectional leather sofa for now and the A2, audio setup were existing equipment.

All up, he spent less than $2K for his current setup and one thing was surprised me was I always thought projectors meant zero lighting, washed out colors, pixelated picture. The other projector myth to me was it required a huge separate room and expensive AV, display equipment but seeing his 'humble' $2k setup still was unbelievable.

This is the projector he just bought:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Productgroup.aspx?Prodid=11221072&whse=BC&Ne=4000000&eCat=BC|79|28314|28315&N=4009972&Mo=4&pos=0&No=4&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&cat=28315&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&ec=BC-EC10608-Cat28314&topnav=

....and the 92" fixed screen, he got it from Ebay and assembled it himself.

His setup proved me wrong and I was really taken back by the brightness and clarity of the picture and we didn't even draw the curtains all the way. Needless to say, we ended up watching the whole movie and it was indeed like sitting in a theater, with exception of beer and hot dogs;).

So my question is if any of the projection owners have moved to a projector setup and even thought the possibility of it?

TIA
Frag

I upgraded my basement which had a 61" Sammy HLN617W and replaced it with a Mitsubishi HD1000U which I believe has been replaced by the HD1500. I went with a Electric cheapo 110" 16/9 screen for under 350 I think and I can honestly say It is outstanding. You do need to control light for the best experience.

In short if you can control light you can't beat a 10 FT screen and a 720P HDTV projector for the money. I spent 1300.00 and got a projector, 110" electric screen, 40ft HDMI cable and a ceiling mount.

Every single person that comes over is blown away. The Super Bowl party was a hit!!!!

Details: Room is completely light controllable with shades and blinds
Room is 19 ft wide by 20 ft deep
Viewing distance is 16 ft from screen with no screen door effect until about 12 or 13 ft.
I Feed the projector with an OTA receiver for local HD content and watch movies with PS3 Blu-ray.

PS3 Blu-ray movies are outstanding and Regular DVD's our almost as good with the upconverting, I see a big difference in the Blu-ray vs. DVD but the wife says she can't tell.

You can’t go wrong if you can control the light.

Sam

I have a RP CRT set now, and am not ahuge fan of digitals outside of the 3 chip DLPs. I want to upgrade to a CRT front projectin set up when my Hit bites the dust.