I had been assuming to use a 1080 front projector for my media room, but this weekend saw a new Sharp 65" LCD display. WOW!

Has anyone else seriously considered one of these ($4800) vs. buying a front projector, screen, and all of the mounts, wiring, etc. through your ceiling...

I know the front projector can go upto 100" based upon the size in my room, but 65" sure looks awesome for similar price...

What have others considered in this decision?

If you have the room and the light control, I'd say FP is a no-brainer in terms of bang to the buck. That being said, it comes with a higher threshold of pain in terms of dealing with wire runs, bulb replacements, lens/micro-display alignment issues, etc. etc.

LCD/PDP is more of a plug and play solution, but will end up costing you potentially much more $$$/inch. YMMV. For me, if I had the room, I'd totally go projection, but I don't so it's on the back burner until I get a 'man-cave'.

I have a 42in plasma and a front projector. I hardly ever use my plasma. I have seen larger plasma's and they look nice and bright but look around you and tell me anything that you see that looks like a plasma tv image. Projector's give a real image much closer to real life. If you have the room projector is the only way to have a real viewing experience. Not even close.

I had been assuming to use a 1080 front projector for my media room, but this weekend saw a new Sharp 65" LCD display. WOW!

Has anyone else seriously considered one of these ($4800) vs. buying a front projector, screen, and all of the mounts, wiring, etc. through your ceiling...

I know the front projector can go upto 100" based upon the size in my room, but 65" sure looks awesome for similar price...

What have others considered in this decision?

Flat panel televisions which cost less than nice german cars are too small to provide a cinematic sense of impact at any sort of reasonable viewing distance, especially on scope movies where even a 100" diagonal screen (2.4 times the area of a 65" screen) is getting small as you back up from 9' away (making 6' a nice viewing distance for scope movies on a 65" diagonal screen).

With enough light control (blackout blinds or beyond;noting that high-SAF opaque window treatments from Hunter-Douglas are available) you really want a front projector. Narrow beam spotlights on dimmers are acceptable for casual viewing with a white screen. Grey screens with some ambient light aren't too different from a plasma.

My main system in storage has an 87x49" screen we'd view from 11' for aspect ratios < 1.85:1 and poor scope transfers; 9' for better DVD scope transfers (with the effective resolution of many 35MM prints, 1080p looks good even closer!). We just bought a 50" plasma for the bedroom, and without parking your butt 5-6' in front of it there's no comparison.

At $4800 you can get a great FP setup. Moreover, if you have wall space, the current models have the brightness and resoultion to go much bigger than 100". My picture is 9.5" wide.

Depending on how your room is setup having a FP can be easier than you think. I have my pj in a wall unit at the back of the room behind the seating. The only wires that are an issue are the front speakers. This works great for me, so my ceiling mount sits in a box.