ckolchak,
I got the Sony DVP-NS700P, eta unknown, but hopefully before the weekend. I picked it up for $305 (incl. shipping) from expresscameras.com. The reviews of this unit on the forum haven't been too charitable, but I only plan to use it until I put together a HTPC. After that, it's condemned to the 27" set in the bedroom. It has a great remote.
Here are some more details on my initial LT150 setup: 10-year old Panasonic VCR, with composite input to the LT150. The room was a 8'x9' "bedroom", with the projector positioned in the closet to maximize the distance to the screen about 9'. My "screen" was a bedroom wall with most of the wallpaper scraped off. Some bits of wallpaper and a few nails were still on the wall. Lots of bumps and scrapes.
I had no audio, which probably exacerbated my perceptions of the fan noise, which remained constant when I changed the settings to those for ceiling mounts. I haven't read anything to suggest that the LT150 is as loud as the notorious DILAs or the venerable Davis DL450s. Nevertheless, I think a hush box may be in order.
I turned on the LT150 and went through the menus to adjust for keystoning and to turn the white segment off, per Grant Smyth's advice.
The picture was 82" diag and plenty bright. There was some ambient light from another room. I was seated 7.5'from the screen, but screen door was not visible at all until I moved to 3 ft. A discernable halo extended 4" around the screen, but it didn't bother me at all. The colors went from oversaturated to washed out at the whims of the Macrovision chip. Because the resolution was so lousy, I had trouble spotting jaggies and artifacts. It was like holding a cheap 19" tv a foot away from your face and watching a channel with fuzzy reception.
However, I had no difficulty watching "Exit to Eden", which I found in my roommate's closet. I chose this movie because if I cited the titles of some of the other movies I found, I'd probably get kicked off this forum. The movie was pretty mediocre (esp. w/o sound), but Dana Delany... yummy!
So far I'm thrilled with the LT150's picture quality. It is watchable under the crappiest conditions imaginable. I am building a house and am planning a theater around the LT150, and I'm very eager to see it with a Da-Lite Hipower, masking, and a HTPC. However, until my house is finished, I'll probably continue using the 8'x9' bedroom as my HT.