Introduction to Home Theater Projectors

Before shot of Projector People customer's living room with standard rear-projection TV.

So you've had enough with simply "watching TV," and you're eager to move up to the home theater experience. But what are the smart choices? And are you already armed with enough information to make them? For instance, should you simply buy a bigger TV? (They even come so big now that it takes three people to carry them.) Or fill your room with a humongous CRT projection TV (the typical "sports bar" system?) Or are there other options?

Portable Front Projection Systems

After shot of living room with new Mitsubishi HC3000U projector.

Simply put, a portable front-projection system is the smart choice for the savvy consumer. Today's projectors come in two basic technologies: LCD (containing three tiny liquid crystal display devices with a series of mirrors and lenses) and DLP™ (which replaces the three LCD's with a silicon chip). They are so compact and lightweight that they can be hidden on a bookshelf, entirely out of view. And the viewing screen, because it contains none of the electronics, can be paper-thin and placed directly against a wall, saving a great deal of space as compared to a big-screen television or a CRT projection system. A portable home-theater projector system is also less expensive (by cost-per-viewing-inch) than either of the other two options, and projects a picture more than 10x brighter than the typically dingy CRT "sports bar" images.

• Compact/portable
• Huge picture (up to 300-inch screen size)
• Phenomenally bright image (clear images in lighted room)
• Like being in a movie theater
• Less expensive than older, clunkier technology

But how do I know which projector to buy?

Good question. Unfortunately, there is no one simple answer. The best course for the smart consumer is to take a crash course in portable home-theater projectors. Once you've mastered the basics (and that won't take long at all -- just continue reading this web site), your decision will be much easier to make.