Front projection or not?

I will never buy a Typical television. RPTV or anything that is self contained. I will always stick with a projector. First off, it uses no real estate in your room. Nothing worse than walking into someones house and having this huge box taking up all of this floor space.
I personaly won't even have a TV in my living room. I don't think that it is the place for a TV. That is why I built a dedicated Theater room. I can control the lighting at any time of the day.
For $3000.00 you could buy one hell of a used front projector and a screen ( minimum of 96" ). Even have enough left over for a dish.
Most people just don't get it though. They don't understand how easy this is to put it all together and make it work.
They end up going to Best Buy or something like that and usually don't get what they paid for. And to make matters wors. Most people don't even know what a good picture really looks like. I can't tell you how many homes I have walked into, and the first thing I want to do is grab the remote and start calibrating their TV for them. And then they try to show off the free DVD player they got when the bought this piece of junk.
I would go for a minimum of a 96" screen. You don't have to use the whole screen if it is too much for you. As your eyes adjust to this new size, you could gradually increase you picture size.
Just some thoughts.

Depends if you use it everyday or for special events. Infocus X1 DLP projector, Da Lite 100" diagonal tripod, excellent picture. $1,500 total new. I have the projector 14' away, however. Great for sports and movies. It has max 800x600 resolution, however, so you may want to go up the food chain for true HDTV. Having said that, for everyday watching, I would either go for DLP or LCD RPTV within your budget. I have a friend with the 50" Panasonic LCD RPTV and it is spectacular with HDTV programming. Good luck and enjoy.

Just because you *can* control the light, doesn't mean you will always *want* to. My wife would never consign herself to always watching casual TV in a darkened room, and I wouldn't either. Yes, with the brighter digital projectors, you can have a fair amount of ambient light in the room, but you give up a lot of contrast - I cannot really enjoy it. YMMV

For reference as to where I'm coming from, I have a really good FP CRT, budget FP DLP, and older RP(CRT)TV. The first is head-and-shoulders better in a dark room, the latter in a bright room, and the DLP a compromise.

Again ... my $.02, YMMV

I've been mulling over the same question, and come to the conclusion that an ideal solution is certainly not in the $3K range: A flat panel display for regular TV viewing with a screen that can be lowed in front of that display for front projection of HDTV and DVD movie viewing.

I've also been concerned about achieving good depth imaging for stereo music. A large image lets you sit far enough from speakers located several feet in front of a wall uncluttered by TV or equipment cabinets.

db

Well Doc, you are right. That is what I did. I built a dedicated room with my old trusty Sony 46" built into the front wall. Then I pull down the screen for DVD's