Front projection or not?

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

If you watch lots of TV, get a plasma

If you watch lots of movies, get a projector

You could sit 10' from an 8' wide screen without having to turn your head.

Most scope transfers are new movies or restored epics and would look great at that width.

You'd want to run a 2.35:1 aspect ratio screen (IOW, 96 x 41") to keep DBS satellite a watchable size and for 1.85:1 movies to be a reasonable size (76 x 41").

The constant height setup would be easy to mask with curtains.

Ideally you'd use a 9" CRT projector or 16x9 digital with an anamorphic lens to get there (the later may have visible projection artifacts that push you back farther).