2 OT Questions For Kindreds...

[Jeffrey Lomicka]

There's a certain sociological aspect to this.  Myself, I prefer 
front projection, but it isn't for just anyone.

Consider this:  What color is a projection screen?  White, right?

A projector that is projecting "black" is like being off, and when 
the projector is off, the screen is white, so the darkest black you 
can ever get out of a front projection technology is actually white, 
the white of the screen.  Or, more accurately, the white of the 
screen given the ambient light in the room.

Because of this inherent limitation, front projection is only good 
when you blacken the room, and the blacker the better.  Not just dim, 
but black.  This makes the room useless for carrying out any other 
activities when the display is on.  This goes so far as to want dark 
walls and ceiling so that light from the screen doesn't reflect back 
and raise the darkness level of the dark areas of the screen.

Because of this, projection is best for watching when you intend to 
devote your full attention to the show, and nothing but the show. 
However, it makes for a great show.  My projection system is a 
peripheral-vision filling eight foot by six foot screen, with the 
couch only ten feet away.  This isn't television, it is theater.

So, I will not even consider projection for the family room.  The 
theater is in the basement, and is reserved for those times when we 
want to watch with full attention.  For more casual viewing, with the 
lights on, you need to have something that is black when it's off, 
not white.  Right now I'd choose LCD - but I'm waiting for prices to 
come down and for the final fallout from the reallocation of the VHF 
TV frequencies to pan out.  I don't want to have to worry about the 
care and feeding issues with Plasma displays.

Rear projection is slightly better than front projection at 
tolerating ambient light, but still can't produce the daytime 
contrast ratio of LCD.

None can match the 120" diagonal of front projection tho.