HTPC - Home Theater PC. PC specifically built with Home Theater in mind. Quiet power supplies and fans. Built-in motion compensation/mpeg decoders chips onboard or a good video card that processes DVD nicely. A computer you can put in your home theater that will not be noisy and preferably mix in nicely with your receivers, cd player , etc...
If properly built and using good DVD sofware you can get a much more sharper projector picture with vivid colors than having a stand alone DVD player plugged into a project. Also the HTPC can have a built in TV tuner so that you can project cable TV into your projector. You can also go with an external TV tuner (or cable box) plugged into the projector.
Is it adequte to double as a TV? ... that depends on the individual. As with all projectors the best possible picture is very little or no ambient light. That is not to say that you can not watch with some adequate light present. I presently watch cable TV with the projector with curtains drawn around the area close to the screen but the area behind the screen has lighting from the outside coming through. I can see the TV broadcast quiet clearly and it is "good enough" for me. For movie watching I block out all the windows with some blockout fabric and it does the job day or night.
One thing to note is that I would recommend a cheap good screen like a Da-Lite Hi Power which does bring out the color and detail than a standard white wall.
Look at this way. This is what I thought: (sorry you need to convert from Canadian to American..all prices in Canadian)
80" inch screen 4:3 or widescreen
Infocus X1 projector $1500
Da-Lite Hi Power screen $466
PCI TV tuner $89
blackout sheets $40
any Radeon card with
DVD accelaration $90+
PC with digital out - already have
Total: approx $2185 cdn
Pros:
whopping 80" or more
great DVD picture
small format and doesnt take up room, WAF aaproved (Wife Approval Factor)
good cable TV picture
cons:
not the easiest to setup for non computer people
not soo great picture with lots of light so curtains maybe needed
46"- 65" inch widescreen screen $2600-$5000
Pro:
easy setup
Cons:
poor cable TV quality
takes up a lot of room
There are projectors that cost less and more than the X1. As with any item go view or demo it. This may not be what your looking for or have some issues with it. When I tested it I had no problems with its known issues and the quality was to my liking. I have it set to a 75" diagonal screen and I love it. Sushi is another person here that has recently bought a brand of projector. He has lots of info about projectors to provide.
Another site that has tonnes...sometime too much info to swallow is AVSFORUM.
Projectors under $5000:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=68
HTPC:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=26
Projector Screens:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=23
Saturn
