Hi Rick,
If you are a purist, all front projection images look relatively terrible with ambient light present. You can certainly see the image and enjoy a program while chatting with friends, pouring drinks and the like, but in terms of black levels, contrast, richness of color and so on, front-projected images with ambient light present are lousy compared to those viewed in a dark room.
I recall a Panasonic demo a year or so ago of their new projector, at CES, and the Panasonic rep had the light on in the viewing theater while he was extolling the wonderful image quality (NOT) behind him. I thought at the time, doesn't this idiot realise how terrible it looks?
If you have proper light control in the room, then great, you can adjust room lighting for the occasion.
Alan
