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Now that this thread has degenerated into a debate about who's dick is bigger...

Can anyone let us ignorant masses know how to actually use this LCD screen technology to create a HDTV system?

This got my interest, but looking at the websites provided, they have told me nothing.

First question, even if I have a LCD screen with an over-head projector, how do I get a HDTV receiver to display on the LCD screen? Is this something I plug into my computer?

LCD projectors are great for use with DVD's loaded and playing via WinDVD on WindowsXP.

The anti-MSFT whackos here want to spend $10,000-$15,000 to do what we do with $2000.

I guess if you want to part with that much cash you can buy "their" solution.

If you want to watch DVD's in widescreen, hook the VGA output from your PC box to your standard LCD projector. Make sure there are Microsoft drivers for the projector (so, don't spend time jury-rigging...just buy a projector).

Now, you have a system that can do both projection of powerpoint presentations and video files.

To do TV projection, you need a Windows Media Center box. The HP, Gateway, and Alien boxes all have TV tuner cards.

It sounds like the cards won't let you project High Def TV yet. I haven't scoped out the cards yet, but Hauppage must have a HighDef card in work.

If not, no big deal. After all, how much High-Def TV can really be under production and broadcast. At this point, not much.

If you really want to spend $10,000 for a "HDTV" plasma, go ahead.

If you want a spend $2000 for the LCD Projector, you'll get higher resolution than plasmaHDTV and you'll be portable for work.

First question, even if I have a LCD screen with an over-head projector, how do I get a HDTV receiver to display on the LCD screen? Is this something I plug into my computer?

The LCD screen is just a monitor -- it's an alternate form of "TV" technology.

There are various ways to produce an image on a screen for you to see, including CRT (this used to be the only type of TV screen), projection, LCD, and plasma.

If you have a projection system, you don't need an LCD screen, and vice versa (unless you want *two* screens to watch for some reason).

Once you have a screen (of whatever type) to watch, then you hook it up to some video source (DVD player, VCR, cable box, etc.) by just plugging it in to your "video out" cable from your DVD/VCR/etc.

It's really no more complicated than that. Don't let some people (*cough*) make it sound more complex than it is.

Although there are of course further considerations, like how to choose *which* technology to get based on your requirements and wallet, etc., and the wiring can get trickier if you're feeding multiple video sources into the same monitor, and what sort of audio you want, and so on.

And you don't need a computer involved at all unless you're trying to cut corners and use the computer to perform some portion of the activity so that you don't have to buy a dedicated component (like using the computer's DVD tray so you don't need to buy a standalone DVD player).

As for HDTV, if you have a standalone HDTV receiver, you'll need a monitor of some sort which can handle the higher resolution of the HDTV picture, or else it sort of defeats the purpose. Playing an HDTV signal on a monitor that has "regular" TV resolution will result in a picture pretty much like "regular" TV, if you can even get it to work at all.