Johnny sits quietly on his seat, a tub of popcorn. The lights have been turned off; the only illumination is the glow of lights as pictures change on an Epson screen dominating the entire eastern wall of his entertainment room. He picks up the remote and raises the volume level up by three notches. Perfect. The cost of Johnny's home theater, you ask? $2500 US.

In another living quarter somewhere in the western side of the country, Joan reclines on her lazyboy seat, digging into a tub of popcorn. She reaches overhead and flicks off the light switch. Picking up a sleek silver remote, she focuses her view on the latest sleek 32-inch flat panel Sony LCD screen in front of her. She presses a few buttons to adjust the volume to a level she's comfortable with. Perfect. The cost of Joan's home theater, you ask? It is a whopping $5000, American.

Both Johnny and Joan enjoy the latest models in home threatre system and both from Japanese makers. They get the same high-definition picture quality. The audio outputs are equally outstanding. But why does Joan's cost more than Johnny's? It is because Johnny has a home theater projector.

Projectors As We Knew It

For people born in the 1980s and earlier, the term projector conjures an image of a huge bulky device teachers tugged out of a heavy carrier to show overhead images to their class. Remember how everyone in the middle had to move to their desks to the sides so that the images could be reflected off to the back wall? Or if you're quintessentially archaic, you'd recall a church fixture that was normally seen off the side of the altar near the piano, where a flip of a switch shows the congregation the lyrics of a church hymn.

Projectors in the Digital Age

Indeed the overhead projector has gone a long way from a 15th-century idea to a 21st-century multimedia device. Much of the change has come along in the 1990s, as bigger computers came in sleek, smaller packages and the busy corporate suits have become busy, mobile business people.

As corporate lives became more hectic, corporate meetings became more frequent and corporate people flown in and around in various locations all over the world, carrying transparent films around and disrupting the usual seating arrangement for presentations became too much of a hassle besides being time-wasters.

The demand for a multimedia projector that was convenient to carry around (meaning it has to be light and small), versatile and reliable, and can create high-definition images of any size in any lighting condition – tall order, eh? – has lead to extensive technological research that gave birth to the latest projector technology – digital light processing (DLP).

Projectors Everywhere

Today, projectors are useful devices available everywhere. All businesses presumably have one. And as Johnny's entertainment room shows, you're likely to find one in home with an entertainment system. It's not necessarily a step down your flat-panel TV option. The home theater projectors give you the same high-definition picture quality and the latest technology.

Projectors are versatile devices you can use for still photo sharing, slide show viewing and motion picture screening. But where home theater systems are concerned, it's tough to say the flat panel is better because that's not necessarily true. Who doesn't want a home theater system?