[Frameworks] Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced portabe video projector that's adequate for showing films?

[David Tetzlaff]

I'm not up on the latest projector technology. I'm wondering-if/hoping-that technical advances have created an answer to the question above.

Historically, you could divide video projectors into three types:

1. LCD: bright, with vivid but typically wildly inaccurate color rendition — both in hue and (over)saturation, very poor contrast ratio, and utterly unable to render monochrome images correctly... designed to project computer screens, good for that, not much else.

2. 1-chip DLP: not so bright, color accurate but a little washed out, pretty good contrast (for a video projector, anyway) but subject to generating flashes of extremely distracting moire due to the rotating color wheel's inability to deal with quick changes in image brightness at cuts.

3. 3-chip DLP: very nice image in every way, but big, heavy and EXPENSIVE.

My old thought was that perhaps LCD technology would improve to the point where the contrast ratio and color accuracy (especially with monochrome) would improve to the point of minimum acceptability for film screening. I doubt that 1-chip DLPs could have overcome the color-wheel-moire problem. But either way, I don't know what has actually happened in terms of the current market.

I'm not seeking anything that would be bright enough for even a small auditorium, but rather a living-room/small-classroom size venue with seating room for 10-25 people (who can be fairly tightly packed together if need be). I would hope for at least 720P resolution.

Reports on any experiences with recent projector models would be welcome, positive or negative.

And by "reasonably-priced" I mean under $1,000.