OK, answering as somebody who has used projectors for TV for 15 years and has just bought a whizz-bang Samsung "best in class" TV.

On Friday, 9 August 2013 14:34:45 UTC+1, Windmill wrote:
I was looking for something which would run without the use of a PC, if
that's possible at a low price.

A PC will significantly add to the faff of using it as a TV, though limiting the number of applications that play video will help, as will a decent remote control. However, a PC will slaughter a TV in one area that is important for me: upscaling. SD broadcast TV upscaled to HD looks awful on a TV. The image is distractingly fake and even after a few months with my new TV, I still hate the image quality.

Does anyone know of an inexpensive source for these ? Surely it should be
possible to find something *less* expensive than an LCD TV.

I'm afraid that anything that is quiet enough not to be distracting and bright enough not to need black-out curtains rather than regular curtains is going to be around £1500. However, for this you can easily get an image around 7-8 *feet*. A TV that size would hurt.

And a projector whose lamp life isn't short (3000 hours might be only a
year of use) and whose lamp doesn't cost more than the unit itself.

Really? They cost around £250 and on Eco mode should last twice that. And do you really watch that much TV? maybe you do, but I've had two projectors (deliberate upgrade rather than failure) and four bulbs in my 15 years.

A projector could be the ideal solution for a small room with just one
shaded, north-facing window (which can be shuttered).

Small? Well, as long as you have a large wall for two-metre-o-vision :-)

Might not even need much lamp brightness, especially if there's a wall
screen type which doesn't reflect too much of any light which strikes

Bugger the screen nonsense. I've always projected onto a wall and viewed from around 8 feet away. I tried a screen and neither I nor my wife could tell the difference, so I suggest you compare for yourself and see if you care about the differences you see. There is a lot of snake oil in home cinema (beware people selling nonsense like Oxygen-free HDMI cables).

All in all, I really hate my TV and can't wait until I can afford to install an ascending screen in the floor (I no longer have a wall I can project on to and the ceilings are too high for a regular screen to hang from).

Jon