Forbes.com: A Digital Projector Widens Its Horizons

There was a funny little secret about the digital office projectors used to show Powerpoint slides: When hooked up to a DVD player, they made great movie projectors. That secret is out, and now projector manufacturers are starting to go after home users in a big way.

Market leader InFocus recently launched a new unit with consumers in mind, the 7.5 pound ScreenPlay 5700 at $4,999, 1400:1 contrast ratio, and 1,000 hour lamp (Philips metal halide lamp replacement $200). The company says it's the first projector aimed at home users with a Matterhorn Digital Light Processor (DLP) chip from Texas Instruments. TI's DLP chips use 2 million hinged microscopic mirrors that move back and forth to create the images they do and supports 16:9 wide aspect ratio.