• $2,999
• 1280x720 single-chip DarkChip2 DLP
• Key Connections: One HDMI input and one DVI-HDCP input, one component input

It's been a couple of years since we last tested an InFocus projector. When Fred Manteghian reviewed the $7,000, 720p ScreenPlay 7210 back in September 2005 there was a lot less competition in the front projector market, and InFocus was a major player. It's still a respected name, with a long history in business and home projectors. But the playing field has not only become a lot more crowded, the name of the game has changed to 1080p. Not just 1080p, but 1080p at what would have been seen as impossibly low prices two years ago.

In the past few years, DLP technology has come a long way in terms of both picture quality and affordability. Not long ago, an entry-level one-chip 800-by-600 projector cost about $10,000. With the advent of the higher-resolution (1,024 by 768 and now 1,280 by 720) one-chip projectors, the front-projection world has become accessible to many more people. As the technology is rapidly becoming one of the hottest of the new fixed-pixel-display alternatives for both rear- and front-projection applications, new companies are constantly joining the DLP fold. InFocus—a company that, until now, concentrated solely on the professional business market—has entered the home market. The company's first offering is the ScreenPlay 110, a dual-mode one-chip DLP front projector with a resolution of 800 by 600 in the 4:3 mode and 853 by 480 in the enhanced-widescreen or anamorphic mode.

18.1 foot-lamberts. This light output would be impressive for any front projector. What makes it amazing is that I measured 18.1 ft-L on a 7.5-foot-wide (100-inch-diagonal) Grayhawk screen with a 0.9 gain. If you were to use this projector on a 6-foot-wide (82.5-inch-diagonal) Studiotek 130 screen (which has a gain of +1.3), you'd get an almost-blinding 48.6 ft-L. With that kind of light output, you'd be able to use a screen larger than 12 feet wide (165 inches diagonally) and still have a bright, watchable image. And that's in the low-power mode.

Too long have young men lusted for the thrill of the in-home big screen, only to be rebuked by the financial concerns of their astringent significant others. Thank ya' Jesus for dropping projector prices! Not so much that projector manufacturers figure out that they're not making any money and am-scray, but enough to keep enlarging the population of true believers. It's an exciting time for home theater aficionados and the InFocus ScreenPlay 7210 is here to save the day.

When it comes to selling front projectors into the home-theater market, JVC has always gone its own way. When other manufacturers were jumping into Digital Light Processing (DLP) and high-temperature polysilicon LCD, JVC introduced the direct-drive image light amplifier (D-ILA)—basically, a liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) imaging device. When others were adopting short-arc metal-halide and vapor lamps, JVC opted for xenon arc lamps to improve white balance.

• $6,300
• 1920x1080 three-chip D-ILA
• Key Connections: Dual HDMI inputs, one component inputs, one RS-232