As readers of UltimateAVmag.com, HomeTheaterDesignMag.com and HomeTheater.com know, the ultimate home-theater experience can only be achieved with a front projector firing onto a screen, which can produce a much larger and more immersive image than any flat panel. Unfortunately, this is also the most expensive type of display system—that is, unless you're the winner of our latest sweepstakes!

[This sweepstakes is now closed.]

Every year, as summer sales for consumer-electronics products drag a little, manufacturers and retailers wonder which products will be the trend-setters in the upcoming holiday season. According to a report just released by International Data Corporation (IDC), the hot niche for 1999 will be a new product category: digital video recorders (DVRs) from companies like RePlay Networks and TiVo.

When it comes to persuasive reasons to purchase an HDTV, nothing beats having compelling content—and lots of it. Add one more notch to the content totals: Discovery Communications announced last week that it will launch Discovery HD Theater. The company describes HD Theater as a new 24-hour network "which will transmit high-definition content in all the popular categories of entertainment offered by Discovery" including nature, history, world cultures, geographic explorations, science, education, travel, and a wealth of children's and how-to programming.

Digital Light Projectors (DLPs) are clearly coming into their own this year, based on what we saw at the recent Consumer Electronics Show. Joining Sharp and its groundbreaking XV-Z9000 ($10,000)—and also based on Texas Instrument's 1280 x 720 DLP chip—are the new Sim2 HT300 ($14,995), the DWIN TransVision 2 ($12,999), and the Marantz VP12S1 ($12,499).