*Auditoriums/Churches:

Back a few years ago, the majority of these were served with what were called light-valve projectors. Manufactured by companies like GE, Hughes, and Ampro, these projectors used reflective light processes (where light output was actually increased inside the projector), and you could get a projector bright enough and a lens good enough to throw an image 100-feet if required. CRTs, certainly better in quality than Light-valves, just didn't have near the light output required or the ability to throw light any distance. But, you sure couldn't beat the video quality. Now, this market is being served mostly by DLP projectors from DPI, Barco, and Christie Digital, and LCDs by Barco and now Sanyo! These LCD and DLP boxes can generate thousands of lumens and have the ability to throw light hundreds of feet to screens even 50 to 60 feet wide! And, they can do it for under $100,000. The video on the DLP boxes looks better today than that from the LCD boxes, but they're catching up rapidly.

*Home Theaters:

This is still dominated by the CRT. The home theater "videophiles" have always had an appreciation for perfection, and most use the CRT because it's colorimetry, black level, and image quality can't be beat. But, today, more and more "regular" guys are installing home theaters. In fact, the new economy (i.e. Internet, high-tech, etc.) has produced more home theater buyers with lots of cash in the last 12 months than existed since the beginning of the "home theater" market itself. Thousands of home theater buyers are standing around waiting to have theaters installed, and the only thing stopping them is a shortage of installation talent to do it! Oh, and the other thing is the CRT. They just don't see the value of the CRT when they compare the positives and negatives between CRT and LCD/DLP. Why? Well, the CRT is certainly the best video quality (no one would deny that), but it's big, loud (compared to most home theater designed LCDs), not easy to use, needs to be continually adjusted (no CRT projector stays converged - trust me), has to be installed in an exact point in the room relative to the screen that the customer may not want, and it's ugly. The LCD/DLP projector is super-small (1/5th the size of the CRT), easy to use, quiet, and LOOKS GOOD ENOUGH. When you show it to the wife, the kids, and the neighbors, they think it's awesome, and NONE of them stop and say, "Hey, your colorimetry is off." They just don't care. It looks good enough - especially in light of the fact that cable-TV is limited in quality anyway.

Oh, one last thought. There's a new breed of LCD and DLP projectors out (or coming out) that are specifically designed for this new home theater buyer. Sony's VPL-VW10HT is one example. Don't try to convince a few hundred videophiles that it's good enough to buy this new breed of LCDs instead of a CRT, but do tell the millions of other home theater clients out there! Gary Kayye, CTS is Principal of Kayye Consulting an industry consulting firm specializing in providing marketing and training consulting. He may be reached at his web site at www.kayye.com or via e-mail at gkayye@kayye.com.

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Gary Kayye, CTS is Principal of Kayye Consulting an industry consulting firm specializing in providing marketing and training consulting. He may be reached at his web site at www.kayye.com or via e-mail at gkayye@kayye.com.