We have a DLP as well and I love it. A DLP definitely will not mount on the wall though (at least not aware of any) as they are pretty thick, but light. My wife and I carried our 52" DLP upstairs, which includes a 90 degree turn in the stairs, and set it in place our selves.
The DLP uses a single cannon/light source and works by "flipping" thousands of tiny mirrors on a semiconductor chip. Color is generated by shining a light through a rotating color wheel that has red, green, and blue (or individual color wheels) on it. The colored beam hits the semiconductor chip to create the image used for projection. There is a fan that keeps the bulb cool, but sometimes the sound that is mistaken for the fan blowing is actually the color wheel turning. Seems like I read once where the color wheel(s) can turn at up to 10K RPMs. Unless you are up close, which you do not want to be due to pixelization on a big screen, you can’t hear this – at least not on our Sumsung.
If wanting to mount on a wall, the LCD or plasma is the way to go. The plasmas are expensive but you can get two or three years out of them before noticing picture degradation. The LCDs are coming down in price and you can get up to 5 years out of them before the picture starts to degrade. The plasmas can go up to about a 60” (I think) but the LCDs go up only to 40”. I have read though that not all plasmas can faithfully reproduce the HDTV signal. Want to check and make sure of the resolution if interested in HDTV. Both the LCD and Plasma have “poor black level presentation”, meaning that black and very dark colors are not rendered clearly which can affect overall picture quality. Both can suffer from burn-in if a picture or background is paused or left projected for a long time (pausing a DVD, video games, etc.).
Once again, we really like our DLP. If you do not have to hang from a wall and have the room I feel like the DLP is the way to go – even if the DLP and plasma were the same price. I am to understand the DLP bulbs will last three to five years then it costs about $400 to $600 to replace. The semi-conductors last for up to 25 years. The picture quality is excellent – especially for HDTV and DVDs. Regular broadcast channels and you can see, it’s not terribly noticeable as my wife never sees it, some of the “green effect” that DLPs are known for - inability to render various green shades clearly. DLPs are also known for "rainbow effect" where if you focus on a particular area you will see red & blue haloes around other parts of the screen due to the "strobing" of the color wheel. This use to be real issue when the DLPs first came out, but, I believe as the semi-conductors have gotten better this has greatly diminished. The best way to check is just go to a store, get normal distance away and stare at a particular spot on the screen. Let your eyes go out of focus and see if you notice this effect. When we bought ours a couple of years ago it was hard for me to find DLPs that would do this to where it was really noticeable.
One thing I will pass on though. When I bought our DLP it had I think 12 inputs: (3) each composite (RCA type jacks) and S-video, (2) BNC/Antenna, (3) Component (R/G/B) and (1) PCI/DMI for computer. When I got it I thought, this is overkill – will never need since majority of connections will go to my surround sound receiver. But, after a few years I am using almost all of them, so get as many as you can.
TV’s are like tractors. Figure out what you need and want in one, check out a few and then get what best suits your needs and what you will be happy with. What works for me may not work for the next guy, so, I will only pass on what I have learned – and help you spend a little money /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
-Eddie
