The Good Life.

Byline: Peter Suciu (B. J. Lee Hallee Berg Lauren Mack)

Technology: Project A Little Better

By Peter Suciu

Robert Fowkes owns more movies than your local video store. His collection tops 6,000 titles-- from "Pleasantville" to "Moulin Rouge." Of course, he needed a really-big-screen TV. A few years ago, while reconstructing his house, he built his own theater room. And how does he watch most movies? Fowkes, a retired professor from New York, relies on a good old-fashioned projector. OK, not too old-fashioned. The images are projected digitally onto a screen through a machine that cost him $11,000. "It provides the most realistic movie-theater experience," Fowkes says.

Flat-panel TV screens like plasmas are still the hot buy for most living rooms. But for the smaller market of film buffs who crave screens larger than 165

centimeters, digital video projectors offer the best picture quality for your dollar. The cost of the technology has been dropping steadily, down now to an average of $2,529 from $4,447 in 2003. Sales figures, by comparison, have shot up--about 13,000 units were sold in America alone last year, more than double in 2003. "It used to be that you had to go to a specialty store," says Gary Merson, editor of the HDTV Insider Newsletter. "Now they're everywhere."

Many of the new projectors offer added features, like built-in DVD players. A good system for newcomers is the Epson MovieMate 25 ($1,200; all systems at amazon.com ), which also plays CDs. But the projector still lacks the visual clarity of, say, a real multiplex screen. Enhanced Definition, or ED, projectors carry a higher resolution--480p (the progressive scan, or sequential lines on the screen)--and better image quality. The InFocus Play Big IN72 ($1,300) offers five video inputs for VCRs, DVDs, videogame consoles and PCs.