apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

You just evoked the deepest, most Barry White-ish tech lust I've felt in awhile.

To be accurate you are left with a projector AND a screen once you turn this sucker off. I have been using projectors instead of tvs for almost a decade now (I started with a crt projector that weighed over 100 pounds) because you get more bang for your buck. The thing to remember is that you also have to provide a screen. So while I love having a 102" screen in my apartment without paying 70k for the newest plasma I still have not figured out a good way to mask the 92" long retractable screen mounted to my wall. It looks just like those long steel tubes your high school history teacher used to pull those world maps out of...

Gregory...nice.

Morockin - true, or if you went with something like
Screen Goo acrylic paint you could get away with not having a screen.

There's also the option of a fixed-frame screen, which may not remind you quite as much of a classroom, but some people may think that, when not in use, it's even worse than the wall-mounted tube housing a retractable screen. And not everyone has a wall that can be dedicated to to the screen. A friend of mine, for example, has a retractable screen that pulls down in front of a window, which he obviously doesn't want to cover all the time.

If you want to get really swanky, there are motorized, in-ceiling retractable screens that essentially disappear when not in use.

I like the fixed framed idea screen goo retractable screen.

Add all three =

1. A box picture frame mounted to the wall to the size of the screen needed. Deep enough to hold a retractable screen.

2. Paint the wall behind with screen goo.

3. Pull down the retractable screen when not in use. On there you can have art, famous or not and so on.

4. Or do the opposite and use the screen for what it is and the wall behind it painted by an artist. Then it will look like a shadow box frame.

This of course is a simpler almost DIY version. There are more sophisticated and costlier ways of doing this.

Just a thought.

Why hide a TV? My 50" flat screen is as much a work of art at this... ;->

I like charles' suggestion and I'd add that you can do the same with a projector : have your installer put in a motorized ceiling mount so that when not in use the projector disappears into the ceiling.