Benefits of a 3-tube beamer used for home cinema:

• no pixles
• Resulation of the source is the resolution on the screen.
• no pixle drop outs
• no motion blur (perfect movement)
• capable of interlace
• no scaling (16:9 will have the exact number of lines of your video source.)
• perfect dark (Dark scenes are really dark.)
• capable of shutter 3d
• capable of polar filter 3d
• true color space as required for video
• (capable of playing with Sony's light gun)

Video images are made for tubes and they should be viewed with tubes. DLP projection systems are a very good alternative but do not cover all of the benefits described above. Currently there are projection systems with much higer brightness. If you realy like home cinema you will make it perfectly dark, otherwhise you are not worth having a 3-tube beamer. Some people buy a flat plasma screen. When you sit in front of it you will get X-ray'd. The resolution equals to the brick wall of your neighbor. The price is very high. For the same price they will get an high quality (quite new) 3-tube projection system.

There are some problems with 3-tube projection systems:

• They are heavy. (40-60 kg)
• They are big.
• They must be adjusted from time to time which is tricky for most people.
• Movement means allot of work.
• Tubes become quite unsharp after about 2000 hours, depending on picture. (The blue tube is mostly affected.)

The three golden rules of 3-tube projectors:

• The most expensive part of a video projector is the room it is installed in.
• The second expensive part is the sound system. (Hello to all high-end freaks)
• Beamers are mounted to the ceiling and stay there.

For any scanline video source I would prefer a 3-tube system because the signals are shown as they are. For computer presentations I would prefer lcd or dlp systems because computers have pixles and pixles is what these projection system show. Texts are much sharper then.

If you have additions or complains about these aspects, drop me a mail and I will add/correct it.