Ever since I first heard about front projectors with LED light sources, I've been intrigued by the idea. LED-illuminated RPTVs were available just before the product category imploded, but front projectors using this technology have only now begun to appear.

At the end of the day, I stopped by the Digital Projection booth to see its new offerings, which I blogged about before the show. The M-Vision Cine LED was being compared with an iVision 30 lamp-based projector on adjacent screens, and while the iVision was brighter, even on a larger screen, the Cine LED exhibited better color saturation. In another part of the booth, the HighLite 3-chip DLP looked great, with excellent color and detail.

Runco wasn't the only brand with a new in-wall rear-pro. Digital Projection was showing its Titan RP97, which mounts a Titan 1080p-500 projector behind a 97-inch-diagonal "optical black screen" with 0.85 gain that completely rejects ambient light. Touting this system as an alternative to large-screen plasmas (think Panasonic's 103-inch monster), it's fully self-contained and supports its own weight so the wall doesn't have to. You'll shell out $100,000 for it, but the Panasonic 103 is even more than that, making the Titan RP97 a bargain.