Turn any LCD monitor into a TV projector

Instead of throwing away your old LCD monitor, why not turn it into a home theater projector ? No messy cables, configuration, or AV nerdiness required.

Frank Völkel of Tom's Hardware gave a great step-by-step guide on how to turn a regular LCD monitor into a high-quality XGA projector.

The well-known auction portal eBay has just about everything. For some time now, several sellers there have offered instructions for building a so-called "multimedia projector", as well as other "bargains" designed to help the customer get a giant screen at home without too much financial outlay. This is how it works: the seller offers a PDF construction guide for $20 in a "buy it now" auction that contains everything the customer needs to know. But does it really work?

While these guides didn't seem like a great deal, they gave us the idea to stage our own "do-it-yourself projector" promotion. In contrast to the eBay offers we briefly examined, you should come away from our tutorial with a good foundation for building your own XGA projector, and of course, there's no charge! In order to offer a realistic impression of the picture quality possible, our new video provides a step-by-step guide to building and operating your own projector.

The resulting picture quality is quite spectacular. According to Frank: "Despite daylight flooding the room, the luminous efficiency of 3,500 ANSI lumens made it possible to screen DVD films and images onto a white wall. Perfect display quality can be achieved in a completely darkened room."