Can anyone give advice about purchasing one of these? Like what to look for, good price/performance models, what to avoid, etc?

check http://www.cnet.com for this kind of stuff. It's a good resource for camcorders, tvs, other consumer electronics.

I've been thinking about buying one of those PC projectors, the kind you give powerpoint presentations on.. and hooking a TV-in source to it. Voila! Instant giant-screen TV! I figure if a PC projector can handle 1024x768 with great fidelity and brightness, televisions should be child's play.

Thoughts?

You know, I haven't looked at cnet since they closed down gamecenter. Thanks!

Go for Best Buy. That way you can get one of those cool $500 extended warranties with it! Goodbye moolah!

Or there's alway's Fry's Electronics, where you can have the joy of opening the TV box to find a used, beat-up piece of crap that doesn't turn on.

http://www.hometheaterspot.com/

take a look at the forums here, covers by brands. Nothing against cnet, but it's pretty much a lite version of information you would get from people who specialize in this kind of thing. Believe it or not, a big screen tv (rptv) is one of the few places an extended warranty makes sense, there is a pretty good thread on the topic at the above site. The projectors mentioned isn't a bad idea so long as your not to critical about the way you view things. They make presentation projectors a bit differently from ones made for home theater use. You also have to factor in bulb life. Most low cost projectors use the dlp format with a bulb life of no more then 2000 hours. New bulbs run anywhere from 300-600 dollars. Just a few thoughts there