Dustin’s Blog

Interesting new product coming from Microsoft called Surface. It allows you to interact with a computer using nothing more than the screen itself. I’m not quite sure yet if Surface is the OS itself or the entire experience from machine to OS but videos of the product show some interesting ideas. Being something entirely new, there is no telling what people will come up with for this thing.

I have decided, after a little bit of reading, that HDCP should hence forth be pronounced as, handicap.

I’m calling the projector project itself officially finished. I’m really pleased with how the whole project turned out, especially for the price paid. Here’s a listing of everything I’ve gotten to make complete this project.

Projector: $380
Ceiling mount: $17
Blackout cloth: $40 (three pieces, two for window coverings and one for the actual screen)
Wood for the frame: Free, previous owner of the house left it here
Cabling: $85 (50′ VGA to md1, 50′ component, component cables for Wii)
ATSC HDTV card for computer: $25
Other misc parts including outlet box, plates etc: $10

Total: about $555

For under $600 I now essentially have a 90″ EDTV, not exactly HDTV but very close. I’m able to view over the air HDTV of all of the local stations, play DVDs and Wii on a fairly large screen. The HDTV content looks very good despite the projector only having a native resolution of 854×480.

Click here for an screenshot.