HD TV and Movies Via Satellite, Cable, Antenna, Online

A 1080p projector is just one piece of the home theater puzzle. Even the very best high end 1080p home theater projectors lack any kind of built-in television tuner. A home theater projector needs to be connected to one or more separate HDTV receivers / HD DVRs like those pictured to the right if you want to be able to view TV programming, live sporting events, and/or high definition movies (in 1080p, 1080i, and/or 720p) from:

1. DISH Network / DIRECTV digital satellite dish service,

2. digital cable television service,

3. free over-the-airwaves local broadcast outdoor or indoor digital TV antenna, and/or

4. high-speed broadband Internet connection for viewing on-demand pay 1080p HD movies from VUDU (or up to 720p from Apple TV).

To get the best possible picture and sound quality with minimal wiring, each HDTV receiver box should ideally be connected using a single HDMI cable to an HDMI input on a home theater receiver (and surround sound speaker system) along with any other HDMI A/V source components such as a Blu-ray Disc / upconverting DVD player and/or video game console.

If your HDMI switching home theater receiver upconverts all video to 1080p output via HDMI, you can run a single (perhaps quite) LOOONG HDMI cable out from the back of the home theater receiver to an HDMI input on the projector.

This type of 1080p home theater setup lets the home theater receiver perform 100% of the video switching, processing, and then send 1080p video to the projector for projection onto your screen.