Yet again, it was wall to wall LCD and plasma panelry at CES this year. But it's about time punters realised the HD TV market is all about sparkly gimmicks and keeping-up-with-the-Joneses consumerism.

If you're remotely interested in the viewing experience, what you really want is a projector.

Preposterously pricey panels

The basic argument goes something like this. Even the largest, most preposterously pricey panels are plain puny compared to a good projector. For pure cinematic immersion, a decent projector is absolutely untouchable. And thanks to the recent fall in HD projector prices, you'd be mad to pay more money for a smaller, chronically inferior HD TV.

The details are obviously more complicated. I fully accept, for instance, that projectors are significantly less flexible than TV screens of any type. They don't work well during daylight hours or in brightly lit rooms.

They're also a pain to set up and difficult to seamlessly integrate into aesthetically sensitive living environments. The image itself might be thinner than even the funkiest new super slim sets shown at CES. But there's still the projection unit and messy cabling to deal with.

I also concede that today's HD TVs are light years ahead of the models being hawked as recently as 18 months ago. Prices for large format HD TVs are tumbling, too. You can now pick up a quality 40-inch Samsung unit with full 1080p resolution for under £800.

Making a 150-inch plasma look small

But why settle for 40 inches when you can have 140 inches. Or even 240 inches. With a projector, the physical dimensions of your home rather than the depth of your wallet define how big you can go.

Currently, there are several solid 720p DLP projectors available in the £500-600 segment. Just compare that as a value proposition to a £5,000 60-inch plasma TV. Hand on heart, I'd rather watch the £500 projector painting an eight foot image across my wall than the much pricier plasma. What's more, by this time next year, I reckon full 1080p projectors will be selling for under £1,000. Then it really will be no contest.

Much of the explanation for the roaring success of big HD TVs and the relative failure of projectors is down to combination of ignorance and rampant materialism. Punters, it seems, are desperate to have a large flat panel TV in their living room to complement that superstore-bought leather suite and the imitation blonde-wood flooring.

Sod the silly HD TV!

But if you have an ounce of image-quality nous in you, you owe it to yourself to at least try out an HD projector. In my experience, everyone is blown away the first time they see the cinema-busting scale of an HD projector running in a home environment.

So, here's what I recommend for your next TV and home cinema set up. Sod the silly, premium-priced HD TV. Instead, buy an HD projector and a smaller, cheaper TV.

A 32-inch or so 720p TV can be had for peanuts. That's plenty for casual TV viewing, catching the news when you step in from work and all that jazz. Then, when you fancy some serious viewing courtesy of an HD disc player, HD movie or sports content from Sky HD, or perhaps Apple's new HD movie download service (when it arrives in the UK), fire up the projector.

And enjoy a home cinema experience that the flat panel-owning hordes can scarcely imagine.