Single-chip DLP technology has fallen dramatically in price of late and experienced data projector manufacturers like NEC have picked up the technology and run with it - straight into your living room.

At less than £900 for a genuine widescreen projector with 1,000 Lumens brightness and a contrast ratio of 1200:1, the HT410 is already something of a home cinema bargain on paper alone.

The HT410's main DLP chip is not exactly awe-inspiring at 852 x 480 resolution, but the pixels are true squares rather than stretched when viewing widescreen material. This pays big dividends as there is little or no horizontal image compression and, if you have a 16:9 screen, the image fits perfectly without borders or light overspill. The built-in scaler downsizes virtually all TV signals to fit its native 480-line resolution including, rather ironically, 1080i high definition.

This domestic bias runs through to the fetching pearl white case which looks just as good on a tabletop or hanging from the ceiling. Better still there is a features count that would get a professional cinema projectionist rubbing their hands with glee.

The lens-shift feature allows the image height to be adjusted without having to angle the projector, which in turn reduces the amount of picture degrading keystone adjustment required to straighten up the image. The range of lens-shift adjustment is one of the best on the market and, combined with a zoom lens that goes from wide-angle to long-range zoom, there shouldn't be any problems finding a convenient site to place the HT410.

If you're on a tight budget and don't want to use a proper projection screen there is even a feature that corrects the picture's balance depending on the colour of your wall. Wall colours catered for include light rose, pink, light yellow, light green, light blue or sky blue.

The connection count gives away the price point as there is just single component, S-Video and composite connections and not even a hint of Scart, DVI or HDMI connection. You do however get a carry case, a cable pack to cover every available option, and a dumpy little remote control with a handy backlight.