The most popular entry level cinema projector that everyone seems to give high ratings to on the AVS forums is the InFocus 4805 unit.
Here's their sticky thread on the subject:
InFocus 4805
Although it's still NOT true HDTV (true would have 1280 x 720 native res), this seems to be the best bang for your buck and still generates very good resolution. It will accept HDTV signals, it just scales the images to fit it's 854 x 480 resolution 16:9 display. -This concept is just like cjbaldw was explaining. Here's some screenshots of the 4805 with a really good Silverstar screen:
4805 screenshots
The chaepest TRUE HDTV 1280 x 720 native resolution projector I could find was the Sharp XV-Z9000U projector, and a refurbished one is $2895 and a new one is $4495 !
This is the reason why I instead got a used CRT projector off eBay (Sony DataEX 1272q) for mine, because I spent $700 and found a nice unit w/ under 1000 hours on the tubes, guaranteed no CRT tube 'phosphor burn', and it plays 1600 x 1200 resolution max. I did have to buy a video processor/scaler/deinterlacer though to add on, to improve picture to be it's best (to get rid of the jagged lines from the interlaced signal). The only cons to this machine is it's lack of, or very cumbersome portability factor (weighs maybe 300 lbs?), and it's a bear to set up and converge the three rasters perfectly, but once set up, the picture quality is outstanding, better than any other projector I've seen. Maybe for you though, the Infocus 4805 would be the one to check out. It's claimed to be better by far than the X1, according to the gurus on AVS forum
