Is this device for real? 175" big screen for less than $20?
 

Found this on the web the other day and am curious if anyone knows anything about it.

http://www.maxtheater.com/2479_xbox.html

It almost sounds too good to be true. It's supposed adapt to your existing TV and give you a large high resolution screen. I'm guessing it's a fresnel lens or something.

Anyone have any experience with this thing?

Subscribing to this thread.... ;)

It looks like a lens and it looks like a scam...

On another note, while surfing the site my computer blocked the ip address claiming my computer was being hacked.

Hmmm....I can't tell. If what punx1325 says is true then that's pretty f'd up and scary.

On the other hand, it's only $16.95 to find out. Could be worth it.

check out this guide! it is really cool if you want a big screen.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20041113/index.html

there is also an adition to the guide that tells you which TFT screens help and work the best!

The only thing about that one is that it'd be more difficult (im not sure if it'd be possible) to run an xbox on it.

Same type of thing but this site shows how it works.

http://www.gqcp.com/projector/howitworks.htm

This might sound like a really stupid question, but using one lense, wouldn't the picture be reversed (terminator = rotanimret)? Or perhapse upside down? I know almost nothing about the physics of light, as I slept through it in high school.

Depends on the focal length of the lens and the location of the object. Yes, it can appear upside down.

It would be reversed and upside down. So you would have to set the tv on its top but the words would still be reversed.
It would also be dim. It would be of low image quality unless it was from a high resolution screen.

I have been toying with the idea of building an LCD projector. You might want to check this guys site out:

http://www.diyprojectorcompany.com/

As I understand it (I've been doing some reading to catch up), in order to properly view through or use a lense and in order to have a clear picture, you need to be able to adjust the lense -this was one of the steps in which you move the wall with the lense mounted on it moving towards and away from the screen. The distance between the lense and what you want projected is called the focal length. When the focal length is so that the picture is at its clearist on the wall, that is the proper focal length for that distance to the wall. If you have to move your projecter closer or fartehr from a wall, you will need to adjust the lense wall again. The problem with the design is simply that a normal tube televsion does not have the brightness needed to produce a bright projected picture. As the light is refracted through the lense and magnified, x amount of light is spread out evenly over a larger surface. As x amount of light was bright on a 20 inch screen, that same x amount of light when spread out would be equally dimmer depending on how much you spread the light. If the screen was oroginally 20 inches, and if you project an image that is 40 inches, you lose half the brightness.

As much as this sounds good on paper, I could only see it possibly working in a very dark room. Otherwise, I'd go get a $1000 projector at your local electronics store.

be leary, thay never show you the product its self. And the Better Business Bureau has no info on file about the company.

I found something on them on the BBB. Thanks for the suggestion.

http://www.spokane.bbb.org/commonrep...844&national=Y

If you really want to try this out for shits and grins, don't buy any of the "special" lenses online. All you are going to get is a really expensive full page magnifier. How do I know this? Because last year I became the proud owner of a really expensive full page magnifier. You can get them pretty much anywhere that sells office supplies, or find a reputable dealer specializing in surplus optical equipment and order a high quality fresnel lens. It still doesn't work very well. Also, don't pay for the plans. You can get the same plans for free pretty much anywhere. It's a fun project if you're doing it for the sake of doing it, but other than that it's not very good. As they say, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

My friend found free plans for this on the internet and purchased a lot of 4 fresnel lenses on eBay for like 20 bucks.They arrived in the mail in great condition about one year ago, and we constantly talk about doing this but we haven't brought ourselves to do it it yet...

The best plans that I saw involved mounting the television at an odd angle and using a mirror to reverse the image to be correct.... If anyone has tried this with success, I'd be interested as he has extra lenses.. I am still thinking about trying it just out of curiosity as to how good it might be. If I do this, I'll post up my results.

I haven't bought the plans myself, yet, but probably will drop the $20 in January. The site looks pretty legit, you can check it out here.

i have done something similar to this and I just have to say that it isn't worth it. The picture is totally washed out, and the only reason I can recomend doing something like this is if you like cutting out card-board with an x-acto knife and taping it together.
Final review score: Blah

Looks like crap to me --

Take a look at this picture:
http://www.maxtheater.com/images/xbox_theater1.jpg

See the remote between the chairs, thats quite a highend remote control, and you think someone with that remote is going to pay $20 for a larger screen? Nuh uh.

SCAM.