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Does anyone know if it's possible to use a digital projector for projecting D-cinema movies using hard drives? Obviously some sort of hard drive peripheral would need to be added. This is assuming the projection quality meets D-cinema standards.

In particular, the Sanyo PLC-XF60 projector is measuring within standards (on the low side at 6500 lumens and a 1300:1 contrast ratio, but within the tolerances- the throw is very short), so if I can add a hard drive that accepts D-cinema movies, I've got a digital projector already at around $10k. It has 2 MVP slots for expansion. Possible? Impossible?

The short answer is no. It would be like trying to play an audio cassette on a Beta machine, and conversion methods are either not possible or not available. Nice thought though. If the price was that low and the quality was theatre-level, there wouldn't be much question about switching to d-cinema.

No. The DCI is an emcompassing spec that calls out performance criteria on almost every aspect of the projection & sound chain. Only 3 manufacturers projectors are approved to build DCI compliant machines. (I am unclear as to how Sony fits into this since their color space doesn't meet the DCI) The only projectors that meet the DCI utilize a proprietary 2048 DMD from Texas Instruments (NOT available to ANY other manufacturer - consumer HD is 1920). They are also required to contain "Cinelink II" encryption to protect the content from the server to the projector, and meet the color space requirement.

So long story short, the Sanyo machine CAN'T play off a DCI server, simply because it can't decrypt Cinelink. Not to mention it doesn't have the color space or resolution requirement. And, you can't go buy *any* server, because the content won't play unless it's a DCI server. So, they've got you.

Well, poppycock. Good ol' "proprietary" strikes again. It was worth the question anyway, coming from a guy who will use four adapters to make something fit instead of buying one.