Big, Big Screen TVs

Coming soon to a living room near you: one of the world’s largest rear-projection televisions.

The oversized box--the latest innovation by LCD-based projection manufacturer Prolux Corp. of San Juan Capistrano--stands more than 7 feet tall with a screen that stretches 96 inches diagonally. That means the next time the Lakers play, a life-sized Shaq could be stomping across the living room wall.

All this for just under $15,000.

Set to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, the monitor can be used as either a television set or--if connected to a PC--as a computer monitor, said Ron Holder, chief operating officer for Prolux.

“For the person with a lot, and I do mean a lot, of disposable income, this could be a cool toy,” Holder said. “We hope to be able to straddle the commercial market--the sports bars, the movie theater owners looking for a display in their lobby--with the very, very high end of the consumer market.”

But the consumer arena is already crowded with large screens, analysts say. Mitsubishi and RCA’s sister company, ProScan, both have 80-inch rear-projection TVs. And Toshiba has had impressive reactions to its oversized, letter-box screen that can handle digital signals.

“Any time you come close to consumer-level pricing, it’s very difficult to compete against the Sonys of the world,” said Dan Lavin, a technology analyst with Dataquest. “The spoils normally go to those who can make all their own components.”

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P.J. Huffstutter covers high technology for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7830 and at p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com