How can I find out if this will work in my room? How far to the left or right of the screen can it be put? I have a ceiling fan in the middle of the ceiling so I couldn't mount it on the ceiling behind it and in front would be too close to the screen. Can it be put on a rolling cart perhaps? Does it auto focus or would you have to go through an arduous setup process every time you rolled it out to use?

http://projectors.findthebest.com/compare/40-43/Optoma-HD-180-vs-Optoma-HD20

I got the HD180 last time it came up (20 was out of stock). It came with about 6 hours on it, and now has around 750 with no performance issues. The image and color are great, though I can't watch during midday because my apartment gets a LOT of light.

I'm forced to keep mine 15' from the wall, with a screen size of about 110" (Although I have it scaled down almost as far as it will go. At normal size, it's far larger than my wall). Hobbits are HUGE, and Skyrim is life-sized.

Focusing is manual, but not at all arduous. I keep it on a rolly-cart myself.

My only complaints:
1) Must be 90-degrees perpendicular to projection surface.
2) No audio-out (made setup annoying with my older Xbox360).
3) I can't scale the projection size down small enough to run my Xbox at 1080p from 15'.

My HD20 is at 2962 hours on it's first lamp. I got it Feb of 2010 new for $999. The projector positioning needs to be pretty precise for a permanent setup @etmorpi post provides good details. you need to point the projector at a right angle to the wall you are shining it at. There's no horizontal lens shift.

The picture is great. Great detail although black levels aren't great even in the darkest of rooms. But it's fine for movies, the only place I've noticed an issue is with video games. Playing BF3, if an opponent is in an extremely dark area and I'm outside looking in it's hard to see them, and I usually die first. Not so on my 27" HP monitor I use for non-projector time. Your room needs to be pretty dark depending on the size of image you are projecting. The bigger the picture, the darker the room. If you have a room with a door, and windows you can but some light blocking curtains on you will be fine. Open houses with light from other areas will make day watching unsatisfying.

And don't forget the screen. If you don't have a big white flat wall, you'll need a screen. I recommend http://www.htdepot.com/ for cheap screens of decent quality. All the high quality screens I found cost as much as the HD20!
This is the one I bought. You can find manual ones (non electric drop) for much cheaper.
http://www.htdepot.com/Focupix_HDVio_Widescreen_Electric_Screen_110_p/fhv169ax-110.htm

Just wanted to chime in as another satisfied user. Picked mine up from Costco.com for $999 a few years back and it's been working fabulously ever since. Coming from a decent 720p LCD projector, this is thing is a big improvement. No noticeable "rainbow effect" unless you're looking for it by shaking your head rapidly in front of a high contrast image. At this price you can't lose.

Anybody ever have any luck hacking one of these to replace its stock lamp with an LED lamp? I don't know if its even possible, but I like the idea of it.

Wow. I emailed SErvice.woot to ask how long I had to cancel the order if I wanted to cancel and they just refunded my paypal with no response. I suppose it's just as well. The new Costco one with a 2 year warranty while around $280 more makes me less frightened that the bulb will blow on day 31 or the main board will fry on day 91. These things are apparently not cheap to fix according to the HD20 owners' thread on AVS forum.

Has anyone done a definitive side by side shoot out on these two models? There seems to be specualtion that they are identical other than the manufactures specs. Has it been discovered what the internal diffences are that seperate the tWO?

L a m e. Was gonna buy one but the site was down for a whole day. luckily these are on woot often...i hope.