Given America's deep-seated love of all things cinematic and televisual, it's surprising that more US AV brands don't have a strong foothold in the UK market. But the bottom line is that few of them seem to know how to make mainstream UK cinephiles tick.

This is why we're shocked to find US brand Planar bursting from nowhere with a debut high-spec home cinema projector selling for what is, in the circumstances, peanuts.

That projector is the PD7060: an HD Ready model, using Texas Instruments' 1280 x 720 DarkChip 3 DLP system, and it's yours for just £1,750. What's more, as well as boasting the on-paper specs to get pulses racing, it's also something of a looker. The rounded edges, high-gloss black finish and silver trim will cut a pleasant dash in any living room.

Despite its pretty-boy looks, Planar isn't targeting the PD7060 at the 'shop shelf' market. Rather, it's marketing the PJ as an affordable option for custom installers. But fear not, if you want to buy one, UK distributor CSE Solutions will be only too happy to point you in the right direction.

The PD7060's custom install focus is evident among its connections; there's an RS-232 port for system integration, a USB port, and a 3.5mm remote control jack on offer. Of considerably more interest to your average AV Joe, though, are its two digital video inputs: one HDMI and one DVI.

Plus there's the inevitable component video input, a D-Sub 'VGA' PC port, a 12V trigger jack, and S-video and composite video lower-quality options.

The DarkChip 3 optical engine inside the PD7060 delivers a claimed contrast ratio of 3500:1, while the 'colouring in' here is performed by a six-segment, four-speed wheel.

Video processing comes courtesy of Texas Instruments. With many DLP brands preferring third-party processing from the likes of Pixelworks or Faroudja to TI's own efforts, here's hoping Planar's TI loyalty doesn't count against the PD7060's performance. At least, I'm told, Planar has spent considerable time tweaking the basic TI engine to get more from it.

The PD7060's long features list includes three lamp brightness settings; the option to turn overscanning off for greater image clarity while watching a native 720p source; source-dependent gamma presets; and three memory banks for storing picture setting configurations.

Horizontal and vertical keystone correction are on hand to get your image's edges straight, while vertical image shift provides a degree of flexibility.