Here’s the germ of a business idea for you. With the digital conversion wave sweeping across North America in 2013, there will be roughly a zillion discarded theater-grade film projectors that will be available for cheap or free or better. (If they’re heavy enough, maybe someone will pay you to haul them off?) Given this low-cost resource, what can you do with it?

The true answer will probably be mundane or sad. Maybe a lot of them will be shipped to countries that still use film and would love to get more cheap projectors. Maybe some of them will just be melted down for scrap. But if someone could come up with a whizbang business plan for converting them to fun and profit, wouldn’t that be so much nicer?

How about a chain of “drive-in movie” indoor restaurants? They could get some cheap old movies (film copies ought to be cheaper too, maybe?) and show them on a screen at one end of the place while folks sit in booths that look like old cars. How is this better than using a DVD player and a projection TV? I don’t know. So maybe that’s not such a good idea.

It’s your turn. Leave a comment with your better idea. Then when someone (maybe you) hits it big with one of these ideas, he’ll send us royalty checks. Or at least offer us a free meal at his drive-in movie restaurant.