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Digital horror stories...
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nettwerkjohn




Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 914
Location: Blenheim, Marlborough, New Zealand


PostLink    Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 8:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote


        Register to remove this ad. It's free!
have you sent your message to the tv station yet? might be worth a go.
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JustGreg




Joined: 07 Mar 2006
Posts: 3098
Location: Kenosha, WI


PostLink    Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 3:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AR: Yes but I told them I wasn't going to take the damn thing on another roadtrip again. Why should MY time and expense mean nothing?! I wanted to ship it...I lost on that one too.

NWJ: I sent the online form to the TV station last night. They get so many of these things that I'll be lucky if I hear back from them in two months...who knows. Maybe my saga is juicy enough to get pushed to the front. We'll see.

I was going to call the svc center again today and try to talk to a supervisor about the whole mess. It just doesn't make good business sense to pay Sony $1600.00 to fix it, when I have another 3 years left on the Performance Guarantee (extended warranty). Everybody in this forum KNOWS without possibly ever owning a digital projector that it WILL require more expensive service in that remaining time.
BUT...I figure there wouldn't be any management/higher level decision makers available today given New Years so it'll have to wait til next week.

Greg

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Greg

"Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don't know and I don't care!" --Jimmy Buffett
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Tinman




Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 1326
Location: Carson City Nevada


PostLink    Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 6:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just read through this.....

So let me get this straight..... You were crazy enough to buy a SONY product, and you seriously expect them to FIX it under their own WARRANTY no less???

Did you try a few letters to Sony corporate? I think I mentioned before that Sony doesn't give a rats a$$ about service AFTER you bought their overpriced crap.

And the people that are buying into Blu-ray will no doubt get the same wonderful treatment. But no one listens.

Good luck. Seriously. I could tell you lot's of sony stories.

Guys, Sony isn't "SONY" anymore. The days of high quality and support are long over. Support someone else.

Marc

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deronmoped




Joined: 03 Nov 2006
Posts: 1154
Location: San Diego


PostLink    Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 6:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The only place I have faith in is Costco. I tell everyone to buy there, if they do not like what they bought they can take it back, no questions asked, did not realize they would take back busted stuff two years old. Costco probably tells the manufactures that maket their stuff through Costco, that they will stand behind thier products or else. I find everything that I have bought there is been good to me, no reason to return it.

Deron.
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Rob Babcock




Joined: 15 Mar 2007
Posts: 85



PostLink    Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 4:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sadly Costco has changed their return policy on TVs and electronics. Old purchases are still covered but new ones will only have a 90 day return policy. The Tragedy of the Commons, I'm afraid.
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Spotmatic




Joined: 29 Jun 2006
Posts: 531
Location: Gelderland, Netherlands


PostLink    Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have just bought a cheap but new Epson TW520 LCD projector (Epson Powerlite 550 in USA) for gaming or the occasional movie-watching (oops) at other places than our home. I now remember why I never wanted to have a digital in my HT again, because after my first movie on that thing, I noticed some things weren't right with the picture. Upon closer inspection, it appears that I have got dust on my panels and into the optical path, which is hugely distracting!

I *hate* digitals Evil or Very Mad
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Curt Palme
CRT Tech



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 24293
Location: Langley, BC

TV/Projector: All of them!


PostLink    Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 4:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This quote from someone that *swore* he'd never own a CRT again:

By the way the DWIN HD700 is the sh*t! Best damn video projector I have ever had the pleasure of owning. Yep DLP has a new acronym in my house...(D)ont (L)ike (P)icture

LOL Yea, never thought Id be back on the dark side lol......
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Fujifrontier




Joined: 20 Oct 2007
Posts: 354
Location: San Antonio, Texas


PostLink    Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm really enjoying the anti-digital vibe of the CRT area Very Happy

I never liked those suckers from the first time i laid eyes on the lifeless, screen door picture....

Someone had an especially memorable signature that I love, "wimpy technicolour flashlights" or something like that... Delightful! I feel right at home with the analogue crowd Smile
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pfloydphanatic




Joined: 26 Jan 2007
Posts: 240



PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 7:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ah that was nice reading all those stories.. just makes me love my CRT even more Smile i got an ECP 4100 its great. nice looking machine i may add... especially after i spray painted the case metalic blue. and those DLPs with the color wheels sound awefully like those ancient color tvs from the late 50s or something with the color wheels... they were black and white tvs with an add on color wheel... pretty primitive.
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Dave Lister




Joined: 16 Jan 2007
Posts: 436
Location: Adelaide, South Australia


PostLink    Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 1:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fujifrontier wrote:
I'm really enjoying the anti-digital vibe of the CRT area Very Happy

I never liked those suckers from the first time i laid eyes on the lifeless, screen door picture....

Someone had an especially memorable signature that I love, "wimpy technicolour flashlights" or something like that... Delightful! I feel right at home with the analogue crowd Smile

Would that be my signature?

My first PJ was a digital, a Sharp, can't remember what model but it was long and black and looked like a movie projector, had a carry handle that pulled out from under the lens, all connections on the back.
Produced a horrible pixelated picture that was so bad I was constantly using the zoom to shrink the picture every time any text was displayed in movies, most people who watched it freaked out when I would suddenly zoom it in until I explained why, then they complimented my on my quick response with the zoom whenever text was displayed.
It was noisy too and heated the room a lot, I can't remember the wattage of the bulb, something like 250W.

A few months after I got it it wouldn't produce any light Rolling Eyes so I thought I need a new bulb, go to a supplier and order in a new bulb at a cost of AU$400 (this was about 15 years ago) and proceed to open up the PJ to change the bulb.

I take the old one out and look at it.....it looks fine, it should be producing light, I thought maybe it was the power supply instead, so I re-install the old bulb, put it back together and switch it on......it was working again Shocked I had done nothing except take the bulb out and put it back in and it is working again Shocked Question .

So I had just spent AU$400 on a new bulb for nothing.

I suspect it had a switch inside it that was activated when the cover was removed and it had an internal service timer that would shut it down every so many hours of use, I had simply reset the timer by taking the cover off.

I couldn't get it to accept an NTSC signal from my 3DO game system (see how long ago it was) and using the NTSC to PAL converter wouldn't work either because the converter was outputting PAL at 60Hz and the PJ only accepted PAL 50Hz.

I rang some places that sell PJ's and asked how I could get it to work, they said I could buy a more expensive NTSC to PAL converter at a cost of a couple of thousand dollars or a scaler for a bit more, f*ck that I said, the bloke on the phone laughed and said he expected me to say that, he told me the other option was to buy a CRT PJ and that they had an ex rental that they could service and sell me for AU$3,200 and that it would be much better and do what I wanted, I asked if I could have a look and try out my 3DO with it, he said fine and arranged a time.

I took the 3DO in and they connected it to the CRT PJ, when I fired up Crash and Burn which was the first console game to have full motion video showing the other drivers saying things like "Hey brain drain, I'm gonna play taps...on your head", they were blown away that a console had full motion video, at the time only PC's had it.
I then fired up Shockwave: Invasion Earth 2015, their jaws dropped (so did mine from seeing the quality of the picture compared to the digital) just from the opening sequence done in full motion video, let alone the in game graphics.
I then fired up Space Hulk, now anyone who has played that on the 3DO knows about the opening sequence where an alien bursts through a door, rendered in incredible detail for the time, they both jumped back a foot and had eyes the size of dinner plates Shocked which I found incredibly amusing and suspected would happen, which is why I fired that one up. Laughing

Needless to say I was hooked, I had just got some compensation (stuff all of it) for injuries from being hit by a car at 15, so I said I will take it, they delivered it and set it up and I had the best picture I had EVER seen at the time and even better, it was 2.4 metres tall and 3.2 metres wide, I had a home theater at last (said I would have a wall sized TV when I was a kid, no one believed me).

I sold the digital and it's replacement bulb to a local movie club who wanted an easy to set up PJ to use in the local town hall, they couldn't leave it set up so it had to be portable, the digital was what they wanted, I got more for it than what I had paid even including the bulb I had bought.

On the way out to the car, once I was out of earshot I said to my mum "I'm glad to see that thing gone" to which she replied "me too, the other one is WAYYYYY better".

Since getting the CRT PJ I have only gone to a cinema and drive-in once or twice (way back then) and every time I thought the picture was crap and I would rather have hired it on video and watched it at home where it was not only a better picture but more comfortable seats, no one talking or russling chip packets and I can bring my own munchies and not have to pay the exorbitant snack bar prices of the cinemas and drive-ins.

Anyone who watched it was blown away by the quality and those who had seen the digital asked how I had fixed the picture and why the zoom downs weren't needed to read text, I pointed to the CRT PJ and said "got rid of the damned digital and got that 3 eyed monster" to which they replied "good move mate".

The tubes had 20,000 hours on them when I got it and now have over 80,000 hours on them from 14 years of 12 or more hours a day of use playing games, watching TV and movies.

That was when I got my Sony VPH1000QM Wink and I haven't looked back since, nor have I been to a cinema or drive-in since then.

_________________
I don't believe in pixels or flaries!

Owner of a VPH1000QM with over 80,000 hours on the tubes.
Beat that you digital technicolour flashlight owners.

Stuff for sale;
http://www.quicksales.com.au/buy/auctions.aspx?i=&d=0&min=&max=&sort=0&pg=1&cat=0&keyword=&view=List&f1=&f2=&type=c&type2=&type3=&type4=&type5=tardis-workshop&s=&pcode=&dis=0&freepost=
http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/tardis_workshop/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=10&_rdc=1
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Fujifrontier




Joined: 20 Oct 2007
Posts: 354
Location: San Antonio, Texas


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 4:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yesterday we went to see I Am Legend in the theatre; they had one of those "people guides" that they form lines with... and attached was "line for I AM LEGEND ("Digital")"

And you can guess how high my blood pressure spiked. We had just plunked down $7 to watch a movie on a GD DIGITAL.

The left side of the screen was brighter than the right (and I bet no one else noticed). Will Smith was not "chocolate," but rather magenta. Warm tones were overemphasised, everything digital-sharp and no "film feel." I bet if I had mentioned something to "management" I would have gotten a "dur LOL sir it looks ok to us?????? its DIGITAL!!!!!! ITS GREAT!"
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AnalogRocks
Forum Moderator



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 1:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

OR you could have gotten your money back. I usualy leave in the first 10 minutes if there's something wrong with the projection. I CAN NOT stand out of focus or off color, screen door or any of the other myriad of projection problems. When I'm paying $10-$13 for a ticket it had better be 'perfect'. Plus I refuse to strain my eyes with that nonsense.
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Fujifrontier




Joined: 20 Oct 2007
Posts: 354
Location: San Antonio, Texas


PostLink    Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 1:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I couldn't. I was with my parents and they would have started lecturing on how being too particular is bad....
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ThomasW




Joined: 22 Jan 2008
Posts: 16
Location: Uppsala, Sweden


PostLink    Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whoa...Those horror stories makes me worry about my sister and her boyfriend. They bought a digital pj, think it was one of those new Mitsubishi HC 5000, the last week of -07. Pricetag here in Sweden about $4300. I almost scolded my sister for not getting in touch with me and getting advice about hometheater BEFORE the purchase ! Have not seen it in action myself, eager to get reports from my sister how they like it. They did not even have a decent DVD-player, offered them my Momitsu V880N for a start until they get a blu-ray or whatever..

But, taking a little closer look at their situation, I can understand why they chose this digital pj:They want to watch television with it aslo. They want it in their living room which has several small windows, and don't want to install expensive light block shades in everyone of them. They have a "trackreckord" of having things falling down attached to the ceiling, the digital (26 lbs) can be placed on a regular shelf. They do not have the time and interest for a newbie 100h+ setup of a CRT pj.

I am just hoping that their pj will last and not brake down with an exploding lamp at worst.... As for myself, I am reconsidering a potential purchase of a JVC DLA-HD1. Still gonna go tho a dealer and have it demoed, I am just curious how an image from it will look. But with the $6100 price tag and your horror stories I will NOT be persuaded to buy one.

Now, why did I consider it in the first place ?

- Silent !!! my 6PGextra has a ~52dB high pitched whine....
- 1080p resolution out of the box
- Possibility to have a CIH setup without diminished light output and putting a 2.35 AR wear stripe on the tubes.

In the meantime, I am trying a new setup attempt on my 6PGextra to get astig, focus and convergence dot on this time. So bear with me when I start asking "stupid questions" here in this forum in the near future !

Thomas
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Nitmoe




Joined: 10 Jan 2008
Posts: 60
Location: Iowa, USA


PostLink    Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 6:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I went to see "No Country For Old Men" at my usual theater. It's a multi-plex, and I haven't been in every theater. Without any warning at all, I ended up with a digital projector. I don't have much experience with these things, so I'm not sure what it was, other than terrible. Unmistakeable screendoor, and very poor color convergance. I would have raised some hell, but I was with my sister, who b*tched at me for complaining about a huge sticky drink splattered on one of the screens at a previous film we viewed. I have no plans to re-visit that theater.
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AnalogRocks
Forum Moderator



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 5:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Found this while searching for a DLP telivision manual to help out one of the new guy's in the HDFury forum.

http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10661

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RobertMfromLI




Joined: 29 Jun 2009
Posts: 114
Location: West Islip, NY


PostLink    Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I still remember the first time I watched something on a digital projector... it was almost two decades ago. We watched one of the Star Wars trilogies. It was really cool watching a movie on a PJ screen (even if it was only a 5' or so screen - but that was massive for most home stuff in those days)... BUT... it was really annoying that everything was made of big square blocks.

Kinda neat that things have improved a bit in that area for LCD PJs and such nowadays... but still not good enough for me.

Some people seem to think that LCD PJs are nicer for text/computers because the text is sharper. I dunno.... not me. But maybe that is because I am a bit older (and been into computers for 28+ years) and used to CRT computer screens.

It isn't "sharpness" per se, it's the pixel effect. Windows (and other OS's) nowadays anti-alias the text... the CRT PJs also do that to some extent simply by design - that makes the text look a little muddier. Just like using an LCD monitor at the wrong resolution will do the same thing to already antialiased text.

I simply don't antialias my PC text and let the CRT do it "by design" and get great results. Ones I think are far better than LCD PJs.


The other thing I have noticed (as others have indicated) especially on newer sets, is the horrendous "color correction" which seems an attempt to make up for poor contrast ratios. But for me, just like others here, it makes the images look weird, surreal, and such. it is great for certain things (video games, or certain types of movies; such as 300 or Final Fantasty Advent Children), but is distracting to me for others.

Of course, the virtually infinite amount of colors on a CRT PJ is a bonus too - well, with media that can take advantage of that. I've seen some pretty crappy DVDs (colorspace rendition, greyscale and black rendition) that just look "terrible" no matter what. For me, watching TOS shows this a lot (I have both the DVD version and old VHS versions). While they have adjusted the color and such on the DVD version to be a little more vibrant, it is really distracting when there are compression artifacts, stair-stepping and such on the darker scenes, or on the obligatory "fade to black" scenes that end every "cliff-hanger" moment at the commercial breakpoint:

VHS -> CRT PJ = none of that
DVD -> CRT PJ = less of that
DVD -> LCD PJ = more of that

-Rob

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RobertMfromLI




Joined: 29 Jun 2009
Posts: 114
Location: West Islip, NY


PostLink    Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Funny thing is, IBM actually made a laptop that could double as an LCD projector decades ago. You'd flip down the back of the LCD cover, stick the TP on an overhead/transparency PJ and it would display whatever you had on your LCD screen onto your PJ screen.

Of course, they were first (or close to it) at a lot of things - their first TP was a tablet PC... in 1992.

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AnalogRocks
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Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I remember that lap top! A friend of mine is an IBM fiend. He had one as well as the external panel that goes on the overhead. Fun times.
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letre




Joined: 25 Aug 2009
Posts: 18



PostLink    Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

To tell you the truth i am already satisfied with my marquee 8500's quality. I use 720p because my projector needs some attention before i think hdmi / blu ray. I need to replace the blue tube because it is worn and causes a stalk yellow section vs white section on the side. It is not too bad but very annoying. When i set it at 1080p the view is unsteady and shakes. I am wondering if draganna's mods will help this. Anyway, in the end i think that the real reason I like this crt hobby is to entertain friends. Watch a movie with such outstanding color, clarity and large size that they will just be taken. But some of them have blu rays with 52 inch Sony. I have seen the clarity, the color of these, and it is amazing. So I am wondering if any of my friends will be interested in visiting my home theater, and if they do will they consider it a step down?
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