CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

ecrabb · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 6:33 pm Post subject:

ecrabb · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 6:37 pm Post subject:

macgyver655 · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 8508

macgyver655 · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 8508

macgyver655 · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 8508

ecrabb · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 7:08 pm Post subject:

Judas Priest, Mac... Do you have reading comprehension problems? I'm NOT debating that the build quality sucks!!! Let me restate: Build quality. It sucks. I'm not arguing that.

BUT, MOST OF US DON'T NEED A PROJECTOR ENGINEERED TO LAST 20 YEARS OR 50,000 HOURS, AND MOST OF US WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO AFFORD IT IF IT WERE!!! Well, not until it was 10 years old and being disposed of as surplus.

Again, you won't (or can't) answer the question. The digital projectors that you constantly deride as "only gonna last a couple of years", what percentage? IT'S VERY RELEVANT!

Take some popular model, like a Panasonic AE4000. Will 80% of them last 3 years, 5 years, or 7 years? Isn't a huge factor how its used? A projector that gets used 2000 hours/year will probably not last as long (in years) as one that gets used 1000 hours/year.

Give me some numbers... Because the 2-3 years thing is ridiculous without some qualifications.

SC

macgyver655 · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 8508

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 7:52 pm Post subject:

Actually, I'll disagree with both of you. The BUILD QUALITY is usually OK. The exception being certain items that use poor techniques for mounting large chips. But.. take the back off any brand name TV, and the PC board construction is a work of art compared to a poorly handwired set from decades ago. the Construction TECHNIQUE is why we can't repair it.

The problem is the ... wait for it.. PARTS QUALITY! Caps that leak that take out PC board traces too thin to solder, rendering them useless. THAT is what I call bull**** parts quality.

Did you guys read the Best Buy article that claims that retrained burger flippers have 95% success in repairing computers? That's massive bull sh*t too!. Smile

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 7:57 pm Post subject:

Based on what I've seen, and many articles I've read online say the same thing... 2-5 years longevity for anything electronic built today. I don't have percentage numbers, but I do see a trend that the newer the stuff is, the faster it breaks. Plain and simple. I see 3 year old LG and Samsung monitors coming in faster than 9-10 year old Dells. Scary.

SC, no offense, but your mentality if not wanting electronics to last 8-10 years is exactly a big part of the environmental problem and why everyone is busting everyone's else's balls to buy cheap, not good. Sorry, not everyone needs 1080p, let alone 4K. Let the zillionaires buy 1080p. I personally would be perfecly happy with 1080i if I can't pay the 1080p price point. You get what you pay for. That's the pricing model that car manufacturers use, for some reason it doesn't apply to consumer electronics.

macgyver655 · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 8508

macgyver655 · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 8508

My point being, with no prints, the manufacturer wants their stuff to be throw away. What other reason for no prints??????

nettwerkjohn · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:09 pm Post subject:

well, my ruby is still going strong. still perfect convergence, on its second bulb (first changed at 2900 hours) - total hours approx 4000

ecrabb · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:00 pm Post subject:

ecrabb · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:07 pm Post subject:

Oh, and another thing I don't think anybody's even brought up yet... What the hell are we going to do in a few years when most of our tubes are worn to the point of not being able to get good color balance?

I've got about 2500 hours on my G70, and it took me about two years or so to rack that up. I can already see a bit of wear... My blue and green are probably an 8 at this point; it'll probably take me just two more years, and I'll be at 5-6 and won't get good color balance anymore. So, the 10,000-hour tube life is a bit of a fallacy in reality. Because if you really care about image quality (remember, this is one of the big CRT pluses right?), then it's probably more like 5,000-6,000 unless you run your screen really dim or you run a very small or high-gain screen.

Unless you have a 9" LC machine, the feasibility of getting better tubes is going to be pretty slim. What will we do, then? We'll have these super-durable projectors worth a few hundred bucks, that need $2000 worth of tubes to get good color balance back... And that's IF we can get tubes at all.

The CRT train is slowly going off the cliff - whether we like it or not.

SC

tanwn · Joined: 26 Dec 2006 Posts: 104

CRT is slowly slowly fading and dying, it's true. What happens when your CRT breaks down and getting parts is indeed a problem especially i own a cinemax and it can be very costly. I have another 2 G70 on standby in case my cinemax dies one day i still could live with 2 sony G70 so that should probably give me 5-7 yrs or more? I also own a DLP digital projector for 3D viewing. Why didn't i switch to digital completely? If i never own a CRT in the first place, i probably would just go for a digital and never look at crt again. The biggest issue i think that a digital needs to overcome is the LOW KEY SCENE AND NIGHT SCENE, and this happens in about 76% of movies, other areas i could live with it. And currently the digital low key scene and night scene is not even any where near a CRT i would say only 30% of a 9" CRT. If the day comes when i just have to live with a digital, i will CRY and always recall the low key scene and black that my crt could deliver and many other areas as well. I love both CRT and digital and embrace all technologies but i hope digital can catch up with crt but it's not going to happen soon or maynot?

macgyver655 · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 8508

Revox · Joined: 13 Feb 2008 Posts: 158

Yesterday night i red this discussion, which turns out that it was a discussion: "is a digital better than a CRT".
I think many of us spend a lot of time with their loved beasts, a lot of people will ask what the f** is that on your roof? And you can say: "It's analogue!" And what you think at this moment is "I spend a lot of time setting it up, loving it, and it gives me a much better picture every setup hour". If digital is better, it's a little bit more difficult to justify this time for us. So this is the reason why this discussion went to this topic.

I use an old Revox Tape maschine and even bought expensive NAB adaptors. For a fixed good shape B77 you get around 400€ on ebay because you need knowlage and time to calibrate them.
I am in a community were everyone has got a few parted out maschines. Part's are nearly for free because most of the people are not thinking about profit.

I hope when the legitimation of a better immage is gone in 2-3 Years, parts of the "middle class PJ's" get really cheap. So we can hold on with our sets and have fun. If it's to expensive to fix my 8500 i am not the one who spend more money than this maschine is worth, because i am a student and home hobbys shouldn't cost a lot of money. And there a lot of people with intolerant wifes, which are waiting for a CRT failor.

Stefan

Boilermaker · Joined: 21 May 2006 Posts: 527

I thought I would just re-hijack this thread to tell a little story that just happened as it has something to do with "how far we can take this".

As you might know, on a part time basis, I build custom high-end home theaters for clients in Kentucky. One of the jobs I did about 8 years ago used an XG series AC projector. I have made a few upgrades for him over the years (BD, Moome, DVDO DUO for CMS, etc.)

A month or so ago he called me and told me he was going to remodel/expand his home and wanted to include a bigger/better dedicated HT and wanted my recommendation. I invited him to see my 10-1/2' 'scope blend as a basis for discussion. I explained that one of the options he had was to use JVC's newest flagship with an anamorphic lens, but I had nothing to show him as a comparison.

As time/money is not really an issue for him, I suggested he attend the CES to compare all the latest new hardware and form an opinion after that.

He spent 2 complete days there and said he saw everything worth seeing but wanted to see my blend again, so he came back for a second visit with his favorite BD's.

His conclusion was that he preferred my blend to EVERYTHING he saw at the CES, including the new 4K's. I asked him why he preferred the blend and he said first that he preferred the absolute blacks better but that the biggest difference was in showing motion. He said that while he couldn't really explain it, he felt there was something "wrong" with motion on all the digitals he saw in comparison with what he called "smooth" on the blend.

He won't start his renovation until this Spring, but we will be doing a blend. When he asked me if I had to find two projectors, I told him no - just one more. I told him that I would just install new tubes in his old XG and use LC lenses.

We had a further discussion on how many different digital projectors he would have bought in the last 8 years if he had gone digital then, and how amazing it is that he will still be using that same old projector.

It reminded me of an old joke that truck drivers used to say. Something like "Old truckers never die, they just get their Peter-re-Bilt".

Bob

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

On 4k discs, here is an article saying we may have them in 2013. It will be interesting to see what pops up at Cedia this year.
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/43813/4k2k-ultra-definition-blu-ray-2013

4k is really only important for those guys that sit one screen width or less away. It will be interesting if anyone sees an improvement from 4k downrezzed to 1080p. This would be important for CRTs even stacks and blends.

Boilermaker · Joined: 21 May 2006 Posts: 527