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Will Low Lamp Lifetime Spell Trouble for DLP TVs?
Techno-Canuck asks: "Now that the DLP TVs have been
in customers' hands for the last few years, there are problem histories that are begining to unfold. According to Toshiba's DLP TV User Manual: 'The average useful service life for the lamp is approximately 8,000 hours in LOW POWER or 6,000 hours in HI BRIGHT MODE.' However there were problems with certain 2005 Toshiba models that saw
the lamp lifetime at only a few hundred hours or less. Toshiba replaced the lamps in these models at no cost and extended the lamp warranty to 2 years. According to an FAQ on About.com the lamps currently last an average of 1500 hours. Whether or not Toshiba has resolved the problem remains to be seen, as only time will give the real indication. There also seems to be lamp issues with some 2004 models as well, but Toshiba does not seem to be stepping forward to resolve the issues in this case. The customer
ire is starting to rise, however. Will there be similar problems for the 2006 models once enough time has
elapsed?"
Most people probably would use the information provided by Toshiba to make
a decision about what the lamp maintenance costs would be for DLP
ownership. However if lamps only last for 1500 hours, then
that's a 400% increase in costs over what Toshiba is presenting to
customers. The cost of a lamp is $200 or more, and for a family
household that averages 6 to 8 hours of TV viewing per day, this
translates to a new lamp every 187 to 250 days. Strangely enough the
Toshiba warranty on a replacement lamp not covered by the original TV
warranty is 180 days.
It's possible that the death blow has already been struck. It appears that no longer carries DLP TVs in its product line."
It's possible that the death blow has already been struck. It appears that no longer carries DLP TVs in its product line."
Problems like these will kill any technology in the cradle unless it has absolutely no competitors. If the 2006 models turn out to be anywhere near as bad, the game's already over. I mean, the Newton's second version vastly improved on the original and had no credible competitors, yet the horrible handwriting recognition on the first cast a pall over the whole enterprise that never lifted.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
I'm not familiar with the physics or the schematics involved, but is it possible that that kind of heavy-duty usage is cooking the bulbs?
for a family household that averages 6 to 8 hours of TV viewing per day
I think the family needs to get a life. The sooner the lamp goes out on this family's TV, the better.
This should create a nice market for upgraded replacement bulbs for these TVs. LED bulbs, anyone?
Well projectors have needed lots of lamp replacements and people still use them. Plus, DLP looks a lot better lol. Now I don't know of any projector lamps that lasted like 100 hours but I know some that are under 1000 and people are just like whatever. As long as Toshiba keeps replacing them for free and giving good warranties then it's just like another product you may have heard of. I mean come on, how many people do you know that had their iPod break and they're like all like OMG DIE APPLE! NEVER BUY ONE! And I swear at least 1/4 of all iPods made broke but Apple fixes em for free and people seem happier to get something free than they would be if it had not broken in the first place. Dunno what the name of that psycological effect is but it works apparently.
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The DLPs will be going to LEDs. Samsung already has one for sale.
It appears that no longer carries DLP TVs in its product line
Did we forget to fill-in-the-blank here?
Anyway, wait for an SED set if you can.
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What the hell is wrong with you people?
I repaired Sharpvision LCD projectors at one time and the metal halide bulbs were very sensitive to ventilation issues. If the filters were the least bit clogged the bulbs would die faster. They did have temperature sensing but it was not enough to stop the shortening of bulb life. They did not have an airflow sensor but did have a tachometer in the fan which did nothing to measure airflow.
:) But I don't have to go in shportsh bars anymore which is much more important.
They did well with the special power supply for them, it was intended to preserve bulb life and uniformity.
In very new, squeeky clean homes they seemed to do almost a year but I don't know how often they were used. In stinking cigarette clogged bars they'd die every other month if not sooner. Because in one model Sharp put the fan on the bottom it was an excellent path for the drunks drink to spray all over the espensive electronics.
Bad desings were money for me.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Don't watch TV for eight hours a day! Haven't these people got anything better to do with their time?
Do you love TV enough that the $110 TV you get at Target is so completely unbearable to watch? If you love TV more than that, then you'll pay for $200 light bulbs and you'll like it too.
Damned whiners.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Because Toshiba as a whole doesn't really care if any of their products are lemons.
Toshiba screwed thousands of people with poor quality laptops and even worse repairs, then screwed many, many people who bought pocket pcs from them when they decided to not release a promised upgrade - those aren't isolated issues either.
Don't get me wrong - all companies have runs of bad products - but when toshiba does, it's not only that they don't care, but they refuse to admit a problem even exists.
Oh and this...
strangely enough the Toshiba warranty on a replacement lamp not covered by the original TV warranty is 180 days.
There is nothing strange about it - it is calculated and predicted, which is why the warranty period isn't standard.
Short of a class action - and even then, because we all know how useless those are - yay 20% off 1 toshiba name brand lamp, people are going to get screwed.
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It means that they are on the way to destruction and have no chance to survive, so they should make their time for great justice.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
A tosh DLP that is. It sees very heavy usage in our household, and the lamp has been going for about 2 years now. It will probably die soon, the bulb that is, but hey, I knew bulbs were going to be consumables when I bought it. Most people that run short bulblives forget to switch on the "quick restart" feature that keeps the bulb on for about 10 minutes after you switch off the telly, and its the frequent on/off cycles that do more damage to the bulb then anything else.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
In fairness to Orville, it's unlikely that he was filmed or recorded with hi-def equipment back then, so you're likely seeing plain ol' TV "blowed up" to fit the high-def screen.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
You should have said "better" lcds. Many LCDs, while not as limited at RP screens, are still pretty poor when offaxis by more than 40-50 degrees. That is where Plasma really shines.
:-)
As for DLPs, people will have a shit over this because they're used to tube TVs lasting 10-20 years without fail (looks-like-crap does not equal failure for many). They aren't the early adopters who are willing to drop $400-700 on a lamp every thousand hours. After it really becomes common, people will get used to it. And lamp tech will get better, too, resulting in longer service intervals.
On the flip side, maybe there will be a sucker market for "dead" LCD TVs and you and I can pick one up for almost free, then drop in a new $200 lamp and have a nice 60" RP in the play room
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
So you're saying the summary's sentence is the 2007 version of "you have no chance to survive make your time?"
Or more likely, there will be a market for better bulbs in the future. If the bulbs don't last long, why blame the TV? It's a frickin' light bulb. Expensive and really bright, but it seems to me that cooler-running, longer-lasting bulbs are an obvious next step, especially since DLP TVs look absolutely amazing for the price, they're not monstrously heavy like old RPTVs, and they have a user-replaceable backlight (take that, dimming LCD!).
LCD Rear-projection TV's also use a high-pressure halogen lamp as a light source, so they will also suffer a similar fate. Interestingly enough, despite the universal abhorrence of "extended warranties" it's actually a good investment on any halogen-powered rear-projection TV. This is because most extended warranties cover one bulb within five years, and the warranty price is very close to a new-bulb price. Just be glad you're not replacing a Sony SXRD-Qualia Bulb (xenon based). In their front projectors, it's a few thousand bucks!
Please also ask him about the 'people are just like whatever'. I wonder what people are like, when they're like that ;)
AVS Forum is quite a bit better source on this than /. and while last years Toshiba's clearly had a problem, the forum has been absent of the massive amounts of complaints that were there last year. Several posters have even stated the original problem fixed.
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We have a 46' Samsung DLP that we've had for almost two years now. The kids watch Nickelodeon, Disney, and Cartoon Network about 8 hours a day, then I or my wife (mostly my wife) watches maybe 2 hours a day. So far we haven't had an issue. The TV is great. When we bought it, the guy said get the extended (to 3 years) warranty at $150US. He said that the bulb last about 2 years under heavy use and that it cost about $150 to change and was covered under the warranty. That way if something did happen to the TV within three years it would be fix for the price of replacing the first bulb.
The best thing about DLP TVs is that they don't get burn-in video games or other images left on the screen for to long like other types of TVs (tube, plasma, LCD or other types of projection TVs) It's the main reason we choose DLP in the first place.
These bulbs are designed to fail... They could put 2 or 3 lower wattage/heat producing bulbs in these machines. More bulbs with less wattage would last much longer and could be much cheaper. They want the repeat business of selling bulbs, just like HP sells $50 printers that have $35 cartridges. Like printers though, changing bulbs will become an accepted norm, for DLP enthusiest. Hell, I don't mind, If I can afford the TV I should be able to afford the bulbs.. It's like buying a car and complaining that I have to buy tires every few years.. IT is what it is..
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit!
Well, if you have 3 people in the house, and they all sit down and watch 2hrs of prime time together, there is your 6 hrs (ofcourse that is only 2 hrs of bulb life).
The factor in the peopel that have mini TVs in their kitchens running when ever they are there (0 hrs of bulb life), the people that have their TV running 24/7 (Any one that does that with a DLP deserves to be payign $200-300 every 6 months) etc etc.
And then there is the regular TV watching (Lil'Timmy watchign Sat mornign cartoons, Pop watching the 10 o'clock news, Maw with her cooking show etc etc etc), most of wich is not goign to be done on the DLP.
the only way I can see to burn out a DLP fast is via video games, Sports buffs and movie junkies (I don't need to watch Dan Rather in HD, but the latest action flick is probably worth it)
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
LEDs are going to replace the bulbs and color wheels, greatly increasing light source longetivity and also eliminating rainbow effect. This may take awhile to trickle down from the high end devices. On the other hand, since the mfgrs won't want to lose customers over the bulb issue, they will have incentive to make the change ASAP.
s p
http://www.dlp.com/home_entertainment/led_hdtvs.a
The amount of light necessary to produce a bright image, especially in larger sets, is actually quite large. Often, a lamp will need to be twice as bright as the output, or 2000 lumens for a 1000 lumen projector. You start getting into the realm of "lighting paper on fire" at that level and above. It's also about color temperature, which typically needs to be high. Remember that your run-of-the-mill $18 overhead lamp, which is far dimmer than a PJ lamp with horrible color temp, usually lasts for only about 80-100 hours.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
But I have yet to see DLP that has a really good picture, and I'm talking with HD feeds. A friend of mine has a DLP (that needed a lamp replacement almost out of the box), and the HD quality is greatly inferior to my HD CRT, and we have the same feed. Similarly, I was looking at an HD display in the store the other day, with an High Def movie (not sure if it was Blu-Ray or HD-DVD) playing on the 3 major types (LCD, Plasma and DLP), the DLP looked like an analog signal being stretched to WS on an HD screen in comparison to how crisp the other two options were.
I just don't see DLP as a worthwhile technology. Sure, it's significantly cheaper than Plasma or LCD if you want a BIG screen, but eventually that difference will be minor and the tech will die.
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According to a random page I found while googling and not caring if it's valid or not, DLP recently has been in the lead among business projectors vs. LCD. See a few paragraphs down
:), eg. TVs.
That means the technology will stick around for a while, and I personally prefer the visual quality and price/performance of DLP vs. LCD and plasma. I don't think this bulb life "setback" will kill it since it doesn't have all its baskets in one egg
If I had the money to finish my basement and home theater room right now, DLP would be my choice. And I'm talking home theater projector, not TV. It always bugs me how every few months some company announces it's showcasing the world's largest LCD TV. 80", 90", 100", or 46'. Who cares!?! What donkey goes and buys these things? If you're going to go big, get a high quality projector and a high quality screen, regardless whether it's DLP or LCD.
My 51 inch RCA Scenium DLP is going on 3 years old now, and I'm still using the same bulb. The TV is probably on around 6 hours a day (whether we are actively watching TV/playing video games or it's just on as passive background noise) and in my opinion, it still looks as good as it did the day I bought it. The only negative thing I have to say about my TV is that it only goes up to 1080i since I was an early adopter.
I have a Benq 6200 FP DLP with about 700 hours on it in two years now (I am not the earliest adopter...that goes to the Infocus X1 crowd). Paid $1150 for it. Best electronics investment I've ever made. Bulb life expectency 2000 hours at a cost of replacement near $400. That works out to twenty cents an hour or FORTY CENTS per average movie. I also use my projector for over the air HD (USDTV OTA tuner - Walmart) and DVD's. Mostly CSI and sports OTA. Bottom line: I was aware of the bulb cost and life expectency when I bought the unit. If you don't understand the technology and it's costs you should avoid. But let's look at the ALTERNATIVE of buying a 'smallish' 60" plasma. They gotta still be getting three grand for those??? I will be cashing out my social security before I buy enough replacement bulbs to get to THAT pricepoint and in the meantime I'm watching tv at a MINIMUM of 80 inches. OTA HD tuner: $200 FP DLP: $1150 (much cheaper now) Having your own home THEATER ----- PRICELESS. Enjoy.
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Samsung's latest DLPs use high intensity LEDs to illuminate the DLP chip, not a standard bulb. These cannot (as far as I know) be burned out. Next topic?
today is spelling optional day.
The good news with Toshiba televisions is that they can radio for help when there's a problem. The snag is that invoking this service costs US$10,000 per day, so you better hope that it gets fixed damn quick!
They seem grossly overpriced as it is-- it's not like they're "giving away the razor," the old Gillette strategy...
I'm on the market for a large screen TV, and am planning to go LCD rear projection. Still, there is an expensive light source involved (a light bulb, if you will). I was given the following advice to extend the life of my light source: If I turn the TV on, leave it on for at least a half hour. If I turn it off, leave it off or at least a half hour. Since I have no children, I have some hope of being able to comply with this regimen.
I'm wondering if this is really going to increase lamp life? and are there fundamental differences between light sources (filament bulb, arc, etc.) that might apply to DLP, but not LCD?
Of the reasons I still have a CRT television, and recommended this to my Mother who recently needed to purchase a new TV, the one she bought even has Digital tuner support so she won't have to upgrade.
With the new emergence of these different technologies I knew it would be a while before any of them matured enough to be worth the purchase price (to me anyways) as i expect to be able to use a commodity item (like a TV) for at least 10 years before needed to upgrade or replace...
Don't plasma tubes fail after some 3-5 years? Not only do they cost 2-3 grand to begin with, but when the tube goes there's no practical point in replacing it since it costs nearly as much as a new plasma screen to do so.
But maybe I've heard wrong, anyone know?
I just got a 46" samsung DLP a couple months ago and I couldn't be happier with it.
One 62" in the living room, 2 years old, used 4 - 6 hours a day (more on weekends) and no problems with the bulb. One 44" in my poker room, which has a computer hooked up to it, refurbusihed and a year old. This one is used 2 - 5 hours a day. After a year, the picture on the 44" was getting dim so I replaced the bulb. I think the main reason it went dim is because I kept forgetting to turn the TV off! BTW, since it was DLP, I don't have an image burned into it (try leaving a computer image up for 48 hours on an LCD or plasma!)
It's the flickering that's going to be the deathblow of DLP.
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