Mitsubishi Drops Bulky DLP TVs: End of an Era

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Mitsubishi Drops Bulky DLP TVs: End of an Era

Posted by timothy on Saturday December 1, 2012 @10:04AM from the like-a-slightly-warm-rock dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mitsubishi was the last hold-out in the big-screen rear-projection display business after Samsung left the category in 2009. Now Mitsubishi has dropped the dinosaur. Every big-brand CE manufacturer got their start in the big-TV business via rear projection sets from CRT to DLP to LCoS, eventually replacing them with modern-day flat screens. Mitsubishi did develop LCD flat-screens for a time, but dropped out of that market to focus on rear DLPs after Samsung gave it a monopoly. The author, a CE editor, takes a nostalgic and amusing look at her 15 years with three Mitsu rear pros, the only big-screen TV she's known."

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CES2001 by matty619 · 2012-12-01 10:24 · Score: 2

I don't think I ever fully realized how long ago 2001 was until I just saw that picture in the slide show of a giant hulking DLP TV "featured" at CES.
Re:DLP by kelemvor4 · 2012-12-01 10:27 · Score: 3, Informative

Seriously? I didn't realize DLP's were still manufactured/sold. Go Mitsubishi!
I've got one, unless you're in a location without sufficient space or money is no object they're great. 1080p, 3d support, great appearance, 65". Couldn't come close to that with any other product out there for the $800 it cost brand new.
Re:DLP by vux984 · 2012-12-01 10:51 · Score: 3, Informative

Yeah, as long as you can sit directly in front, they do work pretty great. Had one for years. Too big to haul away, so I sold it with the house when I moved.
Too big to haul away? My 60" DLP was 90 lbs and and about 15" deep at the deepest point. One guy could lift it by himself, although it was a lot less awkward with two.
The average dining room table, love seat, recliner, dresser... is far more difficult to move.
As for viewing angles? They were fine; you could sit anywhere in the room and see it just fine. The only bad viewing angle was if you were too high looking at a substantial downward angle which would only be a problem if you sat on a baby's high-chair 2 feet away from it.
But its nice to actually be able to see what you are eating and drinking in a Sports Pub these days without them having to dim the lights just so that people can see the rear projections screens mounted like a sword of Damocles over the bar.
For sure, the thin/flat superbright plasmas and LCD/LED screens are far better suited to that mounting arrangement.
But unless there's an actual game on I just wish they'd turn the fuckers off. They are annoying distractions. If they were just in dedicated sports pubs it wouldn't be a problem, but they seem to be everywhere these days. Family restaurants, fast food restaurants, and so on, the volume is turned off, the content is just mindless drivel -- bowling and tennis highlights, commercials for gum... Nobody wants to watch this crap, but its bright and shiny and it moves so your eyes are drawn to them.
crap televisions, anyhow by XaXXon · 2012-12-01 10:53 · Score: 2

Many of mitsubishi's TVs had horrible electronics. I knew about a year after I bought my modle 52525 that it wasn't going to last more than about 3. Sure enough, within 3 years it was broken and mitsubishi wasn't being proactive about fixing the bad control boards.
Why companies need to save a few bucks on capacitors on a $2000 television will never make sense to me.
1. Re:crap televisions, anyhow by tftp · 2012-12-01 11:04 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Why companies need to save a few bucks on capacitors on a $2000 television will never make sense to me.
  The manufacturers take cheap components that they use in cheap products and design expensive products with them. Those components, like capacitors, are often purchased in large volume. An engineer sometimes doesn't even have a better part in the database. Often the engineer doesn't even know what part will be purchased for this or that position - as long as they are all similar the buyer will make that decision. When the time comes to buy parts the PHB will always point his finger at a mountain of compatible components that is already in the cage instead of going out, researching and negotiating a new set of prices on a new part - which may have its own problems.
2. Re:crap televisions, anyhow by tftp · 2012-12-01 13:06 · Score: 3, Informative
  Now find the balance between cost of production, and people returning products - there is a point where cheap parts (with a predicatable failure process/rate) end up making a better profit.
  There are many reasons why that would be the case. For example:
  
  One person buys, another person witnesses the failure. Common with gifts and products installed by others.
  
  Warranty documents are lost. Who saves a store receipt for three years?
  
  The extended warranty scam. The customer finances the manufacturer for the failure of an item. Failures follow the bathtub curve: high in the beginning, low in the middle, high in the end. Extended warranty sells you the warranty for the middle of the curve, where the device is least likely to fail. But if it fails early the manufacturer gets paid.
  
  "I must have been holding it wrong, it's all my fault!"
  
  Customers who are too busy or too disorganized to timely file a warranty claim.
  
  High shipping costs make warranty claims on sub-$100 items unprofitable. Cheaper to scrap the device and buy a new one.
  
  The fault attributed to, or hidden by the natural wear and tear. Crack the plastic case, get no warranty even if the failure is unrelated. Other reasons to not honor the warranty.
  
  Poor handling of warranty repairs. Microsoft was famous for receiving an Xbox with RROD and shipping it, without looking, as a replacement unit to another customer. Eventually some of them got thrown out of a window - sale!1!
  
  Accounting tricks that use returned products to justify better tax rates.
  
  Management who is only concerned with Christmas sales, no matter what happens in January.
  
  Cheap parts and cheap processes that save more money that is lost on warranty claims.
  
  Fly by night manufacturers who cannot be found for warranty claims.
  
  That's just the most obvious scenarios. One could, of course, wonder why manufacturers don't want to maintain their good name. But that's because who makes TVs - LG, Sony, Samsung and a handful of other players. You are stuck with them no matter what, and they all cheat this way. You may get angry at Viewsonic and buy LG, but another customer is angry with LG and buys Viewsonic. It's like airlines - there are too few of them and they are all bad. Smaller Chinese companies simply don't care, there are enough customers for them in the world. They can also sell under any trade name you want, even if the device is made at the same factory.
Warmer, brighter pictures by rueger · 2012-12-01 11:03 · Score: 3, Funny

I'll stick with my good old analogue television. I just don't like the brittle, compressed pictures on these new "digital" TVs.

Of course I'm still trying to figure out where to find some of that good, old, warm, analog TV signal to feed it.

--
Three Squirrels
1. Re:Warmer, brighter pictures by 517714 · 2012-12-01 11:20 · Score: 2
  
  VHS tapes can be had for $.25 apiece locally, and the players aren't much more.
  
  --
  The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Re:DLP by Loopy · 2012-12-01 11:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yeah, as long as you can sit directly in front, they do work pretty great. Had one for years. Too big to haul away, so I sold it with the house when I moved.
Too big to haul away? My 60" DLP was 90 lbs and and about 15" deep at the deepest point. One guy could lift it by himself, although it was a lot less awkward with two.
The average dining room table, love seat, recliner, dresser... is far more difficult to move.
Same here. Even the 83" my parents have isn't a big deal for two people.

As for viewing angles? They were fine; you could sit anywhere in the room and see it just fine. The only bad viewing angle was if you were too high looking at a substantial downward angle which would only be a problem if you sat on a baby's high-chair 2 feet away from it.
Agreed. So far, I have better luck with good off-axis viewing on my DLPs than any LCD I've seen yet. Then again, I didn't buy sucky DLPs. ;)

But its nice to actually be able to see what you are eating and drinking in a Sports Pub these days without them having to dim the lights just so that people can see the rear projections screens mounted like a sword of Damocles over the bar.
For sure, the thin/flat superbright plasmas and LCD/LED screens are far better suited to that mounting arrangement.
Not to mention that most of the DLPs were using bulbs way past their service life and lenses that had been in a smoke-filled bar their entire lives. (Ever seen a lung? Yeah, lenses are worse.) There are some bars up here that have old LCDs and they're worse even than the old DLPs.
Re:Hmmmm by thegarbz · 2012-12-01 11:37 · Score: 2

The market for putting a box in the corner of the room is far larger than the market for people who build a dark projection room or people who can tolerate a contrast ratio in the double digits.
Rear projection TVs never had a perfect diffuser. If you sat in front of them they were far brighter than any normal projector would ever be. You could actually watch them during the day while direct sunlight was shining on the TV. There's a hell of a lot of houses where a projector would be absolutely useless during the day.
Re:Good riddance by Miamicanes · 2012-12-01 13:30 · Score: 2

> on top of the short life of their expensive bulbs
WTF are you talking about? I have a Mitsubishi WD-62627 (62", bought in early 2008). It's still on its original bulb, but I finally bought a spare 2 months ago just so I wouldn't have to wait for a replacement when the day finally came. I paid about $40, and got it from Amazon.
Putting it in perspective, my "fragile and expensive bulb" with allegedly-short life has lasted about twice as long as roughly 1/3 of the LCD TVs my friends and family members have purchased over the past 4 years. Most of the LCD TVs sold in America are total and complete garbage, made with parts that die and fail within 2-3 years, and can't be meaningfully repaired because everything in them is proprietary, specific to one or two models, and probably costs more as a replacement part than an entire comparable new TV.
There is a light bulb somewhere by ridgecritter · 2012-12-01 15:02 · Score: 2

Yes, and you can read about the carbon filament bulb that has been burning for over a century at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light