The units sold by ecost are refurbished -- the sonystyle.com store has the refurbished BDP-S300 for $261 after coupon (AFFB10) with free shipping. A much better deal in my opinion; if you buy a refurb, better to buy directly from the manufacturer.
Here are the HD-A35 and HD-A2 links for manuals: http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/tacpasse...HDA35_OM_E.pdf http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/tacpasse.../HD-A2KU_E.pdf There is no link at the Toshiba site for an HD-A3 (or HD-A3) manual, but these two should be all you need.
I have an HD-A2. Assuming the A1 is similar, try clearing (deleting) all used blocks of persistent memory. My brand new copy of 2001 refused to load (error message reported "not a DVD"). After cleaning out the persistent memory it worked fine.
You do realize, of course, that a 16-foot-wide screen will be 6 feet 9 inches tall at 2.35:1 or 9 feet tall at 16:9 -- you must have some really high ceilings in that basement of yours!
Polarizer degradation is not a given. I have over 4100 hours (all with the original bulb) on my PT-L200U and there is little, if any, sign of polarizer degradation. I did notice watching the Stanley Cup finals some times when the rink ice did not look perfectly white (slightly yellowish around...
Conventional wisdom says your eyes should align approximately one-third of the screen height up from the bottom of the screen. Placing your screen significantly higher or lower can lead to neck strain from looking up or down too much. Check out the following site for lots of good information...
How big and what shape is the "glowing" area? What model PJ and how many hours of use? It could be a dust blob on one of the LCD panels, which is relatively easy to remove if you are comfortable opening the PJ.
My guess is that the spider worked its way down to the crt guns and caused an arc which fried the spider along with some circuitry (or the green gun itself), and the little puff of spider smoke set off the detector.
It sounds like this model: 15" EDTV The 30 msec response time is pretty slow. At 15" diag. you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference betwen HDTV and EDTV. It is a 4:3 screen so HD sources will be even smaller. I have seen 20" Sharps and Panasonics for about $150 more.
I know, but how can anyone justify spending megabucks for a huge TV when FP is a viable alternative? If daytime lighting is uncontrollable, then use a smaller (~50 inch) RPTV and bring the FP out at night. With ~50 inch LCD or DLP RPTVs going for
Here is a link to a good article on the subject of ground loops: click here. The upshot is that it is the cable company's responsiblity to ensure that the cable, as it enters your home, is properly grounded.
The vertically scrolling horizontal bar you describe is ground loop interference. The easiest way to get rid of it is to have the display device (your PJ) and source device (your X-Box) plugged into the same outlet.
That is 2000 hours in full lamp mode -- in economy mode the internal counter runs slower, so you will be good for 5000 hours. Also, you can simply re-set the counter, as you would if you actually replaced the bulb. The self-check screen displays, among other things, actual lamp hours, economy...
There are many choices now for affordable hometheater front projectors that fit your proposed budget. Your first stop in researching FP should be projectorcentral.com.
Your RPTV is mostly an empty box big enough to hold the mirror and screen. Why don't you open it up and pull out the electronics and CRTs? Then you can leave the gutted RPTV at the curb guilt-free, and dispose of the innards some other time.
:angry: THE GENERAL RULE IS TO ZOOM IN ON THE SMALLEST POSSIBLE SIZE FOR A GIVEN DISTANCE SO THAT YOU USE ONLY THE CENTER OF THE LENS, BUT I DO NOT THINK IT REALLY MAKES THAT MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE
Today's new sub $1K projectors are much better than anything you could pick up used on ebay for $500 (even though they cost several thousand dollars a few years ago when THEY were new). With the InFocus X1 and Benq 6100 both around $900, I would suggest saving up the extra $400 and buying a new...