Brand new meet thread - Austin (1 Viewer)

[mike_frontier]

Hank, so you are saying once your bulb goes out, it’s just better to upgrade to a new $900+ new PJ?

Don't get me wrong. I still have my 1HD which I saw a Z2 (about 4 months ago), to me it is not worth the $1000.00 to pay for if my lamp ever was to blow. IMHO I am really happy w/ the results of my PJ. By far, I have never been nit-picky on image . So if my bulb were to blow, I would just pay the $300.00 to get a new lamp/bulb. Nothing on the market on my budget that I like to spend would tell me it’s worth the upgrade.
For heaven sakes I hope I never “will” have repair problems, but then again I am over 2000 hours on the lamp life. Funny thing is that my PJ is known at least from other that have the same PJ that do claim there lamp only last between 300-1200 hours (I smell BS from others that claim this). Mine looks the same as it did when it came out of the box.

So what I am saying to you Rich is do you fell that it is worth dumping more money for a new one?? Or has your ol faith-full PJ been great to you? Upgrade or not, you are the one w/ the blue pen & checkbook. Your call.


Note: Don't get me wrong. If my PJ were the have repair problems, then yes I would buy a new PJ b/c of the warrenty, but just b/c of a bulb/lamp, I would not upgrade.


---Oh also, thanks to all about the GTG review. Wish I could of made it.---

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

Mike: I was half-kidding. As I said, I can provide the rationalizing for any HT purchase you want. No, of course you don't need to buy a new PJ instead of a replacement bulb. Based on your comments about your satisfaction with your PJ, I'd advise you to keep it another year, then see what's on the market.

 

[Rich_Ave]

Mike,
I have been happy with my "old" projector, so replacing the lamp ($450 in my case) is probably a reasonable thing to do for me. However, I also have a case of upgradeitis, so you never know. I still have about 400+ more hours to go, so I may start looking "just for fun".

Hank,
I have another rationalization that has worked great in the past. I can make a "sacrifice for my children" and give my old projector to one of my kids. They could then by the lamp and have a nice projector for $450. I get a new one. When that lamp goes, I'll make another sacrifice for my other "child" and give him that projector, and of course, I would have to upgrade again. How does that sound?
Since I only have two boys, I'll have to come up with another rationalization when I'm ready for a fourth projector, but I have some time to think about that.

Rich

 

[James Phung]

The 4805 is available from woot today. I would highly recommend getting the extended warranty should anyone jump in on this. Getting the woot and extended warranty brings it close to costco's price though, if I can start over I'd get it from them due to their great return policy.

 

[mike_frontier]

Just in case if you missed the WOOT buy, you can get it a ubid.com also

 

[Jonathan DA]

I thought hard about getting a 4805 after the meet, it has great color and almost as good black levels as my CRT, plus better ANSI contrast and more brightness. However I just can't get over the screen door that I see at 1.5x. I'm so used to the smoothness of the CRT image, I don't think I could handle the distraction.

That's just my personal opinion though. For anyone who's not a CRT junkie, the 4805 is a killer deal at $700. With the next crop of digital boxes about to announced at CEDIA, I'm looking forward to picking up a close out model after the first of the year at a big discount. Maybe I'll get lucky and get an NEC HT1100 for around $1000. The increased res at 576p seems to be enough to make a 1.5x distance ok for me.

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

Doc, read this:
http://www.projectorcentral.com/choosing_resolution.htm
If you get a 576p machine, it must have excellent circuitry for downscaling or the image will be too soft or have other problems. You might want to think about holding out for 720p. 480p done well, looks great for DVD's and actually fools some people into thinking they're watching full-throttle HDTV when the PJ is fed an HDTV signal.

 

[Jonathan DA]

I've read those kind of arguments before and I've always found the higher quality 576p machines (of which the NEC is probably the pinnacle) to have great pictures whether upscaling or downscaling. I certainly wouldn't expect a business class XGA machine to handle the scaling well, but a unit like the NEC HT1100 has won universal praise for its scaling abilities. That said, if a new crop of 1280x720 or 1280x768 projectors continue to push down current HD2+ prices, then I might make that leap instead. Given the rapid advances in pj technology and falling prices, I'd prefer to leach off the bottom for a while as we wait for 1920x1080 pjs with great blacks, no pixelation, and 10,000:1 contrast.

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

Yes, I'd recommend to someone in the market to get a refurbed best-quality 480P machine for now.
And, don't forget LCoS. Brillian and Syntax (maker of LCD TV's) are planning a merger. Brillian has a great light engine (prism core is the key). One tester/reviewer said the Brillian 720p RPTV was close to the twice-as-expensive Sony Qualia 1080p, and better than the JVC D-ILA 720p, and had the best HDTV picture of any 720p RPTV he'd seen. They will aslso sell LE's to other TV manufacturers, so there should be some interesting new products at CES. When the TV volume takes off, LE costs will fall, and then we should see some affordable PJ's.