el cheapo PJ arrives

Got the projector. Took less than a week from paypal to Chinese seller to delivery via DHL. Double boxed and packed quite well:



Since we were in the middle of playing Halo when the other PJ died we picked up where we left off:



It was dusk outdoors and you can see light from the windows in the top of the pic.

Our first impressions of the hardware:

• it's not a small projector but fits on the small table we were using before.
• very effective "squirrel cage" type fan makes some noise but keeps temps very reasonable: 100F on the case and 130F exhaust. I do not worry about overheating.
• no zoom, which we knew ahead of time. Have to move it forward/back
• remote and buttons on pj are generic but useful. 2x/aaa required for remote. It's strong enough to bounce off the projection wall rather than point at the pj.

first impressions of the projected image:

• it was rather harsh and washed out.
• There are several different profiles: standard, movie, vivid, and user. Movie was considerably better and less intense so we started messing around with the user-definable setting. We ended up with:

Contrast: 40
Brightness: 40
Hue: 50
Saturation:50
Sharpness: 40

At this setting I'd say the RCA/Svideo quality is about 90% that of the old PJ. The SVGA input is really good, and is at least as good as the old PJ.

Ran it for a few hours the first night: netflix DVD, netflix stream via wii, halo on xbox.

beamer tragedy

A bit more info about our projector issue[s].

I mentioned before that the original (used) bulb finally died after about 5 yrs.

The projector (pj hereafter) was business-style pj that was produced around 2000. I bought it on eBay around 2005-2006 for $300. At the time new pj units were still hovering around $1000. I bought a replacement bulb for $150 at the same time, since bulbs were going for $180-200. That's the bulb I put in.

The bad news: the bulb I just installed died after a couple of months. :-( Either the bulb was damaged or there is a problem with the projector. The cost so far has been about $90/yr for 100" video.

The very cheapest I can find bulbs (actually lamp modules) for it now is about $130, or about $100 if I disassemble the old module and put in a new bulb proper.

The quality of this projector is not HD; it's in the range of what are now called "game" projectors for non-HD game consoles. The native resolution is roughly S-Video although it can scale from component and SVGA inputs. And that's just fine with us. We don't have any HD / Bluray gear to pump into it, anyhow. Well, the MythTV box captures HD but it's in the other room.

New game-quality pj are in the $200 range now, and lamp technology has changed in some cases. Some use LEDs for 20k hours running time, and others use simpler metal halide lamps that cost about $30, and are rated for 6000 hrs. I think we are going the latter route.

Will keep you posted.