Home Theater Projectors: How's your bulb life experience been so far?

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

Ours is turning yellow after about 4000 hours. I believe it's a Epson.

[Inzane]

Originally posted by Twin_Cam_Turbo
Ours is turning yellow after about 4000 hours. I believe it's a Epson.

Buy a lottery ticket, now.

[Minimalist]

Originally posted by Inzane


If that was actually what they were doing that would be incredibly misleading to the consumer. And what a completely useless benchmark. Who in their right mind would leave a projector running in their house 24/7 for 4 months straight and be happy to change a bulb at that frequency?

I agree, misleading to an extent. I had an electrical engineer go over this in a seminar on lightbulbs. Thought I misheard, had him back up and explain. I have no better idea of how to rate a bulb, on/off depends on the user. The same process applies to vehicle headlights, on/off is the killer on longevity. There is a reason I am replacing certain bulbs in my house, the ones turned on/off most often.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by cjblair


Of course it's misleading, it's advertising. As mentioned, it's the same as all other lightbulb lifetime ratings... not exactly based on real-life scenarios, but achievable under optimal conditions.

This. It's not like projector bulbs are the only misleading advertising out there. Pretty much everything with a rated "lifespan" falls short with real consumer usage outside of the lab. There are also so many things the consumer can do to influence that life, most of them negative.

Hopefully it won't be too long until laser/led projectors will be easier to get and it won't be an issue anymore.

[b_t]

3,300 hours on my BenQ W1070 then the bulb actually exploded. Ran it on low brightness and figured it was getting old but I wasn't too concerned about it because I've heard of people getting 5,000+ hours on SmartEco mode until it popped and died.

Got a $270 full price legit replacement bulb and installed it properly (as far as I can tell) but it smells like burning electronics all the time now. Very disconcerting... going to give it to about ~20 hours then if the smell hasn't gone away I'll get a replacement.

[rage2]

Do people actually use low brightness/Eco modes with their projectors? I mean, if you're getting a projector you're already doing a lot of work to get image quality on par with a good screen, why would you sacrifice image quality to save on bulbs?

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by rage2
Do people actually use low brightness/Eco modes with their projectors? I mean, if you're getting a projector you're already doing a lot of work to get image quality on par with a good screen, why would you sacrifice image quality to save on bulbs?

I don't think many people do. I've certainly never done it. It defeats one of the huge advantages of a projector. It also screws with any calibration you may have done. Some PJ's also have power irises which try to give you the brightness when you need it and close it back down for the dark scenes.

[b_t]

Originally posted by rage2
Do people actually use low brightness/Eco modes with their projectors? I mean, if you're getting a projector you're already doing a lot of work to get image quality on par with a good screen, why would you sacrifice image quality to save on bulbs?

Light control in my basement is so good I just don't need all that brightness. Running in Eco gets my blacks closer to black too.

Depends on screen size too, iirc, when I had my bigger screen I ran it full power but the ceilings in my basement weren't tall enough to use that one again. Running that same brightness level on a 20% smaller screen would be blinding

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by b_t


Light control in my basement is so good I just don't need all that brightness. Running in Eco gets my blacks closer to black too.

Depends on screen size too, iirc, when I had my bigger screen I ran it full power but the ceilings in my basement weren't tall enough to use that one again. Running that same brightness level on a 20% smaller screen would be blinding

Screen size, screen color, screen gain, screen type, and distance from screen to projector all significantly affect brightness (aside from how bright the projector is on it's own, of course). The color and paint type on your ceiling and walls also makes a difference.

The nice thing is you have options. You can run it dim and have it like a movie theater, or you can watch your sports or cartoons or whatever brighter than any TV.

[Inzane]

Bulb #4 went recently, 953 hours. Almost 5 years.

This was a weird one. There was no warning. No noticeable diminished brightness (although in hindsight of course there was, just very gradual), no color change, no weird noises, no flashing lights or warning messages. Just one day a few weeks back the projector would turn on but the aperture wouldn’t fully open. The onscreen menu still worked but no picture came from input sources.

That had me chasing red herrings for a bit. HDMI cable? A problem with my A/V receiver etc.

Anyway another order on Amazon and I’m good to go.

As well as sharing the info, this thread serves to help me keep track of my bulb history.