Skip to content
  • Categories
  • Recent
  • Tags
  • Popular
  • World
  • Users
  • Groups
Skins
  • Light
  • Cerulean
  • Cosmo
  • Flatly
  • Journal
  • Litera
  • Lumen
  • Lux
  • Materia
  • Minty
  • Morph
  • Pulse
  • Sandstone
  • Simplex
  • Sketchy
  • Spacelab
  • United
  • Yeti
  • Zephyr
  • Dark
  • Cyborg
  • Darkly
  • Quartz
  • Slate
  • Solar
  • Superhero
  • Vapor

  • Default (No Skin)
  • No Skin
Collapse
Code Project
  1. Home
  2. The Lounge
  3. Plasma TV (and the death of projectors)

Plasma TV (and the death of projectors)

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved The Lounge
comquestioncareer
55 Posts 28 Posters 9 Views 1 Watching
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as topic
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
  • C Christopher Duncan

    This was an InFocus projector, and it happened 2 for 2 on the bulbs. Only the second explosion caused powdered glass, but once is enough for me. Can't speak to any other brands.

    Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services

    M Offline
    M Offline
    merridus
    wrote on last edited by
    #8

    Yeah firing glass across the room once is once too many. Hope you get on better with a nice big TV :D

    - Rob

    1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • C Christopher Duncan

      What's the difference between Plasma and LED technology?

      Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services

      L Offline
      L Offline
      leppie
      wrote on last edited by
      #9

      Plasma is generally better with contrast than LCD. LCD provides crisper images, but tend not to scale so well on lower quality sources. LED OTOH has much better contrast than LCD, comparable to plasma, and it really looks nice given a true 1080p source. It also seems their prices are coming down quite steadily.

      xacc.ide
      IronScheme - 1.0 beta 4 - out now!
      ((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition

      1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • C Christopher Duncan

        When I built this house, I set up a media room with a 70" projector screen with a short throw (10 ft), so the picture was big and the quality acceptable. I've replaced two bulbs thus far (not cheap: ~$300), and I can live with that. However, what they don't tell you is that these bulbs die with an explosive bang loud enough to make you think you're taking mortar fire. Quite exciting. Best of all, when the second one went, it spewed powdered glass across the room. Yep. Actual glass, fine as grains of sand on the beach, all over the couch, carpet, and had I been sitting there at that precise moment, me. Having replaced the bulp, the color wheel now makes a grinding, whining noise, no doubt from an internal coating of glass as well. To say that I'm through with projectors would be an exercise in understatement. So, looking at a large screen to hang on the wall. Looks like 65" is tops for plasma, and they've come down in price quite a bit since I bought the projector system (at the time the biggest screens were $8-10k). What's the thinking on large, wall mountable TV technology these days? I'm not sure what features to look for, or what pitfalls to avoid. I just want something that doesn't explode.

        Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services

        D Offline
        D Offline
        Dalek Dave
        wrote on last edited by
        #10

        TOP TIP: Save money on those Huge TV's! Try sitting slightly closer to a smaller one! :)

        ------------------------------------ To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day. W. Somerset Maugham 1925

        H S 2 Replies Last reply
        0
        • C Christopher Duncan

          When I built this house, I set up a media room with a 70" projector screen with a short throw (10 ft), so the picture was big and the quality acceptable. I've replaced two bulbs thus far (not cheap: ~$300), and I can live with that. However, what they don't tell you is that these bulbs die with an explosive bang loud enough to make you think you're taking mortar fire. Quite exciting. Best of all, when the second one went, it spewed powdered glass across the room. Yep. Actual glass, fine as grains of sand on the beach, all over the couch, carpet, and had I been sitting there at that precise moment, me. Having replaced the bulp, the color wheel now makes a grinding, whining noise, no doubt from an internal coating of glass as well. To say that I'm through with projectors would be an exercise in understatement. So, looking at a large screen to hang on the wall. Looks like 65" is tops for plasma, and they've come down in price quite a bit since I bought the projector system (at the time the biggest screens were $8-10k). What's the thinking on large, wall mountable TV technology these days? I'm not sure what features to look for, or what pitfalls to avoid. I just want something that doesn't explode.

          Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services

          H Offline
          H Offline
          Harvey Saayman
          wrote on last edited by
          #11

          Christopher Duncan wrote:

          plasma

          Christopher Duncan wrote:

          what pitfalls to avoid

          Avoid plasma screens, there's a reason they are much cheaper than LCD's. The quality as absolutely crap IMHO. And another thing, be sure to get an LCD that says "Full HD" instead of "HD ready"

          Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer && you.Passion != Programming) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111

          R S P R L 6 Replies Last reply
          0
          • C Christopher Duncan

            What's the difference between Plasma and LED technology?

            Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services

            S Offline
            S Offline
            Single Step Debugger
            wrote on last edited by
            #12

            AFAIK the energy consumption and the brightness of the LEDs are better. But the LED TVs are relatively new so you need to ask someone who actually owns one.

            The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.

            1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • C Christopher Duncan

              When I built this house, I set up a media room with a 70" projector screen with a short throw (10 ft), so the picture was big and the quality acceptable. I've replaced two bulbs thus far (not cheap: ~$300), and I can live with that. However, what they don't tell you is that these bulbs die with an explosive bang loud enough to make you think you're taking mortar fire. Quite exciting. Best of all, when the second one went, it spewed powdered glass across the room. Yep. Actual glass, fine as grains of sand on the beach, all over the couch, carpet, and had I been sitting there at that precise moment, me. Having replaced the bulp, the color wheel now makes a grinding, whining noise, no doubt from an internal coating of glass as well. To say that I'm through with projectors would be an exercise in understatement. So, looking at a large screen to hang on the wall. Looks like 65" is tops for plasma, and they've come down in price quite a bit since I bought the projector system (at the time the biggest screens were $8-10k). What's the thinking on large, wall mountable TV technology these days? I'm not sure what features to look for, or what pitfalls to avoid. I just want something that doesn't explode.

              Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services

              H Offline
              H Offline
              hairy_hats
              wrote on last edited by
              #13

              Has the super-size TV set become an object of vulgarity?[^]

              I hope you realise that hamsters are very creative when it comes to revenge. - Elaine

              J 1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • D Dalek Dave

                TOP TIP: Save money on those Huge TV's! Try sitting slightly closer to a smaller one! :)

                ------------------------------------ To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day. W. Somerset Maugham 1925

                H Offline
                H Offline
                hairy_hats
                wrote on last edited by
                #14

                Or just don't buy one and go outside instead.

                I hope you realise that hamsters are very creative when it comes to revenge. - Elaine

                S 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • H Harvey Saayman

                  Christopher Duncan wrote:

                  plasma

                  Christopher Duncan wrote:

                  what pitfalls to avoid

                  Avoid plasma screens, there's a reason they are much cheaper than LCD's. The quality as absolutely crap IMHO. And another thing, be sure to get an LCD that says "Full HD" instead of "HD ready"

                  Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer && you.Passion != Programming) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111

                  R Offline
                  R Offline
                  Russ T
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #15

                  Harvey Saayman wrote:

                  The quality as absolutely crap

                  How so? Most of the plasma screens that I've seen lately have just as good picure quality as LCDs. For some programs (e.g. fast action stuff like sport) they seem to be even clearer than LCD. You still hear of the occassional problem of plasma screens "burning in" a network logo etc, but those issues seem far less common than LCD-specific problems like dead pixels. That said, I don't have any major hang-ups about either plasma or LCD. I was really just wondering why you think plasma screens suck?

                  Harvey Saayman wrote:

                  be sure to get an LCD that says "Full HD" instead of "HD ready"

                  If you're going down the LCD path, that's good advice!

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • H Harvey Saayman

                    Christopher Duncan wrote:

                    plasma

                    Christopher Duncan wrote:

                    what pitfalls to avoid

                    Avoid plasma screens, there's a reason they are much cheaper than LCD's. The quality as absolutely crap IMHO. And another thing, be sure to get an LCD that says "Full HD" instead of "HD ready"

                    Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer && you.Passion != Programming) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111

                    S Offline
                    S Offline
                    Shelby Robertson
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #16

                    Harvey Saayman wrote:

                    Avoid plasma lcd screens. The quality as absolutely crap IMHO.

                    FTFY. I have a 50 inch Samsung plasma. The contrast ratio cannot be matched by an lcd. If bold, vibrant colors are what you are looking for then plasma is the way to go. Plasma does use more power, and California is tryign to have them banned...which i consider another good reason to own one.

                    Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:

                    Unpaid overtime is slavery.

                    Trollslayer wrote:

                    Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.

                    H 1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • S Shelby Robertson

                      Harvey Saayman wrote:

                      Avoid plasma lcd screens. The quality as absolutely crap IMHO.

                      FTFY. I have a 50 inch Samsung plasma. The contrast ratio cannot be matched by an lcd. If bold, vibrant colors are what you are looking for then plasma is the way to go. Plasma does use more power, and California is tryign to have them banned...which i consider another good reason to own one.

                      Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:

                      Unpaid overtime is slavery.

                      Trollslayer wrote:

                      Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.

                      H Offline
                      H Offline
                      Harvey Saayman
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #17

                      Shelby Robetson wrote:

                      ...which i consider another good reason to own one

                      :laugh: +5!

                      Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer && you.Passion != Programming) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • C Christopher Duncan

                        When I built this house, I set up a media room with a 70" projector screen with a short throw (10 ft), so the picture was big and the quality acceptable. I've replaced two bulbs thus far (not cheap: ~$300), and I can live with that. However, what they don't tell you is that these bulbs die with an explosive bang loud enough to make you think you're taking mortar fire. Quite exciting. Best of all, when the second one went, it spewed powdered glass across the room. Yep. Actual glass, fine as grains of sand on the beach, all over the couch, carpet, and had I been sitting there at that precise moment, me. Having replaced the bulp, the color wheel now makes a grinding, whining noise, no doubt from an internal coating of glass as well. To say that I'm through with projectors would be an exercise in understatement. So, looking at a large screen to hang on the wall. Looks like 65" is tops for plasma, and they've come down in price quite a bit since I bought the projector system (at the time the biggest screens were $8-10k). What's the thinking on large, wall mountable TV technology these days? I'm not sure what features to look for, or what pitfalls to avoid. I just want something that doesn't explode.

                        Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services

                        T Offline
                        T Offline
                        Tom Deketelaere
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #18

                        What's the life span of plasma tv's these day's? I remember it used to be less than 5 years but that was quite a while ago.

                        S 1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • T Tom Deketelaere

                          What's the life span of plasma tv's these day's? I remember it used to be less than 5 years but that was quite a while ago.

                          S Offline
                          S Offline
                          Shelby Robertson
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #19

                          I think mine is rated at 60,000 hours till half life. Which is over 6 years if you left it on 24 hours a day.

                          Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:

                          Unpaid overtime is slavery.

                          Trollslayer wrote:

                          Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.

                          R 1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • D Dalek Dave

                            TOP TIP: Save money on those Huge TV's! Try sitting slightly closer to a smaller one! :)

                            ------------------------------------ To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day. W. Somerset Maugham 1925

                            S Offline
                            S Offline
                            Steve Thresher
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #20

                            ... or buy a pair of these http://www.collette-optical.com/atelevisionglasses.php[^]

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • H Harvey Saayman

                              Christopher Duncan wrote:

                              plasma

                              Christopher Duncan wrote:

                              what pitfalls to avoid

                              Avoid plasma screens, there's a reason they are much cheaper than LCD's. The quality as absolutely crap IMHO. And another thing, be sure to get an LCD that says "Full HD" instead of "HD ready"

                              Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer && you.Passion != Programming) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111

                              P Offline
                              P Offline
                              peterchen
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #21

                              Harvey Saayman wrote:

                              HD ready"

                              Considering that "HD ready" meant "Dear consumer, please lower pants and bend over", I wonder now what "Full HD" means... :cool:

                              Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel]
                              | FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server

                              1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • C Christopher Duncan

                                When I built this house, I set up a media room with a 70" projector screen with a short throw (10 ft), so the picture was big and the quality acceptable. I've replaced two bulbs thus far (not cheap: ~$300), and I can live with that. However, what they don't tell you is that these bulbs die with an explosive bang loud enough to make you think you're taking mortar fire. Quite exciting. Best of all, when the second one went, it spewed powdered glass across the room. Yep. Actual glass, fine as grains of sand on the beach, all over the couch, carpet, and had I been sitting there at that precise moment, me. Having replaced the bulp, the color wheel now makes a grinding, whining noise, no doubt from an internal coating of glass as well. To say that I'm through with projectors would be an exercise in understatement. So, looking at a large screen to hang on the wall. Looks like 65" is tops for plasma, and they've come down in price quite a bit since I bought the projector system (at the time the biggest screens were $8-10k). What's the thinking on large, wall mountable TV technology these days? I'm not sure what features to look for, or what pitfalls to avoid. I just want something that doesn't explode.

                                Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services

                                S Offline
                                S Offline
                                Stuart Dootson
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #22

                                Christopher Duncan wrote:

                                Looks like 65" is tops for plasma

                                Ahem[^]

                                Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p

                                C 1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • C Christopher Duncan

                                  When I built this house, I set up a media room with a 70" projector screen with a short throw (10 ft), so the picture was big and the quality acceptable. I've replaced two bulbs thus far (not cheap: ~$300), and I can live with that. However, what they don't tell you is that these bulbs die with an explosive bang loud enough to make you think you're taking mortar fire. Quite exciting. Best of all, when the second one went, it spewed powdered glass across the room. Yep. Actual glass, fine as grains of sand on the beach, all over the couch, carpet, and had I been sitting there at that precise moment, me. Having replaced the bulp, the color wheel now makes a grinding, whining noise, no doubt from an internal coating of glass as well. To say that I'm through with projectors would be an exercise in understatement. So, looking at a large screen to hang on the wall. Looks like 65" is tops for plasma, and they've come down in price quite a bit since I bought the projector system (at the time the biggest screens were $8-10k). What's the thinking on large, wall mountable TV technology these days? I'm not sure what features to look for, or what pitfalls to avoid. I just want something that doesn't explode.

                                  Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services

                                  B Offline
                                  B Offline
                                  B rad A
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #23

                                  I just recently purchased both an LCD TV and a Plasma TV. The first thing you want to make sure is that it is full 1080p. The plasma does use more power and it also gets pretty warm compared to the LCD. For a larger TV I would suggest going with either an LCD or the new LED TV's as they will use less power and also not put out as much heat; but for the difference in price you may want to go with the plasma.

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • C Christopher Duncan

                                    When I built this house, I set up a media room with a 70" projector screen with a short throw (10 ft), so the picture was big and the quality acceptable. I've replaced two bulbs thus far (not cheap: ~$300), and I can live with that. However, what they don't tell you is that these bulbs die with an explosive bang loud enough to make you think you're taking mortar fire. Quite exciting. Best of all, when the second one went, it spewed powdered glass across the room. Yep. Actual glass, fine as grains of sand on the beach, all over the couch, carpet, and had I been sitting there at that precise moment, me. Having replaced the bulp, the color wheel now makes a grinding, whining noise, no doubt from an internal coating of glass as well. To say that I'm through with projectors would be an exercise in understatement. So, looking at a large screen to hang on the wall. Looks like 65" is tops for plasma, and they've come down in price quite a bit since I bought the projector system (at the time the biggest screens were $8-10k). What's the thinking on large, wall mountable TV technology these days? I'm not sure what features to look for, or what pitfalls to avoid. I just want something that doesn't explode.

                                    Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services

                                    D Offline
                                    D Offline
                                    Dan Neely
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #24

                                    Christopher Duncan wrote:

                                    Best of all, when the second one went, it spewed powdered glass across the room. Yep. Actual glass, fine as grains of sand on the beach, all over the couch, carpet, and had I been sitting there at that precise moment, me. Having replaced the bulp, the color wheel now makes a grinding, whining noise, no doubt from an internal coating of glass as well.

                                    Was were the bulbs past their maximum number of design hours? You're supposed to replace them when they hit their design lifetime hours (the projector should keep track of this) instead of waiting until they fail because they're operating at a high enough power that, as you discovered, they can take the projector with them when they catastrophically fail. IIRC the problem is that to get a better color balance from the light (and what ends up being projected) they have to use bulbs that operate at significantly higher temperatures than a normal incandescent bulb.

                                    The latest nation. Procrastination.

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • M merridus

                                      Christopher Duncan wrote:

                                      what they don't tell you is that these bulbs die with an explosive bang loud enough to make you think you're taking mortar fire.

                                      Is this common or does it happen only in certain conditions? Depending on bulb quality or environment in the room, things like that. Best warn my brother just in case though, his has been in place for a year or so now.

                                      - Rob

                                      D Offline
                                      D Offline
                                      Dan Neely
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #25

                                      See my post downthread. If you replace the bulbs when you're supposed to instead of waiting until they die they shouldn't go boom.

                                      The latest nation. Procrastination.

                                      1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • S Stuart Dootson

                                        Christopher Duncan wrote:

                                        Looks like 65" is tops for plasma

                                        Ahem[^]

                                        Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p

                                        C Offline
                                        C Offline
                                        Christopher Duncan
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #26

                                        :-D ...must ...hide ...credit cards...

                                        Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services

                                        G 1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • C Christopher Duncan

                                          This was an InFocus projector, and it happened 2 for 2 on the bulbs. Only the second explosion caused powdered glass, but once is enough for me. Can't speak to any other brands.

                                          Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services

                                          R Offline
                                          R Offline
                                          ragnaroknrol
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #27

                                          I can attest to this. We had a teacher almost have a heart attack due to one of these going while she was doing a presentation in a lab. 2 students were showered with the dust. Not a happy day for our IT director who had to explain why his projectors were suddenly time bombs. It happened again the next week (that one gave a grade school kid nightmares) and I quietly replaced every bulb the week after that on all the remaining projectors of that shipment. I wonder if any of them remember all this. Heh, might be fun in that place soon since I figure they will start going in November.

                                          D 1 Reply Last reply
                                          0
                                          Reply
                                          • Reply as topic
                                          Log in to reply
                                          • Oldest to Newest
                                          • Newest to Oldest
                                          • Most Votes


                                          • Login

                                          • Don't have an account? Register

                                          • Login or register to search.
                                          • First post
                                            Last post
                                          0
                                          • Categories
                                          • Recent
                                          • Tags
                                          • Popular
                                          • World
                                          • Users
                                          • Groups