Plasma TV (and the death of projectors)
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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
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.
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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
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.
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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
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:-D ...must ...hide ...credit cards...
Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services
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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
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.
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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 111111Yes, but in the winter that plasma tv lets you save on heating costs just by running it. ;)
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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.
I wired an Electrolytic Capacitor in backwards once, it was a big one too. The Boom from that was like a bomb going off.
------------------------------------ To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day. W. Somerset Maugham 1925
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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.
Shelby Robetson wrote:
rated at 60,000 hours till half life
Why am I scared at the radioactivity of your tv set? With that short of a half life it has to be dangerous...
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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
'LED' is LCD with LED backlighting instead of a cold cathode fluourescent lighting. It's still a transmissive display and whilst LED backlit LCDs are very good if you want GOOD colour plasma still wins.
Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.
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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 -
:-D ...must ...hide ...credit cards...
Christopher Duncan www.PracticalUSA.com Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Copywriting Services
Bah. At 103 inches, each pixel's the size of a <choose_small_coin_in_your_local_currency>.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Bah. At 103 inches, each pixel's the size of a <choose_small_coin_in_your_local_currency>.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Shelby Robetson wrote:
rated at 60,000 hours till half life
Why am I scared at the radioactivity of your tv set? With that short of a half life it has to be dangerous...
sigh.:thumbsdown:
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Unpaid overtime is slavery.
Trollslayer wrote:
Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.
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I don't know what country you're living in; but I'm not aware of any that have coins slightly less than 2mm in diameter. :rolleyes:
The latest nation. Procrastination.
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The same to you: from urban dictionary (may be NSFW)[^]
The latest nation. Procrastination.
:laugh: I have a mug on my desk (a present from my daughter for Father's Day a couple years ago) with the caption "Professional smartass" on the side.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
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 111111Harvey Saayman wrote:
be sure to get an LCD that says "Full HD" instead of "HD ready"
I agree because I watch a lot of HD programming/Blue Ray disks/HD gaming but... ... if you watch non HD broadcast quality or standard DVDs (and don't own a XBox 360 or PS3) then you can get poorer visual performance on Full HD as it has to fill more missing pixels to fill the screen. For many people who rarely/never watch HD broadcast/recorded material etc, "HD ready" can be a better choice.
Dave
Generic BackgroundWorker - My latest article!
BTW, in software, hope and pray is not a viable strategy. (Luc Pattyn)
Why are you using VB6? Do you hate yourself? (Christian Graus) -
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
That article cracked me up. I thought it would be a polemic on the consumer culture; instead it was interior designers whining (probably the same people who fill rooms with gauche furniture without regard to use.)
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That article cracked me up. I thought it would be a polemic on the consumer culture; instead it was interior designers whining (probably the same people who fill rooms with gauche furniture without regard to use.)
And at that interior designers have much worse things to be pitching fits over. My sister's friend does it for people with stupidly much money (her record is $100k for a stove) who'll blow $10k on a Lucite bed frame. For those of you not in the know, Lucite is a different band name for the same thing as Plexiglass; what rednecks use to fix broken windows. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
The latest nation. Procrastination.
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'LED' is LCD with LED backlighting instead of a cold cathode fluourescent lighting. It's still a transmissive display and whilst LED backlit LCDs are very good if you want GOOD colour plasma still wins.
Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.
There are also two kinds of LED backlighting, one with channel groves and the LEDS on the edges and the other with a 2D array behind the LCD elements - there is a good explaination of the differences here (see #4)[^]
Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am