Projector Repairs

[JonFo]

Been without video in my home theater for a couple of weeks.
My 12 year-old CRT projector, a Sony G70, has been doing an awesome job up until it wouldn’t start ten days ago, and gave an error code indicating one of the boards had gone bad.

So a few emails later I located a projector specialist tech that had one of these boards with really low hours at a super reasonable price ($175).
I received this part yesterday and after five minutes, had the old part replaced.

Thankfully, the unit powered right up and after an hour of stabilization, I had a near-perfect image. A few registration tweaks later, I was enjoying glorious high-def video.

I have to say, these old PJ’s cost a ton when new ($18K), weigh a lot (250lbs) and are built like tanks, but they sure outlast the digitals while still delivering amazing video (and perfect blacks). After 8,000hrs, this is the first issue I’ve had with the unit, and easily fixed.

I hope it lasts for a another year so, at least until the LED or laser illuminated digitals are priced reasonably.

Here’s a pic of the PJ opened up and the new DC Board being slipped in (it’s barely inserted):

 

[Audioseduction]

Very cool Jon. It will be at least 5 years before I can build my dedicated HT but at least I have a 12'x25' dedicated separate building on my property to do so. I may then get the led projector or whatever technology is best for performance and reliability at that time.

 

[zaphod]

yep, i'm a dyed in the wool CRT fan as well. when we moved last june, i boxed it all up and it might be next june until i get the new room built. it's a hard haul

for my money, Curt Palme is *the* man for doing CRT repairs. i don't know if you sent your boards there, but based on the reasonable price i suspect it was

i've got an LC NEC XG projector and one of the things that i'm toying with is getting a second and either blending or stacking them. with the room just in the construction phase now is the time to decide....

 

[JonFo]

yep, i'm a dyed in the wool CRT fan as well. when we moved last june, i boxed it all up and it might be next june until i get the new room built. it's a hard haul

for my money, Curt Palme is *the* man for doing CRT repairs. i don't know if you sent your boards there, but based on the reasonable price i suspect it was

i've got an LC NEC XG projector and one of the things that i'm toying with is getting a second and either blending or stacking them. with the room just in the construction phase now is the time to decide....

Hey Zaph, that's dedication to box and haul the CRT PJ to a new location.

I had some visitors over today, and they were blown away by the video (never mind the audio). So these old beasts still have it.

The XG is a nice PJ, do you have an HDMI input for it?

I've used various Moome cards, and have the current gamma-corrected version that works perfectly.

Stacking is pretty cool, but the effort of that seems a bit high. I might choose a JVC 950 instead just for simplicity.

 

[zaphod]

Hey Zaph, that's dedication to box and haul the CRT PJ to a new location.

I had some visitors over today, and they were blown away by the video (never mind the audio). So these old beasts still have it.

Stacking is pretty cool, but the effort of that seems a bit high. I might choose a JVC 950 instead just for simplicity.

well, i had just upgraded from an XG to the XGLC a few months before the move so it was coming with me but it is one heavy beast, about 150lbs so the new place is getting a hoist installed, even just pulleys would be a good thing.


i don't think i'll even look at non-CRT until the bang for the buck gets a lot better. you can get XGLC for $2800 and the lenses will last years and years longer than a bulb. i just can't justify $500 every year or so for a picture that's not as good as the depth and quality that a CRT delivers. but that's just my take on it, everyone's mileage will differ.

i'm running RGBHV into my projector from an extron scaler that passes through the output of an HDfury driven from my blu-ray. the extron also gets fed from the laserdisc player and i'll be sticking the component from any HD device that i get into the last available input on the extron.

the extron has two synced RGB outputs, so i'm thinking stacking or blending. the depth and black levels with stacking is fabulous - but i don't want to lose sharpness.

blending is at least $8000 for a unit from TVone. i don't know if i can justify that even if it will save the wear on the tubes. i can buy two additional sets of tubes for that price

the new room will definately have HDMI to the projector (and a conduit for downstream technology) as i am waching less and less non HDMI source. That means the extron will go away and the laserdiscs as the number of movies only available on LD gets smaller and smaller. I've relegated the VCR to a spare TV for the same reason. i think there is now only 2 tapes that i have with no other format than VHS for them.