DLP projector

Yes and no, DLP requires much shorter arc lamps than LCD et al, it's fundamental to the design. As the arc gets shorter the other complicating factors get harder to handle so the cost goes up. If you're using a small, cheap DLP, the sort you might buy in the high street, then the power is relatively low which makes things significantly easier, the complexity rises exponentially with power. Compare your friend's projector power consumption with yours, most of the power goes into the lamp and very little comes out the lens, then think what's got to happen to keep that internals of the lamp cool. With cheaper projectors you're expectations are lower and tolerance to imperfections higher. You probably feel pleased to have saved a few (lots of) £s even if the image isn't quite as good. Indeed you may not even notice. If you've paid £10k then presumably you want a big, bright image and you care about the image quality. Things like roll-off where the image gets darker towards the edges because the lamp isn't aligned quite correctly and loss of brightness are probably not acceptable after a relamp, certainly not if you buy an OEM part.

I guess it's a bit like tyres on a car. I don't buy expensive cars, when it comes to replacing tyres I tend to buy cheap as I'm not looking to get the last little bit of performance and I can tolerate quite a lack of refinement if I save cash. You might buy an expensive performance sports car in which case you'd probably be quite prepared to pay for expensive tyres in order to keep the benefits which go with them. Putting cheap tyres on means it doesn't perform as well so why spend the money on it in the first place?

Reply to
Calvin Sambrook
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Heh heh - strangely I have Colway remoulds on my old Rover, and they out perform the previous 'brand' tyres in every way. They grip better wet or dry, are quieter, and more comfortable. Too soon to say how long they'll last. But long standing prejudice against re-manufactured tyres means they sadly have stopped trading.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I don't see why you think the original manufacturers parts are going to be any better than an "OEM" part. The original manufacturer is probably not a lamp manufacturer and probably buys the same "OEM" lamps in the first place.

I guess that says it all.. save cash when its important and potentially life saving but pay OTT when its to watch a film.

Vanity in most cases.

Reply to
dennis

Sorry, some mix-up over the term OEM. I think it means Original Equipement Manufacturer, ie. the guys who made the projector. They will of course have bought the actual bulb from a lamp manufacturer but they will have aligned it in the housing for you. You may well be able to re-create an identical thing by buying the *correct* bulb and doing the alignment yourself, indeed some manufacturers tell you how to align bulbs but bulb replacement is not easy and can be really dangerous with some bare bulbs.

The discussion had touched on the idea of fitting some other bulb, even a small difference is likely to have a huge effect which is the point I was trying to make.

That's a bit unfair! I'm not saying fit unsafe tyres to a car, just "normal", "nothing special". I accept they may not perform as well at the absolute extreemes of use but then I'm not racing. I'm also not paying OTT to watch a film, certainly far less than average as I have a hand-me-down CRT for a telly (which I don't watch much at all anyway). I accept however that some people value such things and are prepared to pay for them, be it performance cars or performance projectors.

Reply to
Calvin Sambrook

To make it simple for the dealer's errand-boy to change the lamp, while the dealer is busy upselling to 24-ct gold-plated mains plugs.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

On the owner's group for my car a fairly common term is "TDF", applied to the tyres often fitted to cars imported from Japan.

It stands for "Taiwanese Ditch Finder".

Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Calvin Sambrook" saying something like:

The used price of lamp-expired projectors is so cheap now as to make some experimentation with positioning very worthwhile. Doesn't take a genius to measure, with a fair degree of accuracy, where the arc is in the reflector housing and molish a replacement to suit.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

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