I just had my first projector bulb actually 'blow' or 'pop' in my Hitachi SX5600.

I wasn't too concerned as I had a new backup bulb in stock.

After changing out the bulb (the old one had a little chunk of glass blown out of the side, but there was no evident internal damage to the projector), resetting the GFCI outlet that also popped when the bulb blew (evidence that the bulb blowing caused a power surge), and then starting things back up I immediately saw I had a problem.

Upon startup, I had two bright green bars going up the edges of the screen that were about 3" wide, the color balance was way off, and the screen was very dim for a new bulb. I reset to default factory settings which usually look great with a new bulb, but this only dimmed things further. The color is heavy on the purple and orange side of things, no matter how I try to adjust my settings.

After about 1/2 hour, the green bars began to break up into little horizontal lines and finally disappeared (they are still there each time I start up the projector in about a 1/2" band and after about 10 minutes they go away). A white blank screen is purple and a red blank screen is orange. It looks like a really old tube TV that is on its last leg and you can no longer adjust the color and cranking up the brightness no longer does anything. Skintones look very orange and white areas/text is purply, and actual reds cannot achieve a pure red.

At first I thought I had the component cables plugged in wrong, but I double checked them.


Has anyone experienced this after a bulb 'pop'? Any suggestions? Any fixes? Please help! :(


Thanks,
Jason