I've owned my Sony Pearl (VPL-VW50) for about 2 years now. Starting about 6 months ago, any input via HDMI would flicker a bit for about 15 seconds after the projector was turned on, but the flickering would then stop and the image would synch up.

(Note: the term "flickering" is a bit of an oversimplification. During these "flickers," the picture gets dimmer, it seems to split apart into odd/even lines, shifts to the left, etc.)

For the last two months or so, the effect has been much worse and sometimes lasts for several minutes before the image straightens out. So far it hasn't really interefered with my use of the projector, but if these spells continue to increase in duration, it could become a problem.

This happens on both HDMI inputs, using different cables.

Is this a known problem with the Pearl? Any speculation on what's causing it or whether it's likely to continue getting worse?

Speculation: might be other end of chain - what is on the sending side? Receiver? switcher? Tried short cable directly to disk player? Tried component input to Pearl?

Speculation: might be other end of chain - what is on the sending side? Receiver? switcher? Tried short cable directly to disk player? Tried component input to Pearl?

This happens with multiple source components, all feeding directly to the Pearl via HDMI. One input is the PS3. The other is my DishNet DVR.

Component input works fine.

Sorry for the OT...

Not to say these are in ANY way related, but the HDMI input on my 3yr old Sony KD-34XS955 died about 3 months ago. I've still been trying to track down a replacement board as this tube is nowhere near outdated. Plus, the HDMI 1.1 was still 8bit.

Sounds slightly like a problem that I posted about a few months back. My Pearl would display the green lens focus grid randomly every 10 seconds or so after being powered on. At first, it would do it 2 or 3 times, lasting maybe 30 seconds, then it got worse, lasting several minutes, before stabilizing and then would never happen again during that viewing session. It happens on both HDMI inputs, and with any source (DVR, PS3, HD-DVD), but not via component HD. I finally figured out how to disable the focus grid from the menu, so now I just get a blue box in the middle of the screen when it happens, and I can live with it.

I've owned my Sony Pearl (VPL-VW50) for about 2 years now. Starting about 6 months ago, any input via HDMI would flicker a bit for about 15 seconds after the projector was turned on, but the flickering would then stop and the image would synch up.

(Note: the term "flickering" is a bit of an oversimplification. During these "flickers," the picture gets dimmer, it seems to split apart into odd/even lines, shifts to the left, etc.)

For the last two months or so, the effect has been much worse and sometimes lasts for several minutes before the image straightens out. So far it hasn't really interefered with my use of the projector, but if these spells continue to increase in duration, it could become a problem.

This happens on both HDMI inputs, using different cables.

Is this a known problem with the Pearl? Any speculation on what's causing it or whether it's likely to continue getting worse?
Those are the identical symptoms I had with my VPL-VW50 about 7-8 months ago which was about a year and a half after I had purchased it brand new. It would only do it when you first turned it on and in my case it seemed to be more likely to do it from a "cold start up". My symptoms were:

Image would look like the color was messed up, image would flip, image would shift etc. and this would all happen very quickly. It would usually take anywhere from 15 seconds to around a minute or so to stabilize and then it would be fine until I turned it on another day. It would only happen upon power up in my scenario and once it stabilized it would be fine until I powered it up another day.

I sent it into Sony since it was under warranty and they did duplicate the problem. It was determined to be a faulty "resistor chip" according to their notes on the repair order. Once I got the projector back it hasn't done that flickering since. It's definately not the flickering I would associate with handshake issues.

Those are the identical symptoms I had with my VPL-VW50 about 7-8 months ago which was about a year and a half after I had purchased it brand new. It would only do it when you first turned it on and in my case it seemed to be more likely to do it from a "cold start up". My symptoms were:

Image would look like the color was messed up, image would flip, image would shift etc. and this would all happen very quickly. It would usually take anywhere from 15 seconds to around a minute or so to stabilize and then it would be fine until I turned it on another day. It would only happen upon power up in my scenario and once it stabilized it would be fine until I powered it up another day.

I sent it into Sony since it was under warranty and they did duplicate the problem. It was determined to be a faulty "resistor chip" according to their notes on the repair order. Once I got the projector back it hasn't done that flickering since. It's definately not the flickering I would associate with handshake issues.


Thanks for the info. Yes, this sounds exactly like what my projector is doing.

You mentioned that your pj was under warranty after you'd owned it for a year and a half... Do you know how long the manuf. warranty is on this thing?

I'm guessing I'm out now. I probably should have sent it in several months ago.

Thanks for the info. Yes, this sounds exactly like what my projector is doing.

You mentioned that your pj was under warranty after you'd owned it for a year and a half... Do you know how long the manuf. warranty is on this thing?

I'm guessing I'm out now. I probably should have sent it in several months ago.
These come with a 2 year warranty. I'll try to find out from my dealer if Sony will tell them what that repair charge is if they do it out of warranty. If I were you I'd still try to get them to fix it under warranty as they might do it.

These come with a 2 year warranty. I'll try to find out from my dealer if Sony will tell them what that repair charge is if they do it out of warranty. If I were you I'd still try to get them to fix it under warranty as they might do it.

I didn't realize these projectors had a 2 year warranty. I had always assumed I was out of luck.

I checked Sony's Support site http://eservice.sony.com/webrma/web/index.do and found a local place that will do a repair. But I'm attached to my VW50, so giving it up for even a week would be distressing for me. Plus, if my problem gets worse, that would be an excuse for me to upgrade to the newer VW70 model. And there is always a chance that my projector will come back with new problems.

I didn't realize these projectors had a 2 year warranty. I had always assumed I was out of luck.

I checked Sony's Support site http://eservice.sony.com/webrma/web/index.do and found a local place that will do a repair. But I'm attached to my VW50, so giving it up for even a week would be distressing for me. And there is always a chance that my projector will come back with new problems.
I wanted to follow-up to my post to say that I had a great experience with the local authorized repair shop TrusoTech in Rolling Meadows, given to me by the link above. I called up the number, and after a couple exchanges by email, he guaranteed that he could fix my problem within 2 days. Sure enough, he told me that he had to swap out the main board, and even programmed it with the settings from my previous board. Now my projector has no problem during power-up.