What are you ax200 owners seeing around the 1500 to 2000 hour range in terms of brightness drop off?

I literally ran my first z2 bulb 10,000 hours and my second one is already at 5,000 hours since 08/2007

I am planning on buying an ax200 but upon review of my massive amount of hours maybe I should be looking a different direction if I will be needing to buy a new bulb every 10 to 12 months.

I'm still on the original bulb at 2600hrs or so. Still happy with the output at 17' throw, 140" screen. I have a spare bulb I bought at 1800 hours for about $240 or so, still in the box waiting to be used.

Although I do not have any panel problems, with the amount of use you are going to have, it may be advisable to look for inorganic panel PJ's to reduce having any panel issues.

The Sanyo Z2 was organic or inorganic? The yellowing and loss of blue LCD at around 5k hours really turns me off. Low lamp mode 100% of the time too.

The ax200u, does it have inorganic or organic?

Anyone on avs boasting 5k hours yet on the ax200u?

After much debate I just can't wrap my head around the idea of going to plasma or lcd. The reduction in size is just so much to overcome. However, with blue lcds going out all the time...

Is DLP a solution for the long amount of hours? I am very close to ax200u purchase but these nagging issues peak my curiosity.

I have around 6K on the AX100(pretty much the same PJ AFAIK), and the panels seem to have degraded a fair amount to me, enough that I am going to use my Extended warranty to try and have them repair it.

That would be 18 months at my current usage. Please let us know how the warranty goes. I am curious if it is only a polarizer that is replaced.

On the parts list for it http://www.pstc.panasonic.com/Epartr/PartsListChoice.asp?validate=1 the polarizers are $100 EACH and the LCD matrix is $280.

So organic LCD can not go past 6k. PERIOD. My z2, your panny, everyone else that touches 6k.

What other PJ's are comparable to the lumens of the ax200u but have inorganic panels or a known lifetime of good color over 6k hours?

There is a huge thread in this forum about a guy debating the jump back to LCD. The

Thats about right for me as well, I've had the AX100 for 19 months...
The center of the screen is definitely yellowish these days.

I have to correct myself, I said earlier a statement about organic LCD and I have to admit I don't know WTF I am talking about. While doing further research the point was brought up that polarizers and not lcd may be part of the issue some of the haze users are seeing.

So many threads about LCD failure in PJ. I just love the huge size and am apparently going to have to pay for it.

When Polarizers become user changeable like a lamp, then the difference will matter, until then I could care less exactly which item it is that is failing, all I know is it IS failing!!

Good point.

What do you plan for replacement muzz?