If you are considering purchasing a Laservue now that they are back in production, you may want to run this test first. Assuming the most expensive TV is being exhibited in an isolated room in the store; close the door and turn off the lights.

Turn off the DVD or DirecTV device and view the LaserVue without a signal source.

The screen will glow with light from the engine below.

Now decide if you can live with it, because that light is always there and it will interfere with dark scenes, especially dark scenes at the bottom center of the screen.

Why is this happening?
There is plastic lens cap that encloses the lens at the bottom of the television. The lens aims the picture at a small rectangular mirror (mirror #1) which then reflects the image on to the crazy shaped mirror (mirror #2) which then reflects the image on to the big screen.

The lens cap is designed to prevent excess light from escaping from the lens and filling the interior of the cabinet.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

There is a fine line between the image edge and excess light which slips past mirror #1 and hits the front wall of the cabinet. The cap opening is about 1/16" to 3/32" to big on all sides. Furthermore some of the hardware inside the cabinet has not been blacked out. Shiny metal reflects the light adding to the ambient light inside the cabinet.

The problem can be fixed to some extent.
Using black electrical tape, I successfully stopped light from hitting the front of the cabinet. Thus the only ambient light being generated was from the lens itself and mirror #2. The picture quality greatly improved so much so that the ambient light was not distracting.
The downside is that the tape has to be so carefully located so as to not create a dark area on the screen or effect the picture in other unpleasant ways. I have not as yet been able to locate the tape appropriately or come up with a better solution for shrinking down the size of the opening. As you can see in the photo, the cap has curved surfaces. I can only see molding my own cap from scratch as a solution.

The included pictures below should fully illustrate what I have explained above. I find it very unfortunate that Mitsubishi has chosen to accept the results of a poorly designed $.50 cent plastic cap which clearly degrades an otherwise stellar picture.

http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/ss73/bigscreenguy/DRAWING.jpg

http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/ss73/bigscreenguy/cap1.jpg

http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/ss73/bigscreenguy/hardware1.jpg

http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/ss73/bigscreenguy/hardware2.jpg

Here is a question... If we all know that Mitsubishi has made some seriously defective gear in the past without telling the public then why the hell even buy Mitsubishi? There is something called risk assessment in business. Remember the Ford Pinto which was manufactured with an exploding gas tank? Ford decided that it was cheaper to pay for the funerals of their customers than to recall all of the vehicles and fix the problem for 15 bucks. They hoped that nobody would complain. I know life and death has nothing to do with this set however, it is important to learn from the past as well as the present. There might be a chance that you may purchase a defective TV and have to go through ********. Why even take that chance? Buy a technology that is popular and current. This laser thing is just another gimmick Mitsubishi will try before they are bankrupt from making crappy equipment.

Its not just Mitsubishi its other vendors as well with bad optical blocks/light engines, light tunnels, lamps, geometry, flimsy cabinets, floppy screens, screen smudges, flashlights, clouds, and so on and so on. As a nation we've become so obsessed with cheapness rather than quality that we're allowing manufacturers to provide us with low-cost, poor quality crap in just about every aspect of consumer goods from electronics and software to food and clothing and toys and so on.

[LaserVueTruth] How did you obtain the pictures?... Obviously the TV was not on correct? Do you own the LaserVue in question? Wow!!! Great pictures. Now, I take it that the beveled edge on the the filter cap is where you add the "black electrical" tape to... correct? How about foam tape. It's firm and maybe you can layer it. (I believe it comes in 1/16 and 1/32") I would look into getting that filter cap molded. Has this been brought to the attention of the engineers at Mitzi.

The Laservue is on. How else could I have taken pictures of the lens with light shining through it and show how the light hits the inside of the cabinet and the screen. The tape was added to all 4 sides of the cap. Mits is completely aware of the problem and could care less.

Well if they "could care less", let's hope so, maybe they will fix it. :)

...This laser thing is just another gimmick Mitsubishi will try before they are bankrupt from making crappy equipment.

Uh, did you know that Mitsubishi has been one of the world's largest corporate entities for many decades, are the prime contractor on the Japanese space program, build and run nuclear reactors, and are one of the world's largest manufacturers of machine tools and industrial control systems? I doubt that their future depends very heavily on Laservu TV. I also doubt that their overall product line could have many defects. Their industrial customers are rather demanding.

LaserVueTruth,
What is the serial number of your set? The one I purchased last week has the same glow issue (which I didn't notice until we watched a movie at night), so I'm wondering if I got a 1st generation set rather than a revamped model (if one indeed exists). I called Ken Crane's today and they'd never heard of this problem.