quick question. i have a year old sony kds60a3000 rp tv.

i know that adjusting the iris doesn't affect bulb life, it just changes how much light is let through. but what about other settings.

particularly brightness and picture? do those lower the bulb life if you turn them up more? im particularly wondering about brightness

bump. anyone?

Yes if you go at a higher brightness setting you can blow the bulb quicker. As long as you aren't on out of the box torch mode you should get good bulb life.

I have a Samsung DLP that I changed the bulb on after 7500 hours. It didn't blow but the lighting was off.

I just try to allow the bulb to completely cool after turning off the TV before turning it back on. I have heard that is very bad. I have left on my TV to go to the store if I was only going to be gone a half hour or so.

Yes if you go at a higher brightness setting you can blow the bulb quicker

Hmmm ... my understanding of these bulbs is that they are either ON or OFF; the output of brightness from the bulb to the final picture is controlled not by throttling the power to the bulb itself, but rather by internal hardware/software changes.

A way to check this is to look at the light coming out from the back of the set and adjust the brightness of the picture; you should not see any change to the lamp intensity in either direction, indicating the lamp itself is simply on/off and settings should not affect bulb life.

Just what I had read about it ... ;)

Hmmm ... my understanding of these bulbs is that they are either ON or OFF; the output of brightness from the bulb to the final picture is controlled not by throttling the power to the bulb itself, but rather by internal hardware/software changes.

A way to check this is to look at the light coming out from the back of the set and adjust the brightness of the picture; you should not see any change to the lamp intensity in either direction, indicating the lamp itself is simply on/off and settings should not affect bulb life.

Just what I had read about it ... ;)

That makes sense. I've also noticed that light leaking out the back doesn't seem to change intensity when you alter the brightness control, certainly no where near what you see onscreen. Also, if the bulb did dim when the brightness is turned down you'd expect the display's overall color temperature to also shift to the reds.

Yes if you go at a higher brightness setting you can blow the bulb quicker. As long as you aren't on out of the box torch mode you should get good bulb life.

I have a Samsung DLP that I changed the bulb on after 7500 hours. It didn't blow but the lighting was off.

I just try to allow the bulb to completely cool after turning off the TV before turning it back on. I have heard that is very bad. I have left on my TV to go to the store if I was only going to be gone a half hour or so.



This is completely incorrect unless the set has multiple lamp modes, usually labelled high and low power or something of the sort. Brightness, contrast, and picture controls are almost always adjusting the video parameters and NOT the lamp output itself.

As the lamp ages, it will lose some output, and sometimes you will notice a severe drop in output just before failure.

hmm lots of different questions. My tv DOES have a power saver option. i KNOW that does extend the bulb life but im not sure about picture/brightness... some of you are saying yes some no... more no than yes. Does anyone know for SURE?

There should be no debate about this issue. Anyone who understands how the technology works understands that there is a clear difference between lamp power options (power save modes) and video adjustments like brightness and contrast. Brightness and contrast affect picture parameters by controlling the light that is coming off of the panel, not by afffecting the lamp power. Lamp power is contstant for a given power mode. The bightness and contrast controls have no effect whatsoever on the lamp power nor its life, period.

lcaillo is absolutely right; these bulbs are single-stage, on-or-off. I think the whole brightness vs. lamp life argument is, as he indicated, put to rest by simply understanding the technology behind the bulbs.

In many ways, it would/does make sense to folks that if the picture is less bright, then the lamp is putting out less power. As stated, simply put, that's just not how it works in these sets.

alrighty then so sounds like i can fudge with it as much as i want without worrying about bulb life =) thank you